Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The woods are silent and unyielding as I walk under the bare limbs of a maple tree, the ground is hard and dry indicating winter will be harsh this year. Everything has already either died or gone into hibernation for the looks of it, but in the back of my head I can’t shake the nagging notion that all these new would-be-hunters flooding my woods have had some hand in driving away game earlier than usual.

It started fifteen months ago, the year I turned seventeen, when President Snow was assassinated on live television in front of all of Panem.

The corpse of a Capitol Avox was found in a dumpster, under a pile of garbage, showing gruesome signs of abuse. It was never determined who killed her, mainly because it was never investigated, avoxes rate below slaves in the Capitol. It was the same year of the Quarter Quell, it was a special edition of the annual Hunger Games, with a sadistic twist: the Tributes were all twelve year olds, to show the long dead rebels of the Dark Days, that not even our young are safe from the Capitol’s might.

The sensation of relief I felt about my thirteen year old sister and myself being safe for another year, only lasted until Reaping Day. Seeing only tiny children corralled in the twelve year old pens like cattle to be slaughter, filled me with unbearable guilt. Whoever’s name was plucked out of the crystal ball, was as good as dead, and it they hadn’t even started to live, as bad as life in our district was.

The assassination happened during mandatory viewing, of the Victor Crowning Ceremony. Against all odds, the last child standing was a tiny, starved girl from District Eleven, whose sole saving skill, was she could climb trees like a squirrel. While her fellow tributes were pitted against horrendous nightmare inducing mutts, the inclement elements, and each other, the girl from Eleven watched from above how every kid in the Games died, staying alive by sheer power will and the few nuts she could gather from the trees.

Corioulanus Snow was stabbed to death on the stage, in front of the whole country, by a disgruntled Capitolite who had bought his way into the standing-only-room the Ceremony was held in, through blackmail, coercion and indecent amounts of money. From his vantage place, the man had no problem bypassing the President’s detail, leaping on stage and offing the embodiment of all that was wrong with Panem. Needless to say, the culprit was killed on the spot by Peacekeepers, but the damage was already done. Given the appalling nature of the Quarter Quell, tensions were already high in the districts, once everyone saw what had happened, riots broke out everywhere.

The Peacekeeper force wasn’t ready for such a massive uprising; the whole country collapsed, and the Districts were taken by the denizens in a matter of hours. The death toll was high in all sides, but only District Two remained loyal to the Capitol by morning.

As it turns out, that murdered Avox, discarded as if she was a meaningless carcass, was still someone’s daughter, someone’s sister, someone’s niece, someone’s friend. Even if President Snow had never set eyes on the girl, her father, and the rest of the people who loved her, held him responsible for what was done to her and made him pay.

Things in District Twelve never got out of hand, our people didn’t really engaged in any rioting, and the Peacekeepers simply stood back with crossed arms, watching the rest of Panem come to pieces. They didn’t even intervene when a few affronted women cornered Cray, the Head Peacekeeper, and roughed him up a bit in retaliation for his abuse of power and position, as soon as the women left -not even hurrying or trying to hide their identities- a few of the men took him to the town’s physician. No punishment was given to the women, even with Cray’s fractured ribs and tibia.

The tricky part came when the higher ups in the Capitol scrambled to take Panem back under control; out of the ashes, District Thirteen rushed out of hiding, and their president, a severe looking woman named Alma Coin, tried to establish themselves in the Presidential Mansion as new leaders. The Districts fought them tooth and nail too, since it felt almost like an invasion from a foreign country was trying to take over our new, bitterly won freedom. Very little people trusted the long-thought-lost Thirteen and their underground citizens, who left the rest of the country stranded, to starve and fight for their lives on their own.

It tooks months of lengthy negotiations to come to an agreement, but finally after much persuasion from more knowledgeable people, the initially distrusted district, was allowed to fold back into the mix. Many of the Hunger Games Victors stated their allegiance with the underground network of rebels who lead the uprisings in the districts; the rebels in turn, spoke on behalf of Thirteen, explaining how they’ve had been helping the rebellion all along behind the scenes, supplying medicine, weapons and in some cases useful intel. The newcomers are still not fully trusted, you can’t erase 75 years of suffering and abandonment so easily, especially after overthrowing a horrible regime that killed your children.

It’s been a whole year since the Treaty of the Free Districts of Panem was signed, and nothing has really changed.

District Twelve still produces coal, although it’s not compulsory for every single man and woman of the district to work in the mines, and working conditions have improved: hours underground have shortened, men get an extra day off, and safety measures have increased. We still are the poorest District in Panem. Our people is still starving to death, but since the revolt, the fence was taken down and more people venture into the woods for sustenance.

The divide between merchants and Seam folk is still patent, but there’s no real animosity between the two, some people have even started to employ youngsters from the Seam as cleaning crews or errand boys. The only change that has made any impact in our lives, was the abolition of the Hunger Games. Nobody misses those, specially after the last ones were so awful to watch. The Peacekeeper force was disbanded once District Two was taken from the Capitol, and the rebel militia became a real army, lead by District rebels. Anyone over the age of eighteen can join, regardless of district of origin.

Gale itched to join as soon as open enlistments were announced, but he didn’t until it was clear there was nothing holding him back here, except for his family, and the benefits he perceives as a military man are greater than that of a miner, so he’s now gone to District Two, which is highly militarized because of the capitol supporting pockets that pop up every now and then.

When my eighteenth birthday arrived, and I was given the choice to work in the mines or opt for a different job as it became available, I immediately jumped at latter. Just thinking about working in the mines makes me sick to the stomach. I can barely breathe imagining how my father must have felt, while the earth collapsed on top of him, my stomach twists painfully to the point where bile rises to my throat, burning my guts, the panic becomes so overwhelming, all I can do is sit in a tight ball hyperventilating until someone reminds me I’m not still aboveground.

I would never go down in the mines, not now when there’s a chance I could find work elsewhere, but nothing has come up yet, and I’m still forced to hunt to keep my family fed. Nothing much has changed for me, I just hope things change for the best by the time my sister, Primrose, is of age. She could be so much more than anything this place offers, and I will do whatever is in my power to help her get as far as she can.

With that thought in mind, I decide to look around for roots and seasonal plants I can forage, since it’s obvious hunting today is not going to happen. I get rewarded with some nice edible roots and the last few nuts that have not been scavenged by woodland critters yet.

I keep my bow armed in my hand just in case, but I’m feeling discouraged by how little the woods have yielded today, the whole week really. Food has been scarce lately, only enough to cover two meals a day for Prim, while Mother and I make due with leftover scraps. I try to keep a light tread as I walk over the blanket of dry leaves covering the earth just in case there’s any game around, by I can’t help dragging my feet with the heavy burden of hunger and worry.

My ears perk up and instinctively hold my breath when I hear chattering above me. Squirrels. Two of them actually. I can’t believe my luck, but I’m a hunter, I contain all the excitement and relief I feel at the sight of my prey, with great care I take aim, shoot, YES! Right in the eye! The second squirrel scurries away before I can notch another arrow, but I still got me a nice, fluffy price for my troubles.

Since Gale left after our falling out, I took over the responsibility to teach his brother Rory to hunt, whatever our disagreements, Gale and I had a deal to look after each other’s family if one of us was unable to do so for any reason, I decided to keep my word despite everything; it’s a matter of pride, yes, but also I can’t just turn my back on Hazelle and the children. Is not their fault Gale is an ass, even though he still sends all the coin he can spare to his family, there are other needs to be covered in their house, plus I needed a new hunting partner. Good hunting partners are hard to come by, and I figure grooming Rory myself would be the best course of action, the problem is, the boy is a terrible shot and still too soft in the arms.

Like his big brother, Rory has a very keen eye for animal trails though, so I taught him everything I learned from Gale about snares, and left him the snare line to tend, but I haven’t seen Hazelle in a while and I miss her- I miss Gale too, really, but I can’t help not wanting the same things he does- I figure Rory will be okay not coming to check on his side of the woods for a day, and as lazy as he can get, I know he won’t mind, so I make a beeline for the snares, and feel overjoyed when I spot two fat rabbits, waiting to be bagged.

I make my way back into the district in a much better mood. I make my first stop at the Hawthornes and find that little Posy is sick with the flu. Hazelle rushes me out of the house, claiming she would die of mortification if I get the flu too, and my poor mother has to tend to me, and work for the both of us while I recover. It’s futile trying to fight her, so I hug her tightly, giving her her share of today’s spoils, and leave for town to trade my squirrel for some bread, and my roots for some yarn, I’ll keep the other rabbit for myself this time.

A frigid wind picks up halfway to town, I wrap my arms tightly around my waist, regretting not have been wearing an extra layer of clothing under my father’s old hunting jacket. Winter has already started and the days are only growing colder, but wearing extra clothes means spending extra soap and burning extra wood from our fast dwindling pile, things I rather save for as long as I can. I start making calculations in my head of the cost of an extra ounce of lye. I wonder what can I offer the grocer in exchange for some starch?. How much wire will the owner of the hardware store would give me for some milk from Prim’s goat, Lady? I might have to reinforce the snare line and it won’t be a bad idea to get some rope or something for a clothes line inside the house, if we have to burn extra wood, then we might as well use all the heat wisely, drying our clothes.

I’m lost planning out my trades, my eyes not really watching my surroundings. I step onto the cobblestones and hardly notice the uneven ground, until I get knock down on my bottom, and sharp, hot pain shoots through my palm, up my arm causing my eyes to slam shut. If it wasn’t because all the wind got knocked out of my lungs, I’d be crying out in anger and pain.

“Oh crap! I… I’m so sorry, I didn’t see…”

Silence comes from my attacker. Then an almost panicked gasp. My head is still reeling from the all the pain and the desire to curse whoever tackled me to the ground so mercilessly and without reason, I can’t completely register the depth of the voice, nor the trembling in his big, warm hands as I’m being lifted off the ground by the biceps, all I feel is the warmth and the size of the hands. Whoever this is, must be a giant.

“Are you okay? Please tell me I didn’t hurt you. I couldn’t live with myself if I’ve hurt you,” he sounds so scared and regretful.

I finally open my eyes, chancing a look at the careless idiot who body slammed me.

I regret it immediately.

I wish my eyes had stayed closed. In my embarrassment, I even wish I had loss consciousness. My breath hitches when the blue, worried eyes of Peeta Mellark, glazed over with unshed tears, meet mine. I’m eleven years old all over again, wet and frozen to the core, half dead on the mud, numb to the pain in my empty stomach, and his eyes, wide as saucers, stare at me under his darned apple tree just like he does now.

Nothing has changed. I haven’t thank him from the bread that saved my family’s lives, the difference is we are not eleven anymore, and I don’t need his foolish charitable gesture to sustain my family.

“Uh…” No words come out of my mouth, although I can feel it moving.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the first snowflake of the season fall lazily in a zigzagging pattern, slow and light. I turn my face to look at the white little flurry, and smile at the stupidity of it. So pristine and pure. It isn’t not gonna last long that way. What a cruel joke to release a snowflake in the drabness that is District Twelve. No sooner it touches the ground it will turn to the most hideous gray slush, losing all its beauty.

Hi warm voice breaks me from my thoughts, “Can you stand on your own? Can you walk? Does anything hurt?” Despite the worrisome tone, his voice is soft, deep and rich, like a wool blanket that was left near the hearth on a winter day.

I look up, and get lost in the blue pools that rove over my face nervously, ‘I don’t think I ever seen eyes so blue before, not even Prim’s are so deep’.

His face contorts in confusion I think.

“What did you just say?” He asks quietly, leaning closer to me.

I wonder if I spoke my thought aloud, I can’t seem to think straight for some reason. I feel off kilter, to tell the truth.

Snow starts to flutter freely all over the place; if it starts to pick up speed, there’s a good chance it will stick before we know it. Bye-bye hunting. This snow will be a big, heavy wrench in my plans.
My hand shoots up to scrub my eye, in hopes to clear the worry away before it has a chance to take root, but he gasps again forcing me to bring my eyes back to him.

He screeches shakily, “Your hand! You… you’re bleeding!”

Stupidly, I look down. My hand it’s numb now so it can’t be hurt enough to be bleeding. I hate seeing people get hurt, let alone bleeding. There’s a very deep gash on the fleshy part of the heel of my hand that connects to my thumb, and there’s so much red covering my palm and fingers.
I’m woozy on my feet, my sight begins to blur.

“Oh…” I whisper in a very raspy voice, “Well, that’s no good, is it? Can’t shoot with a busted thumb,”

“KATNISS!”

And just like that, everything is plunged into darkness.

Chapter Text

I’m suspended in time, floating on a fluffy cloud of nothingness surrounded by soft lights and colorful shadows that come in and out of focus around me. Nothing makes sense, but that’s alright, I’m warm and cozy in a cocoon of blankets. It must be a sick day since I haven’t been called out of bed yet, but as my stiff fingers move an inch in the dark to grasp my covers, my swimming mind emerges from slumber into consciousness.

Voices drifts through my sleep muddled brain. It takes me a moment to catch what they're saying, but somehow they sound familiar. Safe.

“Thank you ma’am, I appreciate it a lot but I think I’ll just head home right now, I just wanted to make sure she’s alright. I feel horrible for hitting her with that sack of flour. I was in a hurry unloading the cart of supplies, and I didn’t realized she was walking behind me until she was sprawled on the ground. I have no clue where the piece of broken glass she fell on come from, that’s why I brought it over, in case you needed to know… I hope her hand doesn't get infected or anything,”

I don’t readily recognize the voice, but I like it. It's soft, and deep, and warm. It’s pleasant. The responding voice is of course my mother, but I can’t quite place the tone she’s using, it’s more clipped and distant than I’ve ever heard her.

"Son, I don't think it's a good idea to venture outside. The snow is falling very heavily and it'll be irresponsible of me to let you wander off when a storm is starting to pick up,"

"I don't want to abuse your hospitality, ma’am. You have to watch your daughter because of my carelessness and I already feel awful about it. I'll be alright, really. And in case the issue comes up, which I doubt it will, I’ll be nineteen on Winter Solstice, I’m old enough to be blame for my own unwise decisions,”

There's a hint of bitterness in the last phrase, despite having ended in a chuckle, but my head feels like a batch of sticky molasses, and I’m not the best at deciphering people’s emotions anyway.

"If you're sure," My mother concedes doubtfully, but doesn't push it. "Don't you worry one bit about Katniss, she will be alright. The cut wasn't all that bad and I gave her my best disinfecting slave. I'm sure she'll be grateful you brought her back home, she does so much and rests so little,"

"I wish I had done more. I mean, it's my fault she got hurt..."

"You did plenty," My mother cuts him off uneasily. “It really wasn't your fault she fainted. It’s a combination of fatigue, a neglected breakfast, and exposure to the cold. She’ll be up and running in no time.”

“Neglected? Is she neglecting meals on purpose? Is she just forgetful? Is she… do you have enough to eat?”

This emotion, in the male voice, I can pinpoint with precision: Worry. Fear even. And like that, my mind connects the voice to the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.

I can see it all in my mind’s eye: the scraggly apple tree behind the bakery, his worrisome eyes steeling with determination right before he tossed me the burned the bread that saved my life.

My eyes open slowly, everything spins out of control for a moment and then I try to get out of bed, but my limbs are too heavy, so I do the next best thing I can think of.

“Mom,” I call, but my voice is thin, tired and barely a whisper. I breathe deep and repeat “Mom,” while my mother does her best to give Peeta a diplomatic answer that still sounds forced, even in my state.

“Mamma!” comes out a little louder this time, but I still sound weak and pitiful, not at all how I want him to perceive me right now, but I’ve caught their attention because my mother excuses herself hastily and comes into the bedroom.

“Katniss! Thank heavens you’re awake.” I can’t quite see her face in this dim light, but I hear the relief in her voice all the same. Whatever assurances she gave Peeta Mellark about my recovery, she was obviously fibbing. “With Prim helping Mrs. Carlson watch her elderly mother while the woman tends to her sick children for the night, I was worried about the both of you...”

“Peeta,” I rasp trying to sit up, but my mother pushes me back down with a firm hand to the shoulder.

“You need your rest. Now, I have no idea how or when you became friendly with the baker’s boy, but I’m glad this incident happened around him,” She says more sternly than I’ve heard her in years. “There’s no telling what would've been of you if you had lost consciousness near a less scrupulous person.” Mother sounds almost angry. She places a gentle hand on my forehead and takes my wrist at the pulse point with her other. “You’re alright, as far as I can tell. I had to stitch up your hand, but it shouldn’t hinder your daily activities that much.”

I scowl frustrated, because of course it will hinder my ability to shoot my bow, and then I’m angry at Peeta Mellark for incapacitating me until who-knows-when, but there's a more pressing matter with that boy!

“M-Mom… Peeta Mellark… where is he? Need to talk to him,”

“Oh, he’s probably sitting out there on pins and needles, waiting to hear about you.”

I hear a thinly veiled dash of reproach in her voice, but I don’t have time to worry about what can possibly have my mother so ruffled. I need to make sure that silly boy doesn't go home and do something stupid, like earn himself another beating at the hands of his witch of a mother, like last time he figured I was hungry. Somehow deep in my chest, I know, with a certainty I can’t shake, that as true as the sun rises even in the most stubborn winter days, Peeta Mellark will run home, gather his best breads and run back here, with or without storm.

“Mamma, please… tell him…” I swallow harshly, realizing how thirsty I am, “Tell him…”

Mother rises a hand to stop me, “I’ll ask him to go home, and you can go see him another day, after the storm blows over,”

“NO! You- you don’t understand!” I’m panicking at the thought of her kicking him out before I can tell him we’re okay, “Just… Peeta… please, I’m not hungry. I’m fine!” I try shouting while wrestling my way out of bed.

We don’t have any doors in the house per say, just the frames and faded curtains to keep some semblance of privacy and modesty, but there’s no way to keep the noises quiet through our tiny house anyway, so he’s there behind my curtain shifting nervously on his feet when he hears me calling his name.

“Katniss?” He calls softly, “Katniss it’s alright. It’ll be okay. Your hunting bag is on the kitchen table, I didn’t touch it, but my father sent a loaf of wheat bread just in case you were on your way to trade… it’s not much, but I can bring something else tomorrow,”

“No!” I repeat, batting away my mother’s hands, making my way to the curtain on shaky legs. “Don’t bring me any more bread.” I pull the curtain back and find myself face to face with him. I’m speechless for a moment.

His mouth is in the process of opening with a retort no doubt, but he also falls silent when his eyes land on mine.

“There’s a squirrel in the bag,” I tell him in the weakest voice I’ve ever produced. “Take it to your father in payment for the bread. We are fine, I swear. Go home, stay safe, I’m okay now.” I’m not sure where the tenderness in my cadence comes from, but he softens his annoyed frown at the sound of my whispered, “Please,”

“Are you really? Okay I mean,” his eyes search my face, “I’ll take the squirrel and leave, if that’s what you want, but as soon as the snow settles, I’ll come back to check on you. I know it won't be easy with your hand for a while, and it’s my fault you got hurt.”

“Peeta, you don’t owe me anything, you've done enough. I got it from here.” of their own volition, my eyes fall to look at my feet, clad in my father’s old socks that have been mended so many times, there's no telling what their original color is. I can’t meet his gaze when I admit the next words, but is important he hears me saying it, “I promise, this is isn’t like… like back then. I’m not dying this time, I swear.” I’m trying to keep my voice even, but it comes out as a whisper that hasn’t make up it’s mind about wanting to be a warning hiss or a soothing caress.

Peeta studies my face a second longer, maybe trying to gage how truthful I’m being, but his eyes flit to a point behind me, before stepping back. He nods his acquiescement right when my mother comes to stand behind me, warming my back with her body heat.

“Alright Katniss, I know you're more than capable to provide for yourself, but if you need anything,”

“We don’t need charity!” There! Finally the real me shines through!

He rolls his eyes heaving an annoyed sigh, “It’s not charity, Katniss. It’s assuming responsibility for the accident. Nothing charitable about it. Just trying to do right by you. So, whether you can hunt or not, I’ll check on you when the snow stops. Until then, I’ll take the squirrel and leave it at that.”

“Fine.” I shrug.

“Fine.” he responds.

His eyes rise to my mother again, giving her a parting nod. “Ma’am, glad to know everything is under control. My father send his regards, until next time,”

Mother and I stay rooted in the same spot even after we hear the door click shut softly- mainly because I can’t move- but we stand there for a very long time, until the deep silence in the house is only disturbed by the howling wind outside.

“Katniss, what were you and the Mellark boy talking about?” Mother is back to her meek, usual self. The question though, throws me off for a moment.

“What? We were making a business transaction, Mother. Nothing else.” I say with as much indifference as I can muster.

“But you said you weren't hungry several times, and then you told him it wasn’t ‘like back then’. What did you mean by that? When is ‘back then’?” She’s back to sounding stern and I figure it’s time to end this conversation.

“Mother, it’s nothing. Peeta Mellark and I have a pending debt from a couple of years back, and it seems like it’s finally time to settle.” my tone is flat and final, but she has a little fight left in her.

“Katniss Everdeen, you be smart while dealing with that boy!”

“Or what, Mother?” I turn to face her seething, “If you're so worried I can’t be trusted around a handsome merchant boy, then know this, Peeta Mellark is a kind, noble person, that saw me when I was invisible to everyone else. He helped me at his own expense, and that's a debt I’ve dragged around too long. Don’t you think for a minute, I can’t deal with him, I’m not stupid.”

“I never said that, darling. It isn't you, or even him I’m worried about…”

“Well, don’t be!”

I so wish there were doors in this house, I'd be banging a few for good measure, as it is, all I can do is stalk to the living room and plop on the threadbare sofa with my arms crossed over my chest and my chin defiantly in the air.

Mother and I don’t speak until supper is served on the table: rabbit stew with roots and beans, and two slices each, of Peeta’s wheat bread.

The bread sticks to the roof of my mouth, but I don't dare stop eating it.

It’s a whole day before the snow lets up and anyone is allowed to go about their business as usual.

As soon as Prim enters the house, both my mother and I breathe easier, taking turns to hug her hello. She’s famished when she sits at the table, and we lose no time in serving her a mug of hot mint tea and a bowl of warm rabbit stew with bread. She devours her food pausing every now and then to tells us how she gave the family she was helping the small meal she had packed to take with her, since we’ve learn to never expect to be fed by any of their patients. She felt bad because they only had moldy tesserae bread for dinner and some weak pine needle tea to wash it down. Her ration was only big enough to feed the three children, while the adults, Primrose included, went without.

“How can we live like this?” mutters Prim with indignation around a mouthful of tea. “This isn’t life, how can anyone survive this wretched world?” She finally pushes the empty bowl away, and looks up at us.

For the first time since she came in, she notices she’s the only one eating. Mother and I nurse mugs of tea in our hands of course, but we have no food in front of us.

“Why aren’t you eating?” she demands suspiciously.

“We already had breakfast, dear. You eat now,” says Mother soothingly. Her words usually work, Prim usually goes back to her plate when the question has arised in other occasion, but this time, she seats back in her chair gaping at us.

“How long you’ve been doing this?” She asks accusingly.

“Doing what, darling?” asks my mother innocently, picking up her mug and walking towards the sink rapidly. “Look at the time, Katniss, shouldn't you be heading to The Hob already?”

I’m about to agree with her and stand up as well, but Prim slams one slender hand on the table with such force, I think she might’ve bruise her palm.

“Will you two stop treating me like I’m a baby?” She screams, sounding much like a brat, completely undermining her angry words. “I can work too, if we need money that bad!” she says.

“You do work, Prim. But if you are thinking about dropping out of school, then I have to put my foot down!” I tell her in response, standing to my full height.

“You, are not my mother!” She counters.

It’s the very first time she’s ever spoken to me that way and I’m shocked by the fire in her eyes and the stance she’s taken. She's a full five inches taller than me. When did she grow up like this?

“But I am, and I agree with your sister!” Mother steps in, with an authority I haven’t heard in years.

I look at her with a bit of renewed respect and awe. She’s finally stepping up to fulfill her role, too bad is a little too late to mother me, but she might still have a chance with Prim, who’s only fourteen anyway.

Prim makes a growling noise I’ve never know she was able to utter, and stomps angrily to our shared bedroom. Mother and I just stare at the spot she just left.

“Well, at least one of you is hitting the normal age milestones,” says my mother placing her already washed mug on the cabinet.

I’m not in the mood to acknowledge or respond, so I chuck down the rest of my tea and dump the cup in the sink. I’ll wash it later, right now, I need fresh air.

“The woods have been stingy to you lately, girl,” says Greasy Sea, the soup stand owner, while looking at the few edibles I’ve brought her.

“Tell me about it,” I mutter moodily, rearranging my legs crisscrossed on my perch on the wobbly stool at her counter, while slurping the last sip of her mystery meat soup. I dare say is rat by how gamy and dark it is.

“I can’t give you much today anyway,” she says sighing heavily, “Business has declined a little this week. I hope it picks up when people start to head out of their houses for normal working days. This snow put a damper in our normal day to day.”

I know what she means.

“It’s alright, Sae. I only need a gourd if you can spare it. I’ll make due until I can get out to the woods again,” I say waving my bandaged hand.

“Oh, I heard of that. Rumors say the baker boy seemed like he wanted to punch himself, panicking over you the whole time. Funny thing is, he didn’t let anyone help him carry you back home. Curious how he didn’t need directions to navigate the Seam.” Her milky gray eyes fix me with an inquisitive stare.

“I would assume anyone in town knows where the healer lives.” I shrug, because it’s true. “It wouldn’t be the first time a merchant comes seeking my mother’s help.”

“Mmm… true. Specially those poor baker boys. They had it rough until they grew taller than that shrew they have for a mother.”

My stomach twists uncomfortably thinking about Peeta’s eleven year old face swelling up after his mother stroke him for burning a perfectly good piece of bread. I make a noncommittal noise at the back of my throat. Suddenly, I don’t want to be in the Hob anymore.

“Gotta go, Sae. Thank you for the soup. If I get anything usable out there tomorrow, I’ll bring it over first thing. You can save me that gourd until then,”

“Sounds good to me, girly. See you tomorrow. Hope the woods are more generous this time.”

“So do I.”

I step out of the old warehouse that still serves as the Hob, although is not an illegal market anymore that needs concealing, its just practical to keep it in the same spot, since there isn't any money to build a new place to house all the tiny businesses that operate there.

The wind has died down, but the air is still sharp in the lungs when inhaling too fast or too deeply. I pull up my patched over scarf to cover my mouth and nose, and start making my way back to my house, since Greasy Sae’s stand was my only stop for the day.

A thin, gangly Seam boy rushes up to me, stopping just short of knocking me over. “Miss Everdeen, ma’am, been lookin’ for ya all ‘round!” he says out of breath, “Should’a come ‘ere first…” he doubles over and puts his hands on his knobbly knees trying to breathe deeply.

“I guess you should’ve,” I tell him trying to suppress a smile since I’ve pull down the scarf around my neck now. “What you need me for, boy?” I ask him amusedly.

“‘Ere…” He undoes a button from his heavy coat, and brings out a small, cream color envelope, so delicate and dainty, I don’t even need to ask who sent it.

“Thank you, kid,” I say taking the letter, and ruffling the kid’s dark hair. “You ought to find a hat to keep that noggin warm, scamp,”

The boy glares at me combing his messy hair back in place, “Name’s Al. I can’t quite afford a hat ma’am, gotta feed my brothers and sisters.”

“You’ll get sick, kiddo, then who's gonna win the bread for your children?” I pose.

He doesn’t respond, but glares at me some more.

“It’s okay Al, I’ll see that Miss Undersee has a hat for you next time she sends you out to do her bidding,” I say turning away from the boy to try and read Madge’s note.

“You do that, ma’am. I’ll tell every boy in the district you're my girl!”

The kid runs off before I can say anything, so I shake my head and laugh it off. The smile stays put on my mouth while reading Madge’s cursive handwriting. She’s the Mayor’s only child, and had extra mentors growing up, still, she’s the closest thing I have to a friend, so it’s no surprise to be given notes from her from time to time for different reasons. This time is an invitation to join her as soon as I get the letter. She has a special favor to ask me.

I hurry over to the Mayor’s house, because whatever favor Madge needs, usually translates into paying coins.

She recieves me warmly when I arrive, going as far as hugging me.

“Katniss! How nice to see you! I trust Albert had no problem finding you?”

“He’s a good one, although you should give him a knitted hat. He needs it if he’s gonna be running around town delivering messages in this weather,”

She smiles, “I’ll keep that in mind! He works for Daddy, he’s a good kid. Funny too.” She gestures for me to come deeper inside the house. We end up sitting in a big room, with pretty furniture and nice crystal lamps shedding a soft light over the polished floors. I’ve only been to Madge’s music room a handful of times, a big piano sits in the corner, and she pulls the bench back, patting the spot next to her for me sit down. I seldom get to hear her play the instrument, and I’m a little disappointed she turns to face me, instead of the black and white keys.

“Katniss,” she starts, folding her hands on her lap, “the Government of New Panem is trying to bring back a few cultural things that were stolen away from us by the Capitol, from before the Dark Days.” She takes a book from the stand on the piano and smooths down the cover, almost reverently.

“Oh. How nice of them,” I say with a fake smile, drowning down the desire to ask if they will bring back food and healthcare and that kind of practical things as well, but I remain civil for the time being.

“Well, yes. There has been talk about ways to boost the morale of the districts, and they’ve come up with Yuletide celebrations. They usually happen between winter solstice and the New Year, and for the looks of it, the new leaders will spare no expense implementing the celebrations.”

“And what exactly does that mean for the denizens?” I ask wearily.

“Oh, a lot of good things actually! Food for starters. The new government has promise to deliver food and cooking supplies to each district, and during the festivals they would serve hot drinks and bakery sweets, that will of course be paid for by the new leadership of Panem. But they have asked Daddy for something they can’t do for us, and this is where your help comes in handy,”

“Alright, I’m listening…” I tell her arching an eyebrow.

“They want music, a district wide participation in the music. It’s something they call Caroling.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, they way my music professor explained it, a carol is a folk, traditional song popular during the Golden Days. They’re supposed to be cheery and uplifting, the lyrics sometimes don't make much sense, because they're very old music, but I believe we can learn the words and sing them during the Yule Festival…”

“Wait!” I yelp in apprehension, “What exactly you want me to do?”

“Why, sing the songs of course.”

“What? No! No way! I don’t sing, Madge, especially in front of an audience!” I protest with wild hand gestures.

“Oh, Katniss, sure you do. You sang for us the very first day of school when we were children!” Her smile is so big and sweet, it’s hard to tell her no, but i'm panicking here.

I haven't sang since my father passed away, the mere thought of doing it again has me ready to bolt, even if it means offending Madge and tarnishing my outstanding business relationship with her father.

“What do you mean? How can you even remember that far back?” I ask feeling the walls closing in on me.

She chuckles demurely, “To be honest, the memory is foggy in my mind, but Peeta Mellark seems to remember the occasion very vividly.”

“Peeta Mellark?” My throat is raspy and dry.

“Yeah. We talked the other day when he brought our bread after the snow. His father is baking all the treats for the festival of course, and Peeta is very involved in the process. I was worrying about the music, pouring over the sheets that had just arrived from the Capitol,” she hugs the book of music to her chest protectively. “Some of the songs are very sweet, but my voice just won't do them justice. Then Peeta, always so helpful, reminded me of that day when you regaled our class with that nice rendition of the Valley Song, which kind of rang a bell, and then he suggested I offered the position to you… New Panem is ready to pay you a salary if you decide to teach the song to a few children, so we have a choir for the festivities. It’s good money, Katniss, and the job shouldn't be all that hard, especially for someone who's had experience with children already.”

“I don't really have any experience, Madge,” I say as my heart sinks. I really can't afford to turn down work, but I can’t teach children to sing either. “I’m horrible with children.”

Madge sighs, “I say different, Katniss. Prim has become a wonderful healer. You have a hand in that, dear,” she assures me, patting my hand softly. “What do you say? Will you help me bring this caroling thing to life?”

I exhale heavily staring down at my lap. “I’ll be here Monday morning to learn the melody, if you give me the words right now.”

I march out of Madge’s intent on giving Peeta Mellark a piece of my mind. I’m battling conflicting feelings as I see the facade of the bakery looming across the town square.

Surely I can’t be angry about nudging Madge in my direction for a great and easy paying job, but is the sneaky way he did it that makes my blood boil! Maybe I’m vexed that he made it sound like I’m this amazing singer, which I’m not, and it’ll be a great let down for everyone when I complete stink at it. Maybe it’s that I can’t explain the sensations unfurling in the pit of my stomach at the thought of Peeta Mellark remembering our first day of school so fondly, when all I can think of is how I can’t find one measly good memory of my school days. Is as if the death of my father erased the carefree, little girl I used to be when I sang that song so long ago. Is it perhaps that I both relish and resent his continuous help, when I don’t understand his motives?

I don’t know what is it that I’m feeling, but he’s spotted me already, and I can see him through the display windows, hurrying around the counter, tossing his apron somewhere away from him, and picking up something that looks suspiciously like the packaging paper they use for their baked good deliveries. He’s stepping out the bakery’s front door to meet me, I think.

I’m only a few feet away, I can clearly make out the blue of his twinkling eyes. He smiles shyly, sweetly, once he realizes I’m coming straight at him.

I can’t help pick up my speed, his smile widens, but falters when he realizes I’m not smiling back him. He sees I’m clearly pissed off and in no mood to make nice. If he was expecting gratitude, he was sorely mistaken.

Before my words leave my mouth, The Witch comes out of nowhere and slaps him on the back of the head with such force, he stumbles forward. A dozen little rolls fall out of the bag he was already offering to me.

“Stupid boy! You messed up the Miller’s order--”

She doesn’t finish her verbal assault because in two leaps, I’ve reached her and pushed her against the brick wall of the bakery with my hands on her bony chest. I’ve manage to take her by surprise, but her confusion doesn't last long and soon she’s lunching at me with a ferocity I’ve never seen a in person before.

I force myself to stand where I am and weather the attack, but the blows never reach me. My sweet, idiot defender, pushes me out of the way, shielding me with his body. He winces, absorbing the punch meant for me.

I close my eyes bitterly, before the first tears have a chance to fall. It seems I’ll never stop owing Peeta Mellark.

To be continued...

Chapter Text

“Ouch! Easy there, you butcher,” Peeta chuckles painfully while I dab ointment on the angry red welt on his back, just an inch shy of his spine. Luckily it's the worst one.

“Hush! You’re breaking my concentration.” I chide and pretend to scowl at him when he turns his face just enough to smirk at me. I can’t hold back the smile that breaks free once his head turns facing forward.

“I’m sorry, doctor Everdeen, I’ll be good and stay quiet now, just hurry up and finish torturing me with that awful smelling concoction, so I can go back home to be yelled at from the comfort of my kneading table. I have some cheese buns that need replacing, you see.”

“Well now, aren't you a cheeky one, mister Mellark?” I tell him dipping my head around to peer at him, so he can see I’m joking too. “I’ll have you know this is a world class anti-inflammatory ointment, prepared by my own mother, from the best medicinal herbs, hand picked by yours truly. So shut up and stay still while I finish.”

He raises his hands in surrender, his shoulders shaking with his almost silent laughter, so infectious, I join him before I realize what I’m doing.

But the lightheartedness only lasts so long.

His eyes, crinkling with laughter at the corners settle on my own, unguarded and open, sweet and gentle. I’m reminded the reason I’m slathering his pale, soft skin with unguent, and all mirth is gone.

I return to stare at his back, and he takes a deep breath, lowering his head.

“Katniss,” he says softly, “Why did you do it? Fly at my mother like a rabid mama raccoon defending her cubs?” He pauses, head downcast. “I mean, I’m beyond grateful for what you did, no one's ever stood up for me when she goes into one of her rages, but still. She’ll hate you even more now, and that’ll make everything ten times more difficult. There's no telling what rumors she’ll spread around to her friends of the sewing circle. I never wanted to put your trades in jeopardy, I don’t deserve you sacrificing your good relations with your customers.”

“Didn’t I ask you to hush a minute ago?” I snap at him, startling him.

After a wiping my hands clean for the ointment, I lower his shirttail back where it belongs covering his back. He takes this as a sign to hop off the table he was perched on, and watches me carefully, as I sit down into a chair.

I start twiddling my fingers for a moment before sighing loudly. “You may sit if you want,” I tell him tiredly. Once he’s sat down, I look up and press my lips into a firm line. “I’m not sure what came over me, to tell you the truth. I just got angry. I hate when parents get slap-happy.” I’m surprised I actually confessed that to him. Is the honest truth: I got angry, but I have no idea why the reaction was so visceral. “I’m sure she’ll be angry at you too for stepping between us. She’ll be livid with your father, on the same token, for stopping her after that last kick, I reckon.”

He shrugs. “We’ve had experience with her before. We can manage around her.” He’s quiet for a moment. He tries to laugh it off by saying, “She did look funny, like a maniac rag doll, when father picked her up and flung her back inside.”

“Hysterical.” I deadpan, scowling and crossing my arms over my chest.

He smiles sadly and hangs his head low, staring at his hands. “She isn’t like that all time, you know. There are times when she can be very nice. Sweet even. The problem is, those times are seldom and far in between.”

All I can do is sit there, studying him picking at an invisible string from a very old placemat my mother brought with her from town, from her days of being a merchant.

Since we are waddling around the subject, I turn the question to him, “And you, why did you do it? Why do you keep… saving me?” I want to sound angry, but it  comes out as whiny.

He chuckles mirthlessly, shaking his head in disbelief. “Come on, Katniss. You know why. At least it should be pretty obvious by now.” He runs his thumbnail along an old crack on the table, averting his eyes.

“Why don’t you just spell it out for me, since I seem to be very witless,” I bite back.

I hate being treated like an idiot who can’t grasp easy concepts. Peeta Mellark’s motives still elude me, and he’s making it sound like I should know something that’s very clear to him. Well, I can't read minds!

Peeta groans seemingly aggravated by my response. “Let’s say, you have no idea the effect you can have,”

I sputter an irritated gasp. “And what is that suppose to mean, exactly?”

He bites his lips as if to suppress a response, then rubs his eyes, digging the tip of his fingers into his sockets, before setting his arms on the table, staring at me with an edge of annoyance in his gaze.

“Okay, let’s start over, shall we?” He says in a conciliatory tone. “Isn't it weird, that we spent our entire childhood in the same exact classes, yet never got paired up to do any school work?”

The mundanity of the question throws me for a loop a moment, I wasn’t expecting that. I frown, thinking about it for a moment, it’s true. There’s one school in District Twelve and its compulsory for every child to attend it, unless they had some obvious handicap. Peeta and I are roughly the same age, give or take a few months, so we were in all the same classes growing up, yet, we never worked together in any school project.

“Yeah,” I concede, “That is weird.”

“Mhmm. You know what’s even weirder?”

I lift my eyes curiously, to wordlessly ask what else does he find weird, and he’s already watching me with an arched eyebrow, daring me to ask.

“What can be weirder than being in a class with a person your whole life without ever working together?” I ask indulging him.

He smirks, then stretches his hand across the table towards me, prompting my to shake with him. “We’ve never been officially introduced to one another. I’m Peeta Mellark. I’m slated to become the next baker in town, unless my brother Rye comes back home from District Two, claiming the honors. Then I’ll be jobless and homeless, so I’m crossing my fingers Rye decides he wants to be a career army man. Nice to make your acquaintance, miss…” He drags the ss, and cocks his head to the side, wiggling his fingers at me, until I roll my eyes.

I can’t help it. I snort at the whole thing. It’s so silly and unnecessary, but I finally grab his hand, and I’m surprised by how warm it feels around mine. I barely notice the callouses on his fingers and palm, only focusing on how my tiny hand seems to drown in his big one. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed how complementary olive skin looked next to pink-pale skin. I stare at our hands in wonder for second too long, before Peeta gives me a gentle squeeze.

“Ma’am, I'm still waiting. Didn't your mother ever tell you it was bad manners to string a person along--”

“You’re impossible, sir!” I chide, but since he notices I’m struggling not to smile, I roll my eyes again and cave. “My name is Katniss Everdeen. I hunt for a living, and apparently, thanks to some meddlesome baker guy, I’m also a children’s choir teacher, other than that… I have no skills to work in the real, legal world.”

His forehead wrinkles slightly. He pulls back, giving my hand one last, good, lingering squeeze, releasing it while tsking along.

I feel the loss of his warmth on the top of my hand, until it becomes a shiver that runs down my back. A very unreal feeling.

“That can’t be right,” he says in mock outrage, “I’ve heard from good sources, that the baker guy has great taste in pretty much everything,” he smirks boyishly.

A snort of badly suppressed laughter makes him smile widely, so I quip a haughty response to wipe it off his face. “I think you shouldn’t trust your sources, sir. They sound a tad biased over confident.”

“Aww… come on now. What kind of person you take me for? I’m a great judge of character!”

I bite my tongue, swallowing the remark that he just told me 'his mother is not all that bad' not a minute ago with evidence to contrary fresh on skin. Nothing will come of that comment, even if I’m right.

“Whatever you say, Mellark.” I chuckle with him instead.

“I have proof!” He prods.

“Really?”

“Yeah… You're it!”

“I’m what?” I’m confused and on edge by the statement. It’s so firm, sure and spoken like he owns it. I’m not sure why is my heart rate picking up.

“My proof that I’m a great judge of character. I told Madge Undersee you’d love to help her with the choir, and you did!” His smile is blinding.

I scowl.

“I didn’t just gladly offered to help,” I say, the anger from before beginning to get fanned back to life. “You ambushed me, Peeta. I wasn’t asked if I wanted to sing or teach those kids,I was basically finger-chosen, thrusted into it unawares. I’m wholly unprepared and under-qualified for the job, but you just figured I’d take it because I had no other choice. You… you manipulated the situation to get me a job!” my voice keeps raising the more I speak, and then he's matching me blow for blow.

“So what if I did, Katniss?” He counters irritated. “What the hell does it matter if I did? You got the job, and it pays pretty nicely too. You won't be fainting on the streets because you haven't have enough food in who-knows-when--”

“I fell because you knocked me over with a one hundred pound of flour sack! My food intake, or lack there off, had nothing to do with it--”

“Bullshit!” He shouts angrily, slamming down his big, heavy hands. We are both standing now, hands bracing our body weight on the table top between us in an offensive posture. “It has everything to do with how you eat, Katniss. If you don’t get enough food, then you’ll start to weaken, get sick, fainting from fatigue, in the worse case scenario even…” his voice hitches. He blinks rapidly averting his eyes from mine, but I can see the moisture gathering at the corner. “You know how people tend to topple over for no apparent reason.”

I do. I know. The official cause for those passings are never starvation, because heavens forbid anyone complain about the new leadership of Panem and all they do to help the districts improve the nonexistent quality of life.

“I don’t think I could take watching you waste to nothing in front of my eyes again, Katniss. So, now that I’m able to do something about it, I will help you, even if you refuse to see reason.” He slides down the chair, his voice low and serene, as if all the fight left him, and we were merely exchanging pleasantries instead of a full on screaming match.

“I... I don’t understand, why are you so invested in helping me out, Peeta.” I answer dropping into my own chair heavily. ”You don’t owe me anything, but I owe you my life and that of my family. You saved us that day, and I’m grateful for what you did. I hate that you took that beating to feed me, but you don’t have to do it ever again. I took the job you somehow finagle out of Madge for me, I’ll do my best at it. But please, I don’t want your pity or you charity.” I’m surprisingly gentle as I talk. This strange boy brings out a part of me I believed to exist only for Prim’s sake, yet, I can’t help lowering my carefully built walls with Peeta Mellark.

He covers his face with both hands and exhales a long, cleansing breath. “It’s not charity, Katniss. And believe it or not, I have never, nor will I ever, pity you. On the contrary, you intimidate the hell out of me.”

I open my mouth to ask him how in blazes do I intimidate him? He’s got at least a hundred pounds on me!

Growing up he was the stockiest boy in our year, with those broad shoulders of his, gained from working at the bakery all the time and wrestling during his school career; he’s downright muscular now, more man than boy if I’m completely honest, plus, if I ever wanted to be at his eye level, I’d have to stand on tippy toes.

He catches me by surprise by standing abruptly. “School is almost out. Your family should be home soon. I should get back to work for the supper time rush. Today is day-old-bread day. Father is selling edible old bread for half a coin every other day now, it helps the less affluent families, according to the Mayor’s Capitol aid. I wish there was a better way to feed the district.” That offhand remark, makes me stare at him. Is not usual to hear that kind of comment from a well positioned merchant, and Peeta Mellark is the definition of well positioned, if it's true he's to inherited the family business.

“I’ll see you around, Katniss. Thank you for the bruise pomade.”

“Peeta,” I call as he starts to plow towards the door, he doesn’t stop to look at me until his hand is on the knob.

“Yeah?” He says flatly.

“I’m sorry if I made you mad. I didn’t mean to, it’s just… I can’t afford to…” I wring my hands together, coming up to stand in front of him. “I have my sister, you know. I have to protect her above everything else.”

“I know.” He assents. “That's how I know you are more than qualified to teach little children. Bye, Katniss.”

I keep staring at my fidgety fingers long after he's gone. Peeta Mellark makes my head swim in confusion, my stomach knots uncomfortably when I think of him, if I hear his voice I feel a nervous anticipation building until I see his face, and then, the sensations get even more perplexing to even begin to explain. I hate the way he makes me feel, yet… I can’t stop myself for looking forward to talk to him again.

I’ve been working with Madge on learning the songs for the past two weeks. Winter is completely settled in now, it hasn’t snow much since the first fall almost three weeks ago. So far we can’t complain much about it; the temperature is a steady dry cold, that numbs bacteria and viruses down until they're all but dead, keeping the the rest of us considerably healthy.

Somehow, the unchanging weather has helped the wildlife stir up and venture out of their burrows and nests. Rory has been getting all kinds of nice plump critters tangled in his snares, and the days I go into the woods, I manage to shoot a bunny or a few squirrels. I got a fox and a disoriented goose last week. Sold the foxes pelt for a very hefty coin and Rooba, the butcher, snatched the goose from my hands without blinking a lash.

Business has been so good lately, I haven’t mind going to the bakery at all twice a week for whatever breads I can afford. By design, I haven’t seen much of Peeta though, I’ve taken to memorize his shift, so I don’t bump into him when I’m in town. Can't say I’m not proud about my evading skills, but there's always a bubble of disappointment trying to bob up every time I succeed in avoiding him.

Today I’m preoccupied about something scarier than accidentally bumping into the baker’s youngest.

It’s my first day meeting my new pupils, and I’m so nervous that I have half a mind to run back into the woods and stay there for the rest of my life, but when I make it to the school road, I see Madge and her music professor, mister Hawkins, waiting for me. My friend greets me cheerfully, which makes me relax a little.

“Shall we?” She asks smiling.

I take a deep breath, “Let’s go then!”

“Distant stars, at home up in the heavens.
Wonder what they see, are they watching me?
Yuletide Star, you spin your strands of silver.
What a sight to see,are you there to guide me?

“Star light, shine bright.
See me through the dark night.
Light my pathway
Guide me home for Yuletide Day.”

“Beautiful! Wonderful” Exclaims mister Hawkins clapping up a storm. “We are making progress people! Let’s call it a day for now, and I expect to see each one of you here punctually, after school is dismissed. We’ll pick it up from the top again! Great job, children! This district will make me a proud Maestro yet!” He squeals like an overexcited little girl, making the smaller childrer startle and the older ones snigger behind their music sheets.

So stupid. Of course they’ll be here punctually. We are using the school’s assembly room for choir practice. Every child in town will be here unless they’re bedridden. It's the only place in the district big enough to accommodate all this children, except for the square where they perform during the Yule Festival in a few weeks time.

Mister Hawkins reminds me a lot of that oddity, Effie Trinket, who used to be District Twelve’s escort when the Hunger Games where still played. It makes me uneasy to be working with a person that sounds so frivolous at times, although for a Capitolite, the man is not half as bad as I suspect other people like him would be. I guess he's lived outside of the opulence and easy life of the Capitol long enough to learn a few things about the real world, yet, he can say some idiotic stuff from time to time.

“Great job you too, miss Everdeen! You have the voice of an angel,” he says dreamily, “If I close my eyes while you sing accompanied by miss Undersee’s gifted hands on the piano, I can almost believe I’m somewhere nice,” he sighs.

And there it is, a neat little insult inserted into what he believes to be a compliment.

All I can do is roll my eyes and bite my tongue, while Madge shakes her head imperceptibly smiling ruefully.

“Thank you mister Hawkins, the children did, do a great job today.”

He swoons when Madge compliments his directorial prowess, and I feel like gagging, so I gather my things, and head for the door.

“He’s a pompous ass, that Hawkins, but I have to agree with him.” His voice is as warm, soft and deep as ever and at the sound, my skin breaks in goosepimples. “You do sound heavenly.” He states falling into step next to me.

“No I don’t,” I mutter demurely. My free hand flies up to twirl the end of my braid between my fingers, suddenly I’m feeling overwhelmingly shy.

“Sure you do,” I hear the smile in his voice, and although my eyes are glued to the dirt path beneath my boots, I can feel his eyes watching me, “You always have.” The sentence is more a secret than a statement, he inhales deeply and says wistfully, “Too bad is not spring, though.”

“Why is that? Winter kicking your hide, Mellark?” I lift my gaze to his for the first time in days and smirk.

“Nah. The cold I can take, it’s just that the best part about hearing you singing, is completely wasted when there aren't any birds around.”

“What do you mean?” I ask confusedly.

He stops, and touches the forearm cradling my music books close to my body. I stop too. We stare at each other a moment, and then he says:

“Well, it's quite an amazing phenomenon to witness,” he says quietly, “You see, when you sing, the birds stop to listen… just like they did for your father.”

His words give me pause. I feel my eyes widen in surprise. I’m speechless and so overcome with feelings, I don't notice he’s continued in the direction of town. For some reason I panic watching him walk away.

“P-Peeta,” I call out, jogging to catch up.

“Yup?” He doesn’t even turn around to see me.

“Mmm… what… how… ugh!” I stop, regroup and shake the fog out of my head, “What were you doing here?” I blurt out when the real question I'm dying to ask get’s stuck in my throat, and I know it won't get past my lips without a pitiful sob following right behind it.

“Oh, just wanted to get a head count of the kids for a special project.” He says easily.

“Oh,” I lag behind, still shaken by his loaded comment about my father. I suspect he knows he’s struck some sensitive cord, and he's just facilitating an out for me, by changing topics. “And… did you get what you needed?” I ask trying to pick up my pace.

He chuckles then. Finally glancing at me sideways. “Oh yeah. I got exactly what I needed, even if it was completely different to what what I was expecting to find.” He won't elaborate, and is getting increasingly hard for me to swallow down the urge to cry, so at the fork on the path, when the road on the right leads to town and the one on the left to the Seam, I stand there awkwardly, trying and failing to look at his face and say something.

“Well,” I start meekly. “It was nice seeing you again.”

“Samewise,” he says gently. “Does that mean you’ll stop avoiding me now?” He asks with a hint of amusement.

I glare at him under my lashes, scowling mightily. “I’m not avoiding you!”

“And I’m not enabling it either,” he smiles crookedly.

“Well--”

“Hey, miss Everdeen!” A young boy’s voice calls, interrupting what could be our next big blow out. “Look what the Mayor got me!”

I turn around to see a slim gangly boy run headlong towards me. He’s wearing a gray, wooly hat, with small soft blue asterisks peppered all over the material.

“Al! You got a hat! Good for you!” I say honestly excited about his hat.

“Not jus’ that, but lookit!” He lifts up his mitten clad hands for me to inspect, “Matchin’ gloves too!”

“That’s amazing, squirt!” I say ruffling his hat.

“Hey, watch it, will ya? My friends are lookin’!” He sounds so annoyed it takes all I have to bite back my laughter.

“Sorry,” I tell him trying to look contrite.

“S’okay. I jus’ can’t have my girl treatin’ me like a baby in front of the guys…” He grounds forcefully, gesturing with his chin at a small gaggle of boys peering at us from behind a tree.

“My word, miss Everdeen!” Peeta gasps suddenly, making me and Al jump in surprise. “I can’t believe you would embarrass a man in front of his friends like that!” I’m taken aback by his words, until I see the mischievous glint in his blue eyes. “Sir, I hope you find yourself a better girlfriend soon, one that will treat you more respectfully!” He tells Al seriously.

“What? Are you crazy, mister baker? There ain't a better gal around the district! She can hunt, she can whistle, she can barter better than anyone I know, and she sings prettier than a mockingjay in summer! I’ll stick with her, and when I’m old ‘nough to run the post office myself, Imma marry her!”

“Well, if you've made up your mind about it, then congratulations on your future nuptials. I hope you come to me for your wedding cake, It’ll be on the house. A man that will put up with a wild mockingjay deserves a free cake.” Peeta says solemnly, while I stare at him open mouthed.

“Wow! Really, mister baker, sir? You’d give me a free cake?” Al’s face is full of wonder and awe.

“I will, when you are ready to marry a woman you love,” Peeta says, and I know this is a genuine promise he just made to a young Seam boy, with brothers and sisters to feed. “In fact, why don’t you come to the bakery next week, and I’ll give you a sample. You can take it home and discuss it with your folks. It’s never too early to start choosing cake flavors for the future.”

I think Al is about faint.

“Why thank you, mister baker, sir! I will come by when your momma isn't in the front of the shop!”

“Wise idea.” Peeta agrees rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “Couldn't agree more. See you then!”

“Course!” Al gasps skipping backwards, “The gang will never believe it!” He gushes running to meet up with his friends.

When he’s a few steps away, he calls out to me again. “Hey miss Everdeen! Look at the sky.”

I do, it’s starting to turn dark around the edges, the Northern Star is already shining proudly in it’s place of honor.

“My baby sister, she’s five, want’s to know if that’s the Yuletide Star we sang about in choir today?”

I look past the boys, and see there are a few smaller children gathered at the dilapidated playground of the school. A little girl dressed is a faded, reddish frock is staring at me shyly. I start walking towards her, and to my surprise, Peeta’s heavy footsteps sound right behind me.

“Hi sweetie,” I tell the girl when I reach her, squatting to her level.

“Her name is Ster. It means star in some old language our pawpaw heard of from before the Dark Days.” says an older girl coming to hold Ster’s hand.

Ster hides behind the girl, who I assume is her sister.

“See, Marigold, I told you I knew miss Everdeen,m. She’s my girl, and mister baker will makes us a cake for our toasting.” Touts Al, coming to stand next to the girls.

Marigold and Ster look behind me, where Peeta’s crouched down, and stare at him curiously.

“These your sisters?” I ask Al. He nods proudly before running off to join his friends.

“Nice to meet you girls,” I say gently, “I’m Katniss, and this,” I turn to point at Peeta, “Is Peeta Mellark,”

“Is he really the baker?” Ster asks me in a adorable tiny voice.

I smile widely, “Yes, that is him: mister baker.”

“Is he really gonna bake my brother a toasting cake?” It’s Marigold’s turn to ask in awe.

“I will, when he's old enough and finds himself a good wife,” Peeta says softly. “Would you like one too?” He asks while both girls stare at him with eyes wide as dinner plates.

“Can we have cookies instead?” Whispers Ster shyly, hiding behind her sister.

“Sure,” Peeta responds, “I’ll make them extra special just for you… only if you let me see your face once more,” he cajoles gently.

The little girl peeks her head around her sister’s shoulder quickly, a timid smile shines through just for a second and she hides again.

Peeta smiles so big, I can’t see how his cheeks aren’t hurting. “Thanks you Ster. You know... you look just like miss Everdeen did when she was your age." He pauses for a moment, relishing in a bygone memory in his head, “Down to the red dress. She used to wear her hair in two braids like you do as well.”

A loud whistle reverberates across the play area and children start to scamper away immediately, saying their goodbyes hastily, since someone's mother has made the first 'come home' call.

It’s very dark out now. Ster looks up at the sky and I see the wistfulness in her eyes.

“That’s the Northern Star,” I say breaking her from her staring. “I’m sure the Yuletide Star is as bright and pretty as that one is.” Another mother’s voice is heard calling her children's names into the frigid air. “I think is time for you girls to head on home. I promise I’ll tell you all I know about the stars next time I see you, alright?”

Both girls nod and skitter away hand in hand, back to their mother and whatever warmth they can muster in a drafty Seam house.

I breathe out a deep sigh straightening up.

“Are you gonna do it, mister baker, sir?” I ask imitating Al's words, staring in the direction the girls ran to.

“What?” He asks closer to me than I figured he was.

“Bake them cookies,” I turn around to face him. “You shouldn't offer things like that unless you are prepared to follow through. Those children now believe you’ll give them treats they can’t afford and it’ll be just cruel to crush their little hearts if you don’t--”

“I told you I was planning a surprise for the kids earlier, didn’t I?” He cuts me off rolling his eyes. “Just… have some faith in me, will you?”

I wave a ‘fine, sure’ gesture. “Fine, just make it grand," I tell him, "It’s late and mother is supposed to be making supper tonight. I gotta go.”

“Yeah. Me too. See you… whenever.” He stalks off without a second glance, letting me know he's not happy with me.

I go home, and remain in a crossed mood the rest if the evening. Is well after I’m curled up in bed, leaching warmth from Prim’s slight form under our threadbare blankets that night, that the thought registers, ‘How is it that Peeta Mellark remembers my father’s singing and the fact about the birds stopping their chirping to listen to his voice, and also remembers how I wore my hair when I was five? Why did he paid so much attention to me? More importantly, why did I?’ That last one is easier. I kept tabs on him because he made me notice him with the most amazing bread I've ever eaten: dense, dark, filled with raising and nuts. The stuff sturdy meals are built on.

But thinking too much about him is giving me a headache, so I decide to ignore any thought about that dares to cross my mind, finally drifting into a fitful- but not unpleasant sleep- filled with singing birds, shining stars and little children laughing.

When I arrive at choir practice the next day, I realize how very foolish of me to even think I can ignore thoughts of Peeta Mellark, dare I say it's impossible? I can't begin to comprehend the lengths he'd go to, just to make me notice him, which is evident when the stage in the assembly room is plastered top to bottom, in packaging paper stars of every size, against a drab blue background of the walls of the school. But the most amazing thing of Peeta's project surprise for the children is on a table at the edge of the stage, were  dozens of delicately frosted star shape cookies, lay in neat stacks, waiting to be picked up by starving, skinny fingers.

“Shortbreads,” Says Madge coming up behind me. “Delicious and filling. Just what our singers need to understand Yuletide.”

“And stars too! To match the theme of our songs! I have to say, that talented young man could go places if he was a baker in the Capitol!” Chants mister Hawkins looking at the display.

“He would be amazing in the Capitol, but his muse isn't there.” Says Madge mysteriously, with the ghost of a smirk.

“Pity.” Counters Hawkins walking away. "Wasting his talents away for a girl," 

Meanwhile, a nasty sensation of hollowness forms in my gut. The desires to simultaneously wanting to cry, punch something and scream until my throat goes raw  leads me to a feliz sting that I can't quite comprehend: I hate a faceless, nameless, strange woman, for reasons I can’t quite grasp, other than Peeta Mellark is wasting his talent in Twelve for her. 

Chapter Text

Prim comes to choir practice today, although her age group is not singing in the festivities.

She sits bright eyed in one of the dented tin chairs in the audience side, and holds her breath in awe, while listening delightedly to the children’s rendition of Yuletide Star.

The upper school will do several different things during the festival, from working as ushers, to presenting a play- which is a first for our district and everyone is excited about- and the Wrestling Coach and School administration, have agreed to move the championship match for the day before the festival, which no one is happy about, no matter how many promises to introduce new sports to the school they make.

Wrestling is the only sport anyone in Twelve really understands. In fact, the Championship Meet was always the one event people in the district were truly excited about during the old regime, never being associated with the Hunger Games, since it was held two months before Reaping Day -a day that will forever bring sorrow to the districts- and the Games themselves. I can see the logic of holding the match in the spring when is warmer for the boys to be donning their wrestling uniforms. I think back to last year, when a certain blue eyed baker boy was declared Champion for the second year in a row. He could had been champion for three years running, if it wasn’t for his middle brother the year we were sixteen, i'm highly suspicious about that win though, from where I sat in the bleachers, it looked almost like Peeta wasn't actually trying.

I feel my cheeks heat up, when mi mind wanders to the way he looked in his very tight midnight blue unitard. The way it fitted him like a second skin, and the way his strong muscles rippled powerfully all over his taut body, while his very thick arm circled his opponent's torso, on the last choke that won him the champion title for the very last time in his school career.

I’m suddenly burning up in my two layers of clothing. There's a slight ringing in my ears from the blood rushing around my head, and my skin tingles everywhere breaking in goosebumps.

What is happening to me? I wonder if i'm getting sick causing this feverish reaction.

The children start staring at me when my voice takes an embarrassing, high pitch-out of tune-choking noise, that lucky for me, turns into a fit of coughs that makes my eyes water.

“Alright… let’s take a quick break everyone,” calls mister Hawkins annoyedly when it’s clear I've broken the kids concentration. “Miss Everdeen, do take a sip of water and do something about that cough!” he demands curtly, before turning his nose away, muttering about unprofessionalism under his breath.

“Are you alright, Katniss?” Prim ask solicitously, handing me a paper cup full of tepid water I chug back without breathing.

“Yeah,” I clear my throat loudly. “I’m okay. Thank you!” I tell her gratefully, handing back the cup.

She smiles in response. “The choir sounds very good, Katniss. I’m so proud of you!” We sit on the floor of the stage side by side, with our legs hanging over the lip of the raised level. She sighs wistfully, “I wish I was allowed to sing with the little kids. It just looks like so much fun! I mean, look around you… all the paper stars as backdrop to the song, and then all the crumbs on their happy little faces! The government seems to be stepping it up a notch, doesn't it? Sending cookies in for all this little ones. Most of them are Seam too. This is gotta be the greatest treat for any of them!”

I agree it is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for the children of the district, but for some reason Prim’s wrongly attributing the gift to the leadership of New Panem, makes my blood boil.

“The government had nothing to do with the cookies.” I snap shortly.

She turns to look at me confusedly. “No? Then who was so generous?” The question is followed by a quick flick of blue eyes to mister Hawkins and Madge, trying to corral the children back in position to resume practice.

“It wasn’t them either,” I tell her heaving a sigh. She peers at me expectantly, waiting patiently for me to elaborate. “Peeta Mellark, the baker’s son, made them for the kids since a little girl told him she’d like a cookie some day.”

Prim cocks her head to the side, “That was nice of him,” she says with a tone of suspicion I don't like.

“It was. But I might have forced his hand about it. At the very least, I offended him. I accused him of letting the kids down, when I heard he promised the little girl cookies made specially for her.” I feel a knot in my throat. “He made her stars… after her name.”

I stand up and go help the other two getting the kids back in their assigned spots, before Prim can make any more questions. I don’t understand myself right now, all I want to do is stop feeling so strange where Peeta Mellark is involved.

I’ve resolve to confront him later today. This has got to stop.

I’m almost running through the district, propelled by the most confusing feelings I’ve ever experienced, when finally Prim protests pumping her legs hard to catch up with me.

“Katniss, wait up! You’re walking to fast!”

I had no idea she was following me. “I thought you were going home,” I say only relaxing my tread a little.

“It’s friday.” She deadpans giving me a look.

“Oh…” I stop so she doesn't have to run anymore. It's weird to me that her, having longer legs, can’t keep up with my pace, but I guess when you are an illegal poacher, learning speed is tantamount to safety. Old habits die hard.

“Did you forget?” She arches one dark blond eyebrow.

“That today is friday? Yes, obviously,”

Fridays are 'waste day' at the grocer’s. Prim has an ongoing deal with the grocer, that he’d save all the edible waste such as: greens, vegetables and fruits too rotten to sell, along with grain too old and musty, even cardboard he can't use anymore, and in return, Prim brings him fresh goat milk or cheese, depending on how good everything went during the week for Lady, her nanny goat. Milk is usually delivered two days a week, wednesdays and saturdays.

She usually saves her best cheese for the baker though, I don’t even try to understand their trading system. Their bread to cheese paying ration always raises between the two, each always trying to give the other the best deal. It’s exhausting, but people usually bend over backwards to help Prim out; she's the likable one in the family. I try to smile to her, in hopes to dispel the tension of the last hour.

“I’m sorry, Little Duck. I’m not sure where my head is these days.”

“Hmm… I would say your mind is in the bakery right now,” She says with a tone I can quite peg.

“Why would you think that?”

“The way you are strangling that poor little cookie bag.” Her expression is serious, if a bit curious. “You are going to see Peeta.” Is not a question.

“Wha… No!” I sputter defensively.

She gives me another look. “Please. You’ve been in a tizzy ever since practice, and it’s obvious it has to do with the cookies. Why do you mistrust him so much? He’s always been nice to everyone as far as I know, is there reason to believe he’s not trustworthy?”

“I… of course not! Peeta Mellark is the most generous person I know. I just… I can’t allow him to keep… giving food out so freely like that. It’s not good for anyone.”

“So, you’re looking out for him. And you are mad at him because… you care?” She frowns studying me.

“Is not… I…” I’m extremely uncomfortable with all her questions. I can’t answer anything straight, so I shoot a question of my own, “How do you even know Peeta anyway?”

Prim rolls her sky blue eyes and shakes her head as if I’ve made the stupidest question ever.

“Katniss, he was back to back Wrestling Champion in the last couple of years. He’s inheriting the bakery since his two older brothers have gone elsewhere for work,” she sniffles, wiping her nose with the back of her coat sleeve. “He’s the  richest, unattached boy in Twelve, and the dream of every girl in the district.” She sounds as if she shared a juicy gossip she just picked up at the market.

“Every girl?” I snap before I can think of it. I give a withering stare. Trying to look stern, I tell her, “He’s too old for you.”

“He’s the right age for you,” she mutters under her breath.

“What was that?”

“I said, I wouldn’t care about him… not my type, although Maisy Waggner just got engaged to Saul Cartwright and she’s three and a half years younger than he is.”

I bite my lips, keeping my retort safely inside my mouth, but I think to myself that my baby sister is not old enough to have a type, but more problematic than that, is the fact that she seems to not have a sense of taste! How can any girl affirm so surely that Peeta Mellark is not their type?

In a place where most men are skinny, half starved coal miners, usually sickly looking for lack of solar exposure after spending so much time underground, and although all of the miners develop some upper body muscles while toiling away, heaving pickaxes and sledgehammers, breaking rocks and earth and then shoveling them away, they can't compare to the picture of health and manly presence, that are the bakers of district twelve, because if I'm honest, all Mellark men look similarly handsome and well built.

Peeta's case is exceptional though. What makes him truly a catch, is his personality: affable, generous and genuinely good. His easy, self deprecating humor doesn't hurt is eligibility one bit either.

I blink, then bat away at imaginary gnats circling around my head, planting all this ludicrous thoughts in my mind. I'm not ready to admit my admiration for a merchant, although I’m starting to realize that’s what I’m feeling towards him. It feels too much like selling out on my good Seam standards, but I'm painfully aware that this is just the sprout of a nut laying roots in my chest, if I don’t do something quick to pull it out, a deep rooted tree is bound to wreck my carefully flattened internal landscape.

“You are not Maisy Waggner, Prim. Getting engaged to be married so young is a stupid merchant tradition anyway.” I huff aggravated, “A fourteen year old girl can’t possibly know, what path she wants for her future.”

“True. Untrue. Neither Saul nor Maisy had a say in it. Their parents did the betrothal, but I’m glad for them. They know what’s in their future. They have all that time until Maisy is of age, to fall in love.” Prim sounds more like she's trying to convince herself, than simply sharing gossip now. I’m not sure where the hint of sadness is coming from either, specially after saying she was happy for her classmate.

“I had no idea the cobbler’s boy was that old.” I say trying to get the conversation somewhere else, “His sister was in my year in school.”

“Oh yeah, Saul and Delly are only six months apart… can you imagine? Their poor mother!” Prim sounds a thousand years older than she is. I think she senses my bewilderment at her familiarity with the cobbler’s children, because she hastily adds, “I’ve been tending Delly’s pregnancy. She’s only around four months far, but has had terrible morning sickness. Mother sends me to town with medicine every two days, to help Delly keep some food down.”

“Hmmm. I didn’t know she was pregnant.” I say thoughtfully stopping right in front of the grocery store.

“Yeah. Can you blame her husband?”

I scowl. Delly Cartwright, who can’t be nineteen years old yet, married the owner of the Candy Shop not a week after our school graduation. Her husband is at least ten years her senior, and his first wife died while on childbirth, maybe a year earlier. I was both relieved and grossed out about her choice, when I heard she toasted with him.

The realization hits me square in the gut. The reason I felt so relieved Delly Cartwright married the candy man, was because I always thought she and Peeta had an arrangement, similar to the one her brother has with Maisy Wagner. They did spend and awful lot of time together in and out of school.

Apparently this nut has been planted in me for longer than I knew. I’m afraid to find out how deep the roots go, now that I'm aware of it.

 “If I was the candy man, I’d keep my wife from getting pregnant as long as possible.” I spit curtly.

“Well, she's happy, and that’s what matters,” Says Prim snippily. “I gotta go inside, Katniss. The grocer’s wife seems to be waiting for me at the counter. See you later.”

I don’t get to respond. Prim just walks into the store leaving me alone on the sidewalk, with my nerves splitting at the ends.

The short walk to the bakery seems to take forever, while I try to bring under a sensible order my jumble of emotions and thoughts. I step into the front door of the bakery mechanically, not really paying attention to the patrons at the counter, nor the person manning the front, until I look up and find narrowed, cold eyes, that aren't Peeta’s or the baker’s.

I meet the witch’s stare with more defiance and confidence than I actually feel within me. She won't get the satisfaction of watching me shrink back one inch, no matter how terrified I truly am being face to face with her.

She turns her sight away when the next customer shuffles forward and places an order of white bread. She keeps looking up at me every so often, I'm under the impression she wants me to stay put until she's done with her costumers.

People notice me, a few of them I've traded with throughout the years and they either nod a polite but distant greeting or completely pretend they didn't see me, even though they have to walk right past me to get to the door.

At last, there's only one elderly lady I recognize as the clothier's mother, who's got to be the oldest person in the whole district, closely followed by Greasy Sae. She looks at me from head to boot, scrunches her nose at me with her half blinded blue eyes and turns to the Witch.

"You serving Seam urchins now?" She practically spits disdainfully, "Such a pity Mellark's has lowered their standards."

The Witch looks at the woman almost like she could wring out her neck and kick her out of her shop, but instead, she tells her tiredly, "That's no ordinary old Seam urchin, Mrs. Fletcher. That's the Everdeen girl," there's a note of respect in her voice as she informs the partially blind old woman who I am. "She's here to talk business with me."

I really am not. In fact, I can think of at least a dozen things I'd rather do instead of discussing business with The Witch: climbing a tree to get away from a pack of hungry wild dogs sits at the top of the list, followed by enduring the school's very invasive annual lice prevention check, and ending with having to gather my own medicinal herbs to treat rabbit fever after poisoning myself with semi raw rabbit meat.

That last one is still vivid in my mind, after all this years.

Mrs. Fletcher's head snaps in my direction, the lines of disgust covering her papery forehead smooth over slightly. Her son is one of my most loyal customers, I can see it clear as day, the moment the old hag realizes she could've cost him -and by extension, herself- a steady source of fresh meat. People in this district would make deals with Corioulanus Snow's spook itself, if it meant fresh food on the table.

"Oh, well, my apologies then, child. You shouldn't be lurking around blind people without announcing yourself." Says Mrs. Fletcher refusing to admit her fault.

"You shouldn't be going around, shaming business owners and telling them how to run their stores," I counter dryly, my voice even and cold.

Peeta chooses this moment to come out from the back through the swinging doors separating the kitchens from the storefront, carrying a heavy looking tray of freshly baked rolls. The smell of yeast and sugar perpetually present in the bakery's vicinity, intensifies, filling my nostrils and lungs, enveloping me in the mouthwatering aroma that never fails to make my knees wobble and my stomach purr with barely tamed hunger.

He notices the tension in the room and looks up at the each of us, finally realizing I'm standing right there, being the point of origin of the unease. His intense blue eyes reflect the alarm that his blank facial expression conceals.

"Katniss," he greets formally, "I see you found the samples I left at the school." His eyes zero in on the paper bag with the only cookie I was able to take from the display at school, choking to death in my fist. "I expect you come to tell me my test subjects approved of the recipe. After all, I'm planning to serve those during the festival."

I open my mouth to tell him, that yes, I'm here to talk about the cookies, but only the word "Yes," makes it out, before the witch interrupts.

"The girl and I have a conversation pending, Peeta, you go back and finish up Mayor Undersee's cake. It's supposed to be delivered as soon as it's done." She says sharply.

"Mother, miss Everdeen will only be here a second. You won't even notice her..."

"Peeta, that cake is not gonna decorate itself! I said she's here to talk with me." His mother snaps.

"I don't think she is, mother, in fact, she's just leaving, isn't she?" There's a small tremble to his voice, but his jaw hardens and his eyes command me wordlessly to turn around and leave.

I'm very tempted to obey, but I'm afraid she’ll retaliate against him for interfering between us again.

I'm not sure what possesses me to blurt out, "Mrs. Mellark is right. I'll have a word with her, and then go." The very likely scenario where red, swelling welts, bearing the shape of the witch's knuckles, popping against pale, soft skin, is what makes me stay where I am, watching the witch serve her customers.

Peeta hesitates a the edge of the counter, trying to decide what to do. I mouth to him, “I’ll be okay,” and after looking at his mother for a moment, nods slightly, and disappears behind the swinging doors.

After what feels like hours, but in reality were just a few minutes is that much, Mrs. Fletcher is finally gone, and I’m alone with Peeta’s mother.

“He’s smitten with you, you know.” She starts, her attention on the coins she's locking inside a tiny black box, while I choke on my own saliva. Her eyes snap up to mine, and sneers mockingly at me. “You didn’t know? You aren’t as bright as I thought you to be then." theres a pause where she directs me with her penetrating stare. I think she finds what she's looking for, because she continues. "Look, I know what everyone in the district thinks of me, and to be honest, I can’t care less. I’ve worked too hard to get where I am, and I’m not apologizing for it. Now, there's a misconception about my motherly instincts, that because I’m hard on my boys, I don’t love or care for them. That’s just simply not true.”

Once more, the words I want to say I have to hold back. I wouldn’t call the witch's approach as 'hard', when it's downright abusive, but for the time being I hold my tongue and listen to whatever she has to say.

“You must be aware by now, that Peeta is getting the bakery when his father retires. The boy loves the bakery, so I guess it's a good thing the responsibility is falling on him, even if it's by default.” She’s quiet for a moment, then her piercing blue eyes set on me, pinning me to the ground. “Do you have any idea how many fathers, mothers, grandparents, come to basically sell their eligible, and even underage girls, to become Peeta’s wife?” She pauses, a look of disgust and indignation settling in her thin face. “Of course, my husband turns everyone of them away. Even the two or three young widows that somehow had the nerve to slip inside the bakery to try and seduce our boy. Disgusting!” The look of anger on her face is disquieting.

“How come he’s still unattached, then? Such a sought out bachelor hasn’t been snatched up, is just fishy.” I say feeling her anger and indignation, plus a bout of jealousy and urge to puke that I can barely contain.

She laughs.

“As if I would let him marry just any of those insipid things. It'll take more than walk up to my door, offering themselves shamelessly as if they were a piece of meat, to get me to agree to hand over my son and his business.” She shakes her head, “I don't know what it was that finally made you notice him, but I know it wasn't his position. If I'm perfectly truthful, I would rather Peeta married you, than any of those cupcakes hanging around my shop.”

I wrinkle my face. “Why?” I ask raspily, “I’m nothing but a Seam Rat, and you hate my kind. Plus he really isn’t as smitten with me as you think, is not possible. He’s just a very decent person, who wants to help his district.”

She chuckles again. I see small streaks of Peeta in the way she laughs, even though it lacks his warmth and softness.

“Don’t be stupid, girl. I don’t hate you. I’m just cautions of you. You have no idea the effect you have on people, and apparently you have no clue about the way half the boys in this district look at you. But that's hardly your best attribute. You are the only person in this heaven-forgotten hole with a backbone and the skill to survive anything.”

“Is that what you wanted to tell me? That I’m a survivor who won't be killed as easily?” I ask her narrowing my eyes.

“No. I wanted to call a truce between us. I can’t afford having you as my enemy. My family and my business need you to stay afloat. My son needs a friend who will hardened him for the future, and that’s where you come in.”

“He will be seen in town talking to me openly. What will that do to your business with the old merchant wives?” I pose, in a way nastier tone than I wish.

“Haven’t I told you already? I don’t care what people thinks. It's not like they can buy bread anywhere else.”

"Baguette!" Peeta offers me a parcel with a long, skinny loaf inside, falling into step with me.

His curly hair is windswept, puffs of damp fog come out of his mouth while he tries to catch his breath, and his cheeks are rosy with the exertion it took him to run after me when I left the bakery

I take it gingerly, unable to resist the intoxicating aroma of the bread.

"I figure this kind will go great with some of your sister’s goat cheese, or even a little drizzle of oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper... if you have any to spare that is." He shrugs and looks ahead.

"Mmm, thanks. I think I'll try with both if I can. I never thought of using oil, salt and pepper on bread," I tell him cradling the loaf against my ribs. It's warm, but not as hot as the bread he gave when we were children.

"Yeah, well... one has to get creative when all you've got to eat is stale bread."

I turn to study him, but his eyes are looking up ahead, not meeting mine.

"Stale?" I ask more harshly than I intended. "What do mean by that?"

"I mean exactly what I said, Katniss." He finally tears his eyes from the road to stare at me in annoyance, "Look, whatever my mother said to you, I'm sorry. It's my mother were talking about here, not some sweet, misguided Capitol liaison that thinks everything will get fixed in the districts with a night of music and some free cookies. So, please… don’t let anything she said to you come between our friendship.”

“Are we friends, Peeta?” I ask pointedly. “Your mother thinks it’ll hardened you to be around me, whatever that means. But just so we're clear, I’m not some charity case, and neither are the school children. People will get the wrong idea about the wealthy baker if you keep giving bread away like that. They'll get used to expect free food from you. I don't think you know what you’re getting yourself into, Peeta. You gotta stop.” I tell him sternly, but his eyes flash with a fire I’ve never seen before in the blue depths.

"I know everyone is under the impression, that growing up as the baker's son, gave me free access to infinite stores of food. The reality is, I live in district twelve, and just as anyone here, I eat once a day- two if we are very careful with our rations- and most everything we take from the bakery is stale stuff that didn't sell for too long.

"Sometimes the only fresh food we get, are your squirrels, so thank you for doing business with us, you have no idea how much your squirrels have helped in the past. Just like anyone else in the district, we go hungry some days, especially since father started the 'day old' sales to help the less fortunate, that means we have less stale food to look up for, but father is right, we need to help those who are in a worse position than us, because watching someone die in front of your very eyes 'cause they didn't have a morsel to eat is not an option anymore, Katniss.

"So, you can stop telling me I'm not allowed to bring free cookies to a group of district children, just because somehow you think they'll take it the wrong way. And for pete's sake will you please stop believing the worst of me? I'm not about to ask any payment in return. The cookies were a gift, just as much as the baguette I just gave you is a gift. You may either take or leave it, and I do not want anything from you, not even your gratitude, I just can’t stomach watching death lurking around your head while you sit unmoving, pale as a ghost and staring with blank eyes so sunk into your skull, you look more dead than alive. Once of that is enough!"

His cheeks, nose and ears are so red, I wonder if it is frostbite or anger that had color his skin so brightly. I'm leaning towards the latter. I stare at him impassively, although deep inside my chest there's a tornado of emotions, threatening to choke me into tears, but I can see what his mother meant about needing me to hardened him up... just not the way she might have planned. He needs to see that I’m fine, that he did help me, but he has to let everyone find their own means to survive. Everyone can do it, with the right tools.

"You done?" I droll easily, cocking my head to the side.

The question seems to catch him by surprise. "Well, yes. I've said my peace."

"Good!" I say nodding at him and picking up the pace. "Now that you got it off your chest, then we can get out if this awful wind, and try that salty oil thing. I'm sure Prim will be home momentarily, and I can ask about the cheese. I'm not sure if she's got any,"

I realize his heavy footfalls have stop, so I turn around, wondering what's the hold up, but he's just standing there, staring at me as if I've sprouted a second head. I don't think he knows what to make of my response, and I feel my lips curl up of their own volition.

"Well, are you coming or not? I thought you said you wanted to be friends, didn't you?"

It takes him a second to spur himself out of his bafflement, but he finally stares at the ground shaking his head ruefully, before taking a gigantic step towards me.

"Lead the way... Friend,"

There's a buzzing energy everywhere I look, both in the Seam and in town, the cheery mood is contagious, growing every way, making people forget of the dreary, nasty weather, or the disgusting gray snow melting under the heavy boots of working man. I can’t help to think that it’ll freeze overnight and become slick and dangerous the next day. Prim calls me a stubborn pessimist, but I think of myself as a realist, keeping everything under perspective. When the Festival is done and over, and life goes back to a daily struggle to keep our bellies relatively full, I’d be the only one not disappointed by the return of reality.

My heart speeds up when I see Peeta leaning on a tree trunk, waiting for me at the entrance of the school.

“Morning friend!” He greets by handing me a bag.

I huff at him, but still tear the proffered package off his hands without much cajoling. What’s the point of refusing him for twenty minutes, if he's going to wear me down in the end, and by the time I sink my teeth into whatever bread he's brought me today, it’s going to be cold.

“Thank you,” I mutter.

The bag is filled with three rolls, heavily slathered with some sugary icing and the unmistakable scent of cinnamon tickling my nose.

“Those used to be your mother’s favorites.” he says while I bring one roll out of the bag to inspect closer to my nose.

“Cinnamon rolls?” I can’t help the little moan that escapes my mouth.

He smiles widely, “You know them? Good!” he says satisfied.

I look at him sharply. “That I know this are my mother’s favorites, is not surprising.” I snap, “That you know, on the other hand…” I stuff the treat back in the bag roughly and twist the mouth for good measure.

His smile falls. “I can’t do anything right, can I?” He murmurs dejectedly. He sighs tensing his jaw. “I came to tell you that practices are gonna be held at the square today. The children already know, and the school already knows, they have chaperones and whatnot ready to walk them over there and back, but Hawkins didn’t have time to call for you, so I told them I'd relay the message. If I hadn’t been waiting for the rolls to be done, I would have come straight to your house and catch you before you left. I’m such an idiot. Of course you would’ve rather known to go to the square before leaving the house, instead of walking all the way here. I'm sorry.”

I feel like I just kicked a little kid on the shin. I take a deep breath when he starts to walk past me.

“Peeta,” I call tiredly.

He slows down to give me a chance to talk.

“Walk me to town?” I offer.

“I’m going there. You can tag along if that’s what you want.” I can’t tell if he’s angry or just defeated.

“Look. I’m a lousy friend. I don’t know how to be one, okay. I’m not trying to make you feel bad or anything, is just that sometimes, I don’t know how to handle your gifts. They're too much, or too meaningful. I can't help being defensive, specially when I have no idea how you could possibly know these details about me or my mother, or my family… I mean, you offered Prim stale bread for her goat the other day, after you told me that’s what you eat. You'll give my sister’s goat your own food! How am I supposed to handle that?”

“You are not supposed to handle it, Katniss. You're only supposed to eat it, or use it.” We remain quiet for a long while, then he says, “I know about your mother’s partiality to cinnamon rolls, because your father used to trade for them on every special occasion they had. My father knew as well, so he always had a fresh batch waiting for your father during those days. Sometimes, Father tried to give the rolls to him free, but you and your father are very much alike. You won't take anything without a fair trade.”

I peer up at him. “How do you do that?” I ask him quietly. “You have a remarkable memory,” I say trying to hide my awe.

“I don’t.” he says staring at his hand-me-down boots. “I just remember everything about you.” He takes a long stride, leaving me almost two paces behind him.

I’m a bit confused about his statement, and I pick up my pace to ask him what does he mean, but, he points his finger out to the square.

“Look,” there's a group of New Panem soldiers moving big crates, making a mock stage smack in the middle of the town square.

The sight makes me freeze, rooted to the cobblestones of the street. I feel an uncontrollable fear unfurl in the pit of my stomach, and then my hands turn clammy. I start to panick. The sun is in my eyes, and I feel blinded. I step backwards, my breathing coming in short painful bursts. I can’t even blink, "No..." I gasp fighting off tears, and then warmth is all I feel, surrounding me and shielding me from the dangers of my memory.

“You’re okay, you’re okay. It’s not what you think, I swear. You’re safe, Prim’s safe, every kid in the country is safe now. I promise.”

“How do you know?” I sob into the solid chest that cradles my head firmly. The steady tattoo of a strong heartbeat the only thing anchoring me to sanity. For a moment I believe it’s my father hugging me, but the faint smell of cinnamon and dill tells my brain otherwise.

“Just listen to them talk,” the rumble of a deep, manly voice whispers into my hair. “All they can talk about is preparations for the Yule Festival. Just listen close, and you'll see. They just said something about fresh vanilla ice cream and apple fritters. Those are foods, Katniss. Treats. They wouldn't be fussing about treats if it was... you know...” I hear the trembling in his voice too. He can't say the word Reaping, and I know exactly what he feels, yet, he's protecting me despite his own fear.

I finally calm down long enough to hear the people talking around. Is true, one person is loudly complaining that the box of holly arrived smashed, and all the berries got trampled when it was unloaded from the train.

“People shouldn't eat holly plants,” I say rolling my eyes, sounding like a brat.

Peeta pulls me away from him, laughing merrily at my retort. The shock of being pulled apart from his warmth has me visibly shivering, so he pulls me back into his thick, strong arms.

He's still chuckling, “Even I know those are for decoration Katniss, and my mother isn't a Healer.” He rubs warmth back into my arms and back, but I refuse to step away from him, until I have no more excuses to stay in his embrace.

“Well, It’s still dumb to be sorry about a bunch of evergreens that grow wild in the woods. All they need to do is go out there and cart some back in.” I say wiping my face harshly with end of my under shirt’s sleeve.

“Then let's go tell them, shall we?”

We approach the group, and I spot Hawkins at the other end of the line of colorful individuals carrying clipboards around, checking manifestos stuck to crates and boxes, looking more flustered than I’ve ever seen a capitolite before.

We make a beeline towards him since he's the only one we recognize, and as soon as he spots me walking toward him, he squeals loudly, grating my already splintering nerves.

“Katniss! My joy and salvation! So glad to see you child! I just sent word to the school headmaster, announcing choir practice is cancelled today, since we have to straighten out this mess before we can even think to rehearse on the mock stage.” His usually slicked combed hair stands on point in every direction, and his eyes are so wide and red rimmed he looks a little insane. “Honestly, this is a major disaster, part of our decor got smushed when the careless idiots moving the cargo, put the fragile box containing live plants at the bottom of the pile, and sat the very heavy pieces of the stage on the top. Everything collapse. It was a gruesome scene if you, like me, are lover of greenery,”

“Sounds terrible,” Interjects Peeta with that same tone he used on Al a couple of weeks ago when the whole girlfriend deal was being discussed.

I chance a glance at him, and sure enough, there's is that mischievous glint in his bright blue eyes, even though his forehead is creased in consternation and empathy.

“You know what, mister Hawkins,” Peeta continues pensively, “I think miss Katniss here, might be of great help. You see, she knows of a very special crop of wild holly plants at the edge of the woods, that might be just what you need!”

“Oh! Tell me mister Mellark is right, dear!” Hawkins covers his mouth with both hands.

“Of course. I can find the plants, then we can harvest the best looking ones.” Then, just because I'm not sure i can trust his judgment, I add, “Make sure no one eats the berries. They can make you terribly sick.” I tell him delicately.

Then, to add to his image of mental instability, he starts cackling loudly. “Oh my dear girl! Everyone knows the amazing properties of holly berry extract!” He tells me wiping off a tear of laughter. “Why the extra was the basis for Hollypecac.” He sighs as if remembering something fondly. “Those were the days!” he says dreamily, “If you went to a high society party, they had tiny flutes with sparkling hollypecac. If you got too full, all you needed to do was drink a small sip of the magic pink fluid, and voila! Empty stomach to start all over again!”

“You mean to say, you drank the infusion of holly juice, to purposely get sick, so you could keep eating?” Peeta’s voice is a pleasant as ever, soft and deep and smooth as honey, but the happy glint filling his eyes a second ago, has been replaced by a fire and rage that scares me a little.

“Well, how else do you expect people to had enjoyed those parties if not?” asks Hawkins combing his hair back. When he finally looks up to give Peeta a lopsided smile, he shrinks a little. “Of course, nowadays we know how wrong it was of the high society to just simply gorge themselves until they had to puke to keep on eating. Very wasteful.” he tells us uneasily. “Well, if you excuse me. I believe I should be letting our programming director, Fluvia Cardew, that miss Everdeen, might be able to help us replace the holly plants. Toodles!”

Peeta and I stand there for a minute, him seething, taking very deep breaths of air, to calm his anger no doubt. Me, I’m here to give him some moral support, I guess; at the moment I’m a little shell-shocked to feel anything about the exchange, but I'm sure I'll be as angry and indignant as Peeta when the shock passes.

“You think, that this people could actually be alright--”

“Come on, Peeta. I’ll walk with you to the bakery.” I take hold of his forearm, and pull him him away of the plaza. he puts up no resistance.

"Thanks. I almost let my temper get the best of me back there," he says still serious, but with a much calmer demeanor.

I don't see how today could've been any worse, but one thing I'm very glad to have witness in all this awful moment: The witch is wrong, Peeta doesn't need me to hardened him up, I need him to learn about strength of character.

Chapter Text

The Yule Festival is in three weeks time, and the people in the district is finally starting to show more interest in the event. A train full of supplies dispatched from the Capitol arrived yesterday evening, bearing all kinds of goods, from a sack of mail from the sons and daughters who joined the army months ago, finally sending word to their loved ones, to especial supplies for the shops in charge of making the food to be served, and more crates with parts to build the stage and decorations, but the most interesting thing the train brought, were passengers. Capitol passengers.

No-one in the district has actually seen them in person, but all kinds of rumors about them and their extravagant appearances have been flying back and forth in every social circle there is. Personally, I can’t seem to care what they look like or what they were sent here for, as long as I don't have to deal with any of them, I truly feel no curiosity, whatsoever.

Meanwhile, I don't make any effort on finding the holly plants Hawkins was so upset about. He's only ask once, and quickly left me to start practice with the children, still embarrassed after blabbing about the despicable practices of the capitolites during Snow's reign of terror. I don't think Hawkins is in any rush to strike any more conversations with me, which is great, really. I don't have to pretend to like him.

They decided to hold of full rehearsal until the actual stage gets built and ready. Apparently decorations are of the outmost importance for this event. I'm rolling my eyes even thinking about it. 

But today Sunday, and is hunting day. So I clear off my mind of all the useless, ridiculous frivolity, and make my way to the edge of the district. Where a fence use to stand, seldom live with electricity, now we can find whole sections of the wire gone, leaving behind gaping holes in what was supposed to be our last defense against hungry, feral, wild animals.

I can't wait to cross over the base of the fence that still remains, and into my beloved woods. It feels like it's been ages since I've been out here, when in reality it's only been two days. There's no real reason to venture too far in when everything is snowed in, and most animals are hibernating or hiding away.

The hunger isn't as pressing a burden anymore either, since I get a paycheck every Friday, that can cash out at the tiny bank that operates off the Justice Building. It's strange to be carrying actual currency in my pockets, but it's nice to place a coin or two onto Prim's palm, and tell her she can do the grocery shopping for the week, as long as she keeps good track of her money. 

I reach my log, where I used to store my bows when it was illegal to have them with me in the district. It's empty now. I had to move the bows to a different location since two teenagers saw me storing it once, and I was afraid they'd try to take them from me. Those are the only bows I knew about when my father died, I'm not about to let some punks take them.

My father left other bows hidden around the woods, I just have no idea where, not to mention he had spiles he used to collect maple sap to make into syrup, knives of every size, and hoards of arrows in their quivers, that I doubt I'll ever see again. This line of thinking is depressing me. 

I step over the log, and walk a few paces until I find a tree in a clear, crooked and gnarled limbed. Looking all around me, making sure there's nobody to see me, I stick my hand through a hole above one tall branch, and pull my weapon and ammo. 

Slinging the bow around my back, feels like coming home, like safety, like purpose. 

"Alright critters... What's for dinner?" And with that, I'm the huntress that rule this woods.

“Aw! Fluvia! Tinsel! Beautiful, shiny tinsel!” Cries out mister Hawkins prying open a box, fanning at his eyes with both hands, looking like an overgrown hummingbird trying to escape a praying mantis.

“Ugh! Hawkins isn't lying,” says Peeta shading his eyes with one hand while devilish smirk widens on his face. “Whatever tinsel is, the stuff is not only shiny, is blinding.” He points a finger, when Hawkins pulls out a very long bundle of metallic strings, that glitter with the reflection of every speck of light that fall onto it.

"What is he gonna do with it?" I wonder aloud. 

"Don't know... make a new wig?" We both laugh hard, and every time we look at each other, a new peel of laughter falls unbiden from our gasping mouths. 

"Peeta! My sewing circle begins in twenty minutes! Your break is over!" Screeches the witch from the kitchen. 

Peeta sighs deeply. "Alright, Mother. I'll be here, I think there's nothing in the oven, but I'll check just to make sure." He says pushing off the wall we were leaning on, while people watching from the bakery's front entrance, like a pair a vagrants. 

I finished my trades early, leaving the bakery for last, because although I still deal with the baker himself, I like to speak to Peeta before going home. It's become a sort of ritual between us, and find it actually grounding, to have a routine of sorts with a friend again. It's nice. 

"You don't have to go after she does," he says quietly, as if sharing a secret. 

"Okay," I tell him in the same conspiratory tone. "But I don't want to be yelled at for distracting you, while you should be doing your job," I smirk at him.

He rolls his eyes, "Work while being distracted by your presence is something I'm a pro at. Come on in. She's gotta see me at least pretend I'm solicitously coming to work," 

I follow right behind him, with the irrational urge to apologize about distracting him while he worked, except, I can't think of a time when that actually happened, and while I'm racking my brain for a memory of me interrupting his shift, he asks.

"How were the woods?"

I look up expecting to see the back of his head, and messy ashy blond hair, that's in desperate need of a snippet, since the long tips curl at the nape of his neck, instead, I collide face first with a hard, fleshy wall, that oddly smells like bakery, and feels warm to the touch. 

"Uh... Sorry?" I mutter idiotically.

"Oh, no! I'm so sorry!" He exclaims almost at the same time.

We look at each other for a good five seconds, and start laughing in unison. When we finally calm down, I tell him, coming to lean on the counter he now rounds to stand behind. 

"My excursion into the woods yesterday, was in fact very lucrative." I say happily.

"Do tell!" He says picking up a rag and bucket of water from a corner, and wiping down the surface of the counter.

"I fell two turkeys with one shot!"

His eyes snap up at me, "That's... Impressive! Amazing even! Wow, congratulations, Katniss, I'm proud of you and your hunting prowess!"

I laugh loudly, "It was an accident, mind you. I'm alright, but I'm not that good."

"What?" He snorts in disbelief. "You're better than alright! My dad used to boast about what perfect shot you were, getting the squirrels right through the eye, nothing got spoiled by your perfect shot, and he'd go on and on about how amazing you were as a hunter." He smiles sideways, the memory fond in his mind. "I used to get jealous, that he could say all those nice things about you openly at our table, and I couldn't even say hello to you. Then, I thought it was unfair that you never heard what father had to say about you and your skills. You deserved to know how admired you were," 

"Peeta," I say quietly, "You're telling me now. Thank you," I say humbly, "I'm not that special, but I feel like I am, when you say such nice things about me."

"You deserve to hear that and more." His eyes are intense on me, "Sorry I haven't said more, more often,"

I smile shyly, my cheeks warming up for reasons I can't understand.

"Don't be. I wouldn't have known what to do with your compliments before. Knowing me, I would've felt offend, thinking you meant something bad, and I would've have to go retrieve my bow from the woods and shoot you, or at the very least, I would've had to punch in the nose."

He chuckles at that.

"As long as you are honest, and you accept my compliments,"

"I'm learning, to be a friend that is. For you,"

"Good!" He says, "I'm learning to be more assertive, and brave... for you," 

We smile at each other.

"I guess it's a good thing you were so stubborn, pursuing this friendship thing. We seem to work pretty well together," I tell him feeling very shy.

"Yeah, we are kind of a great team, I reckon."

The next day, it's like an explosion was detonated in the town square, where the shrapnel was tinsel, and now the glimmering debris covered the whole main road of District Twelve.

As it turns out, tinsel was popular decorative item from many years ago, when Panem was known as the United States, and recently rediscovered in the Capitol, where is now all the rage. 

Mister Hawkins goes on and on about how in the Golden Days the stuff was traditionally used for their own kind of winter celebration, something they called Christmas, and how it was originally made out of thin, polished strips of shredded metals, to mimic the sparkle of icicles. Then he proceeds to drone about how the use of new materials like vinyl and mylar, have greatly improved the shiny quality of the tinsel, making it inexpensive and pretty and colorful... I think I'll need a bath and shot of Ripper's white liquor to forget this day!

I'm not sure how I got through the day listening to Hawkins gushing about garlands of tinsel, and how much he had always wanted to put his hands on some, and how fitting they will work as background to our number, glittering on the stage like twinkling stars! Is a miracle I did shut him up by putting my knee to his gut. I deserve my own medal and tinsel garland for not killing the man during practice, I think the whole choir would've cheered.

"Ugh! Not you too!" I cry out when Peeta and Prim stand just outside the playground sparkling like a walking beacon on annoying light.

Peeta is wearing his around his necks like a scarf, while Prim's is draped around her shoulders like a shawl. They both sport matching grins.

"I saw you with mister Hawkins at practice. I was a little worried your eyes would stay stuck in mid roll, for doing it so much," says Prim.

"Then I came over to drop off some slices of cinnamon and raisin bread for the children, and saw they had some leftover tinsel just laying around," chips Peeta in.

"We couldn't let it to waste! We know how much you abhore waste!" Pipes Prim up.

"So, naturally, we put it to good use. It's not a wig, but you could never go wrong..." He approaches me, unfurling a strand of shiny material, "with a little," he hands Prim one end of the tinsel, "sparkle," the both of them criss-cross around me, wrapping me in the stuff. 

"There." Whispers Prim mischievously, "You look so pretty! Wait until mister Hawkins sees you!" She giggles. 

"Oh no! She's doing it again!" Peeta cries out when I start to roll my eyes.

They both laugh, and I just walk alone, trying to keep a scowl on my face, but is no good. I'm smiling, and I really don't want to stop.

Chapter Text

Prim is out of bed earlier than me, humming happily as she washes up in the bathroom and gets ready for whatever chores she's got today.

I don't know what has her in such high spirits, but her joy is enough incentive to tear me out of the warmth of my bed. In one swift motion I kick my covers off and land on the frigidly cold floor barefooted and growling my sudden discomfort.

Coming out if my room already dressed for the day, Mother hands me a steaming mug of herbal tea, and tells me she’ll be home all day unless she’s called away. Prim on the other hand wolfs down our last piece of salted fish, and barely has swallowed down her bite, when she's grabbing for her coat.

“Whoa. Wait! Where are you going so fast? It’s only saturday, Little Duck.”

“Gotta feed Lady, and then gotta go to town. Delly’s husband, got ingredients yesterday from the Capitol to make this peppermint candy, named Candy Canes!” She says excitedly, “He promised me I could help, or at the very least watch while he’s making it!”

“Okay,” I say unsure of it, but then something piques my curiosity. “What are you feeding Lady with? You were worried sick about not having enough slop from the grocer the other day to last you until today, and now you are feeding her?”

“Oh.” She stops and looks sheepishly around our shack of a house.

My eyes follow hers until they stop on a small burlap sack half hidden behind her bookbag on one corner of the living room.

“Prim? What is that and where did you get it?” I ask tersely. I'd recognize those sacks anywhere, and they didn't come from the grocer’s.

“Alright, don't be angry. I made a very good trade,” she starts putting her hands up in a conciliatory gesture. “It’s hard, almost moldy bread butts. Nobody wanted it for bread crumbs. I got them for pint of milk twice a month. It's a really great deal! The bread should keep longer than scraps from the grocery store, and it complements and balances Lady’s diet quite nicely, too!

“Lady’s a goat! She has no diet!” I scream, “Who was the one doing this foolish deal with you? Peeta or his father? I swear, they will go broke if they keep making deals with you! And two pints? How is that even fair?”

“It was Peeta, and I did offered him a kitty, to help him with their mice problem.”

“A kitty? Where on earth will you find the Mellarks a kitty?”

“I have a cat you know,” She glares at me. “Buttercup has a girlfriend.” she tells me shrugging, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, “Peeta is such a nice man! He asked me about you and mother and Lady as well, and when he heard about my troubles finding enough feed, he offered the deal. He said that if I could find him a cat--"

“Okay, so Peeta, wants a cat and somehow you’re breeding Buttercup to give him one?.” I sigh defeatedly. “I gotta go. My head hurts. Please, don’t go near the bakery on your own. I need to protect those generous oafs from your cuteness.”

It’s late evening when I return home.

Peeta sits on the stoop leading up to my shabby porch, looking utterly out of place in the dark, muddy background of the Seam.

"I brought Lady some bread!" He tells me before I’m in front of him. "Prim just tossed it around her pen, I think she’s in some kind of teenager mood." He says nudging the toe of his booth around the freshly fallen snow on the dirt path. "She gave me a piece of whatever she made at Delly's today," he says handing me a stick of red and white swirls.

"There was some kind of falling out between her and Saul. It's weird they're friends. I mean, she's brilliant and all, but Saul is such a boisterous person," he says stretching his legs in front of him.

"It sounds like you don't approve of their friendship," I say arching an eyebrow. 

"No... I think Saul is great, we grew up playing together, I just don't know if he's the best influence for Prim... He keeps telling her stories about her grand parents, what's Prim supposed to think?"

"Grandparents?" I ask harshly.

"You know... The Johnsons. They're looking for an apprentice right now, Saul keeps telling Prim that should be her." He stalls, "He isn't wrong. The Apothecary should go to your mother, and then to you and Prim, but that's never gonna happen if mister Johnson doesn't do the right thing. I just think is wrong to put those thoughts into Prim's head, when she should be thinking about going into one of those University programs the Capitol will start offering next year. I believe she could be a full fledge doctor if that's what she wanted,"

I don't know what to say about that. I've never considered the Johnsons my family. To think of them as relatives, let alone my grandparents has never been an option. I would never be able to trade one more medicinal sprig or root with them if I saw them as the family that turned their backs on us while we were starving. To me, the apothecary and his wife, are strangers I just happen to share blood ties with. 

Mrs. Johnson has always treated me sweetly, generously and with a little too much interest than any other merchant has shown- except for Peeta, of course- for my family. Her husband has always been fair in his trades, not very talkative. He gave me free cough medicine for Prim once, and sprayed antibiotics on a cut I got on the elbow, crawling under wire fence one summer. It's possibly the only two times I haven't argue with a merchant about getting squared with repayment. 

I guess deep down, I took it as reparations for his abandonment when we needed him the most. 

"I had no idea the apothecary were looking for a pupil. You're right. The Cartwright boy shouldn't be filling Prim's head with false hopes and impossible ideas."

"I see his argument though." Peeta says. 

"What good does that do to any of us?" 

"None! It doesn't change the fact, that this social separation isn't fair at all."

"It's the people's fault. They could change it if they wanted to," I shrug.

"I want to," he says staring at me intensely.

"You must be the only one, Mellark." 

"Not true, there are the Cartwrights, candy man as well, that's the reason Delly married him, because he shared her same values."

"Good for her," 

"You sound judgmental, Katniss."

"I do not!"

"Yes you do! You just said--"    

"What kind of bread did Lady get today?" I cut him off feeling a lump forming in my throat. I really don't want to keep talking about all this depressing topics, and apparently neither does him, because he humuors me right away.

"It was just half a stale loaf of rye. Nothing fancy."

He stands and puts his hands in his pockets, dejection seeping out of him. Since my talk with Mrs. Mellark, I think my senses have sharpened, recognizing Peeta's moods, the problem is that I'm completely useless when it comes to conversations. I wouldn't know where to start, let alone know how to cheer him up, specially when I'm feeling a little aggravated myself.

Still, I try.

"So, your parents named your brother after a grain," I roll my eyes inwardly. What an idiotic thing to say, but he lifts his eyes to me and smiles crookedly.

"Rye and Barley? Yeah," he chuckles a little. "Both of them, actually."

"Your folks run out of ideas with you?" I smirk and sit on the step he just left.

He laughs sounding a bit more like himself.

"Hardly." He takes the sit next to mine. "But nobody in District Twelve eats pita bread, so no one has ever made the connection." He winks at me with a sideways smile on his lips.

My heart stops for a fraction of a moment, then stammers back to life, running a mile a second. Sweet, handsome, vulnerable Peeta is dangerous to be around, so much that my first instinct, is to sidle up closer to him, instead of run for the hills.

"I wonder what do I have to trade the baker for, to get one of those breads?" My voice comes out so soft and low, it can be officially filed under 'whisper'.

"You don't have to trade anything. Only say that's what you want, and you shall have it."

"So generous of you to offer, but that's no way to run a business, mister Mellark. You'll be broke and out in the streets in a matter of days." I chide him. "By the way, you're forbidden to make any new deals with Prim unless there's a responsible haggler around. You and your father keep ripping yourselves off!" 

He smiles. "Can't help it. It's the Everdeen charm I think." He pulls the candy stick from my fingers. "May I?" 

"Go ahead, I'm not much for sweets."

"Hmm..." He chews and sucks on the stick for a moment and finally breaks a piece. "You should really try this one though. It's good!" 

I take it gingerly, and pop it into my mouth. It really is pretty good. I've never had anything like it: sweet and minty at the same time, hard but sticky, and makes your mouth all watery the longer you suck on it.

I giggle.

His face stays lights up for a moment. They way he looks at me, is as if he's seeing me for the first time in his life, and he can't believe his eyes.

"You should... make that sound more often," he tells me while his eyes dance between mine. 

Then, slowly, he looks at the ground. I spy out of the corner of my eye, a sad smile forming on his mouth. Then suddenly he's looking at me, the same sad smile still etched on his features.

"I heard your good news this afternoon," he says gently.

I frown and look at him, confused, "What news is that?" I ask half curiously and half wearily.

"About Gale coming home for the festival," he says quirking his head to the side to look at me better.

"He is? I had no idea." I tell him sharply.

It's true, I haven't heard anything about it, and the prospect of seeing Gale makes my guts churn uncomfortably.

"You really didn't know?" He asks a little confused himself, "Rory wouldn't shut up about the letter his mother got this morning announcing his arrival. He traded with my father, which made the transaction entirely too long, since Father was eager to know if every soldier was being dispatched home, or just a few. I think the kid missed some of his stops for the day.”

I scratch my forehead, not really wanting to think about it.

“Well, I hope your father hears from Rye soon.” I say.

“Yeah.” He agrees softly.

There’s silence between us for a while, then he asks, “How come you are not more excited about seeing your fiancé?” His voice trembles and I doubt is because of the lazy falling snow.

“He's not my fiancé,” I want to spit it out like a curse, but sounds vulnerable and hurt.

“How… uh, I thought--”

“He asked, I said yes. Then a few weeks later I told him I didn't want to have children, not when Panem is still such a terrible place to live in, with never enough food, a always the threat of disease and starvation. He got angry, then he  joined the army, because that way he would have a hand in shaping the country his future children were going to live in, when I refused to go with him, and stated my mistrust in the new government, he got angry, called me a coward, and sell out, he told me I could do so much good out there, but I rather starve in the safety of Twelve, and if that was the case, he didn't want me for his kids' mother. The jerk!"

To be honest, I'm not sure what hurt more, to hear him call me all thouse awful accusations, or the fact that he told me to my face he found me unworthy of his hipotetic children. I wipe harshly at my eyes, and continue.

"I have no interest on going away from my home, where my family needs me. Not to learn how to wield weapons that will end human lives. I hate blood and violence. I told him as much, he didn’t like my answer, said he was disappointed in me. I told him the feeling was mutual. He left a week later without saying goodbye.” I take shuddering breath, and hiss, "Good riddance. I'm better off."

“So, you officially break up the engagement?” he asks a little choked up. “I mean, he won't  come back and believe you‘re still his--”

“I wholeheartedly hope he doesn’t even think I’ve been waiting around for his return, because I haven’t.”

“Alright, but what if--”

“What if you choose a wife yourself, Peeta?” I growl angrily. “Maybe you wouldn’t be so nosy about my lack of love life!”

The shock of my reaction is reflected in his face, as if I punched him in the mouth of the stomach. Im humiliated, so I push my head between my knees for a second and breathe heavily through mouth, shielding myself with my arms like a cocoon.

“Katniss, everything okay?” says my mother peeking out the door. Her eyes flitting between me and Peeta’s impassive face.

“I’m fine, Mother. Just got overexcited about something we're discussing. Go back inside, it's cold and you are already in your night clothes. I’ll be in soon.”

She nods, giving us another quick glance, before stepping back inside.

“I’m sorry,” I start covering my mouth with my hand.

“No. you are right.” He says softly. “I shouldn't have push you. I'm sorry I made you feel uncomfortable. But I will answer your question anyway.”

I look at him, because I can’t think of what did I asked him in my irrational mindset.

“My father was in love with a friend of his in school. She was one year younger than him, but they had known each other forever. Then the second quarter quell happened, that's the year Haymitch Abernathy was victor, and this girl lost her best friend to the games. My father says she became secluded, sad, skittish. He still wanted to marry her, so he proposed. She told him she had to think about it. But then she met this miner, a man who made her smile again. The day she turned eighteen, and was officially out of the reaping ball forever, she ran off with the miner, leaving my father heartbroken.”

“That’s awful!” I say indignantly on behalf of poor mister Mellark, who didn't deserved to be ditched that way.

Peeta only smiles softly. “No,” he corrects gently, like a teacher, patiently showing a student the right answer, “It was brave.” He says warmly.

“How can you say that? There’s nothing worse than heartache.” I tell him eyeing him sideways with a huge scowl on my face. "She dumped him and stomp on his heart!"

He laughs softly. “Oh, Katniss. Don’t feel sorry for my father,” he says, “He loved this girl so much, that he knew he couldn't begrudge her freedom and happiness. He wished her the best, and for what I know, she had the best until the very last minute. She had this amazing family, daughters that whether she had stayed with my father, would've never happened. She did the right thing marrying for love and not for loyalty or gratefulness, or even worse, because she was made to marry my father. So I decided, I wanted to take a page out of her book, and be brave. I’m willing to face social divide, bigotry and intolerance, if that's what takes to convince the girl I like I'm serious about her. Whether she decides she wants babies or not in the future, is up to her. I'd be happy to just be allowed to hold her hand in public any time I want to.”

“So… you would marry a girl that would never want to have children?" I ask him skeptically.

"Yeah. Children would be wonderful, but I see your logic in this not being an ideal place to bring an innocent child. I would just always be curious if they would look merchant or Seam," He says nonchalantly.

"You like a girl from the Seam, then?” I ask him before I can stop myself. I really don't want to know, I’m afraid what his answer will do to my heart.

He smiles sadly, “No, I don’t like a girl from the Seam. I love her. It’s just taking me a bit too long to gather my courage to tell her,”

“Um, well… hopefully, she isn’t an idiot, like your dad’s girl was.”

That makes him laugh fully and merrily. “Believe me, Katniss. That woman is no idiot. But I hope you’re sentiment comes through anyways.” He stands, “I should go. I left some cinnamon buns inside for your mother, and a little something for you too. Good night, Katniss.”

“Goodnight, Peeta.” I say lifting from the stoop, "Thank you for sharing your minty cane,"

"Candy Cane!" He says, "They will have tons of it at the festival!" 

When I get inside, my mother is half seating on the armrest of our couch, and half leaning on it, absently twirling one of those candy canes in her fingers, only her's looks like a hook on top instead of a straight stick like the one I shared with Peeta was... 'Cane', it finally makes sense. The candy is shaped like a walking stick.

Mother's gaze comes into focus, landing on me. Her face takes this strange look I can't describe, and for the first time in ages, I feel pinned down on the spot by her bright blue eyes. She only stares at me, not really saying anything, while her eyes roam over my face as if she's trying to find some hidden secret.

“Did I tell you that when I was married to your father, it took me a few years to come to the decision of having you?” Her words strike me as odd and unsettling. “I was scared of the life you would have being the child of a miner and former merchant. I feared people would treat you badly on both sides, but your father wanted you so badly. I couldn't resist giving in, because deep down, I craved you as well, like nothing in this earth.

"You are so brave and strong. I love you more than anything. A day hasn't gone by I regret having you. Not one single day." She breathes deeply, her eyes filling up with unshed tears, but still clear and present. 

"There's a plant in the woods you father would bring to me every week. I drank the brew to keep me from conceiving. I could've gone all through my marriage drinking the tea, but then there would have been nothing left of your father if I hadn’t let go of my fears: of having you ripped out of my life, of you resenting me for our situation, which I know, actually did happen, and I'm so sorry, Katniss. I'm sorry I failed you. But I'm glad I gave birth to you.

"Prim I had because seeing the way your father looked at you, made me love him even more. I had no idea how in love I was with him, until I heard him singing lullabies to you in the middle of the night. Another child would only just add more love to our small family. I was right. You and your sister are the best thing to happened to me and your father. I’m sorry if I’ve ever made you doubt that.”

Mother takes a long breath, then closes her eyes. Her voice is soft when she tells me, “You know the plant, Katniss. You know how to make the brew. It's all in the plant book," Her eyes open and leave me breathless. “When you feel the time is right, you can stop drinking it too.” then she turns her back on me, and walk straight into her bedroom.

I’m laying in bed, still trying to digest everything I heard in the last two hours, and that’s when it hits me.

In all my years growing up, ever since I can remember, there has only been a handful of merchants come live in the Seam; usually males whose families can’t provide a merchant job in town, but a woman who chose to marry a miner? I only know of one, and she's laying in bed cross my bedroom.

I sit straight up in bed. I’m the idiot, not her!

I scurry out of bed, disturbing Prim’s sleep which is just fine, I wouldn't be able to whisper this conversation even if I wanted to, so I call out, “Mother?”

I hear her take a deep breath, “You figure it out finally, Katniss?” her voice comes out clear as day, as if she had just been waiting for it to click in my mind.

I pull both our curtains aside and step clumsily into her room. “Mom?” my eyes are filling up with tears. “You rejected a life of ease for Dad?”

“Do you regret I did?” she counters laying very still on her bed.

“I-- no. I don’t know.” The tears are falling down my face freely now.

“And the rest of what he said?” She asks tiredly. “Have you work it out yet?”

I pull back unsure.

“Momma?” says Prim coming into the room bleary eyed, “What’s going on?” She yawns.

“Your sister has discovered something about herself today, and she’s trying to decide what she wants to do about it. It can mean a host of things for a lot of people.”

"You don't like him, do you?" I accused, "You rather it was Gale, instead of him, don't you?" 

She sighs. "I think he is everything a young man should be. You're old enough to decide what you want for yourself. The problem is not that I don't like him. I do, I like him a lot. But is he ready to fell ostracized, abandoned and even betrayed by his own family? Because that's what will happen if this ends up amounting to anything." 

The thought and fear hits me so hard and unexpectedly, I fall to my knees. He wouldn't choose me over his perfectly laid out future would he?

“I can’t… I won't” 

Prim is wide awake now, her terrified blue eyes jumping from me to mother, and finally I'm dissolved into a heap of sobs and snot.

For the first time since father died, sleep finds me in my mother's bed, nestled between the woman I called an idiot earlier this evening and the child she had, just because her love was greater than her fears.

Chapter Text

“One more right here!” Calls mister Hawkins loudly, pointing straight upwards with his gaudily jeweled finger.

They are hanging little bunches of green drop shaped leaves sprinkled with sparse white blossoms, all over the big branches on the only tree on the square.

“What are they doing?” I ask Madge coming up next to her.

She turns her head to me, and smiles. “Mistletoe. Apparently in the old days, people used to hang it all over the place, the tradition dictated that if someone was standing right under one bought of it, they had to be kissed by their sweetheart.” Her smile is sweet and happy. “All the girls in the district are so excited about it! There's been talk of hanging the stuff in houses and storefronts. It's so romantic!”

“Hmm,” I grunt.

I was never much for kissing on the very short time I was engaged to Gale. it felt more like a chore and less pleasant than people made it out to be. I can’t, for the life of me, understand what the big deal is about swapping saliva with another person. 

Suddenly, Madge screams -so unladylike- right in my ear. I have to hold myself back, because my impulse to smash her pretty little mouth with my open hand is overwhelming.

“Albert! Right here, kiddo!”

Al bounces forward, smiling widely and puffing out his chest importantly.

“Ma’am, miss Undersee! All my deliveries are done, imma go play with my friends now.” Then he turns to me, his smile growing toothily. “Miss Everdeen!”

“Aww!” Madge squeals excitedly. “Look at him! He's standing  directly under the mistletoe! Isn't he cute?”

Al looks alarmed and confused, when Madge pulls him by the scruff and smacks a sonorous kiss on his cheek, leaving behind a perfect impression of her pink lipstick on his flushed olive skin.

The boy looks as if he'd been hit over the head with a heavy object.

He brings a mittened hand to his face, to slowly rub the spot where the pink outline of Madge's lips shine over his cheek. He stares at her in disbelief, that rapidly shift into something like lovesick eyes.

“Thank you, ma’am.” He says staring at her and walks off as if coming out of a cloud.

“Wow… poor guy,” says Peeta, coming up next to me, as I try to stifle my laughter. “I think you broke him, miss Undersee.”

“Aw, pish-posh. He'd be back in love with Katniss in no time! What's in the bag?” She asks brightly waving a hand.

“Oh, well, I saw what happened from the bakery, you kissing Al and all, and figured, Katniss would need a pick me up after losing her number one admirer to a bunch of leafy traps, overhead.” He chuckles.

"Oh, so you've heard of the mistletoe already?" Asks Madge smirking at him.

“Oh yeah, I already heard all about it. My neck hurts! You have no idea how many of them I’ve had to sidestep all day long." He says darkly, although the I know he's trying hard to remain upbeat about it. "It’s exhausting having to keep an eye on the ceiling everywhere I go. And after seeing how that poor little fellow over there got ambushed... let's say I'm trying my best to stay away from them.” He tries to laugh it off, but I know he most be annoyed. After all, he's the most coveted bachelor in our little district, and girls will do just about anything short of stripping in front of him, to get him to notice them.

I roll my eyes.

Madge says pouting, “Awww, you don’t find it romantic? Katniss and I were just talking about how sweet it was,”

I look at her in aggravation, “I didn’t say anything of the sort!”

“Hmm. Fine. Maybe you didn't. Still, you better sharpen out those eyes like Peeta is doing. You might be dangerously close to be under one of them, dear,”

We all look up, and indeed, I'm only one inch shy from being directly under one bundle of mistletoe.

“Well, since I don’t have a sweetheart…” I say and take one step to the side.

“Maybe the right one hasn’t come along,” says Madge with a hinting undertone that flusters me just a tad. “Huh… I better go help mister Hawkins step away of the ladder before it falls on him," she says looking past me. "Don’t forget to look above you, kids!” She bumps me on the shoulder, pushing me just a little to the left, a devilish smile curls her pink lips, her blue eyes shine brightly, “Oh look, mister Mellark!" She says inocently, "Katniss seems to be under the mistletoe now.”

She walks off, leaving me and Peeta with heads tilted upwards, like a pair of idiots, staring at the harmless looking little bouquet of cheerful green leaves.

“So, it seems... miss Undersee is right, Katniss.” Peeta whispers, “Whaddaya know?” He breaths out, stepping closer to me.

To my astonishment, I remain firmly planted under the mistletoe, expectantly.

“I could’ve sworn the bundle was on top of you,” I tell him, my eyes can only see his, and the temperature has risen in this stupid square, “Wow. I'm suddenly sweating. Is it getting hot in here?” I ask stupidly, flinging my braid away from my flushed neck, to fan at it with my  hands.

“Katniss, it’s 28 degrees,” he mumbles quietly, getting closer yet.

“Oh… then must be the mistletoe,” I say exhaling my breath slowly, I can almost feel his body heat.

“Must be,”

Just one more inch, and I swear I just licked my lips. The anticipation is murder! We're a measly hair's breadth away, my eyes start closing in preparation, my face tilts in his direction, and then...

“Catnip?”

Chapter Text

Gale stands in front of us, a scowl set in his features as he studies me and Peeta. I can only guess he knows we were about to kiss, just by looking at our positions. But I really don't want to know what is going through his mind right now.

“Gale?” I answer incredulously, taking a bing step around Peeta’s frame, just to be able to look at him properly.

He’s the last person, really, I expected to witness an almost kiss with Peeta, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. At the very least, I’m very conflicted. “I didn’t know you were here already,” I say more morosely than happy, seeing my best friend for the first time in almost a year.

“Just arrived in the morning train. Spent some time at momma’s resting and went out looking for you. Been running around the whole district in fact. I kind of expected a warmer greeting, after being gone so long and all,” He says in a hard tone, “I hear you’re busy,” he says eying Peeta.

“Oh. We were… We aren’t… the choir...” I’m not sure why I feel obligated to give him a response. It’s not Gale’s business what I do and with who, specially after the way we parted.

“Welcome home, mister Hawthorne! Peeta Mellark, honored to make your acquaintance.” Says Peeta smiling and shoving his hand into Gale’s direction, saving me from making an ass out myself. “Very grateful for your service to our country. Next time you come into the bakery, please chose a few treats to enjoy with your family, on the house. Just a token of appreciation on behalf of our district.”

Gale stares at Peeta’s hand, taking it right before too long a moment passes to be considered polite.

“Gale Hawthorne. I went to school with your brother. We were serving in the same squadron until two months ago, when he was sent to District Four for specialized training.” He says still eying him suspiciously. “Can’t say I liked him all that much. We got lumped together a lot because we came from the same district, as if that equaled same circumstances.”

“Mmm. Can’t blame you,” Says Peeta smiling genially. “Rye is an acquired taste. We grew up in the same house, and our circumstances were never the same,” He gives a full, jovial laugh, despite Gale’s hostile attitude.

“So, Catnip, should I walk you home?” He asks when Peeta’s laugh has died down.

I scowl right away, “Actually Gale, I’m helping Madge Undersee unpack some decorations for the festival right now, but we can talk later,” I step to my left, where I know Madge and mister Hawkins were a moment ago, and try to walk in their direction hastily.

I don’t miss the moment in which Gale lunges forward, trying to grab my arm, just to be intercepted by a very fast footed Peeta, who pretends he didn’t noticed Gale’s intention. I hear him behind me say in his most friendly tone, “Why don’t you come with me for a cup of coffee? We are one of only two places that serve the beverage in the district. We make ours fresh everyday…”

I only turn my head sideways once, to catch in the tail of my eye the way Peeta has manage to bump Gale on the opposite direction. This is one instance, I will never reproach Peeta’s intervention.

Madge sighs when I stop in front of her. She shakes her head in disappointment, as if she was more invested in that almost kiss between me and Peeta than even I was.

“Well, it seems, now Peeta isn’t the only one that has to keep a wary eye overhead.” She glances down at the box piled high with what looks like golden pale nightgowns. “Don’t wanna give the wrong lips the opportunity to find a perch.”

“I hear you!” Says Hawkins throwing suspicious looks around himself, as if he’s expecting to get assaulted by district twelve lips.

Madge and I share a quiet laugh.

“Rory! You little twerp!” I yell at my new hunting partner as soon as I see his gangly form trudge back into the district. “Why didn’t you tell me, you little traitor?” I poke him in the chest with my finger.

“Ouch! Cut it out! What the hell are you so pissed off about?” He yells back me, stepping away as fast as he can, and smoothing down his too big a coat, as if I had rumpled it.

“You didn’t tell me Gale was coming, nor that he was already here! Yesterday he totally blindsided me at the square right before choir practice! Thanks a lot!” I’m angry and not thinking straight.

“Well… he said he wanted it to be a surprise, or whatever. He said not to say anything about him coming to no one,” He straightens, glaring at me. “If you wanna bruise someone’s chest with your bony finger then go get him. He’s the one who keeps making you mad, not me.”

I grunt, stopping myself short of charging him. He’s right, I’m angry at Gale, not at Rory. “Fine! But you owe me! Big time!”

“What?” He cries out loudly raising his arms above his head in protests, “Why? What in the hell did I do?”

“Stop cussing, for the love of all that is green! If your momma hears about your faul language–”

“Oh come on! You too? I’ve had it with you and Prim! I’ll cuss as much as I please, since I’m the man now, and… Gale used to do it when he was the man…”

That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. With all the rage I have inside me, I scream, and Rory, who used to be tiny and sweet, matches me blow for blow.

“Ugh! Go home, Rory!”

“I have trades! You go home! Crazy woman who must be I her menses!”

“That’s it!" I throw my game bag on the ground and finally lunge at him, "Come here so I can wash your little nasty mouth with some soap!”

He jumps out of the way, as if his feet wherein hot coals.

“You aint my mother! Stay away from me, Katniss, I’m serious!”

“The fuck is going on here, you two?” Gale’s loud voice reverberates all over the winter landscape, bouncing off of naked trees and shattering against the fluffy snow banks gathered deeper into the woods, where the coal dust couldn’t reach it to make it gray and sad.

“Thank you, Gale! Way to perpetrate the idea in your little brother’s mind, that it’s okay for a guy to cuss! Thank you very much! And since by now all the game in the area must’ve heard you’re foul mouth, I’m going back to bed, so I can catch up on some sleep. Thank you again!” I stomp angrily with my arms crossed above my chest, not in the mood to stay around and make nice with either of them.

“The hell, happened?” I hear Gale ask confusedly.

“Well, genius, she’s mad. Them Everdeen women will be the death of me! Gotta go. There’s this cute girl I wanna see in town before her parents wake up.”

“Okay…” says Gale still confused. It takes him a second to register what Rory said, but then I can hear his feet hesitate on which path to take. My ears stay alert, even as I walk faster, he can only go after one of us, and i’m hoping he hasn’t forgotten what is truly important here.

I hear him growl in exasperation, and then he calls out, “Rory… wait up, you dum-dumb. You can’t go romancing a merchant girl… it’ll never work out…”

Faintly, Rory’s annoyed voice comes back to me, “Why not? Prim says it can happen. It worked for her folks…”

I can’t hear Gale’s response, but I’m glad I got a second reprieve. 

Mother is reading a book on the kitchen table, which she usually claims after supper gets cleared out, leaving the living room for Prim to get her bookbag ready for the morning and then to prepare rations to feed her animals the next day. I take to wash up and bathe before bed, since is more convenient this way, and we don’t have to pay so much attention to heating water any more. I have a pile of burning wood right outside my front door, and we are allowed to buy coal at discounted prices now as well.

There’s a knock on the door, and Prim answers it, what surprises me about this is that Prim is exchanging a couple of giggles and quiet conversation with whoever just arrived, instead of screaming orders left and right, for people to get out of her way while she brings the patient to our mother. I relax, knowing this isn’t an emergency, and most likely be one of her little friends from school.

Then suddenly, we are plunged into darkness. Prim squeals in surprise, while mother simply makes a bothered noise at the back of her throat, but I was in the tub in the bathroom and now I can’t see a thing.

Since the fall of President Snow, electricity was restored to the whole country, particularly during night time. They are still trying to find a more efficient way to power up the districts, so there’s the occasional blackout, but those only happen very early, in the wee hours of the morning when most people is still in bed. This has to be the first night in close to ten months we have no electricity.

“Mamma! I need a candle!” I call out from my perch.

“Everyone needs a candle, Katniss. I’m looking for them, but as you can imagine, I’m trying not to kick anything in the dark.” As if to prove her point, I hear the screeching of furniture against the scratched up wooden floor of the kitchen and a muffled "oomph!" 

“Prim, do you have any idea where the candles are?” Mother asks after a moment. “I can’t find them in the drawer at the counter,”

“Oh, I think Katniss moved them to the top cabinet over the stove,”

“What, why?” Mother sounds really frustrated now. “Why would you do that, Katniss? Are they in that tin box? What if they melted with the stove heat?”

Huh… I never thought of that.

“I’m sorry, mamma,” I call out from the bathroom, standing up gingerly, and feeling blindly for my towel. Luckily I find it still draped over the sink. I towel off quickly and try my best to find my way to our bedroom without tripping on the way.

I put on some clothes as best I can, grateful the moon is already high on the sky and although is a half moon tonight it’s light is still enough. I shuffle back into the living room, where things aren’t much better.

“This is such a bummer,” says Prim from somewhere in the dark room. “I was enjoying that geometry homework.”

I chuckle. I following her voice, and plop down next to her on the couch. “At least you’ll have an excuse when you turn an incomplete assignment.” I try to tickle her ribs, but end up scratching her arm.

She still laughs though. “Oh! I almost forgot!” Prim says reaching forward, now that we’ve been sitting in the dark so long our eyes have gotten used to it. She pulls her bag up on her lap, and hurries untying it. “Here!” She hands me a paper bag that I recognize immediately.

The bread inside is still warm, so she couldn’t have gotten it before coming home this afternoon.

“When did he give you this?” I whine.

“Just before the blackout,” she tells me smiling. “He said it’s Rye bread, in honor of his brother that sent word to his father saying he wasn’t coming home just yet.”

“Was he sad?” I blurt out, bringing the bread out of the bag and tearing a chunk that I pass over to our mother, sitting on the rocking chair next to me.

“No." Prim takes the next chunk of bread, "He seemed fine, but there’s no telling how his father feels.” She muses taking a bite out of her portion, “I think I’ll go see him tomorrow. I'll bring him my spiced cheese, so he can try it. He’ll like that, won't he?” Her voice is hopeful.

Is undeniable, Prim cares for the baker a very great deal.

“Good idea. I know he likes seeing you, Little Duck.” I say pulling on the end of her single braid she started wearing this year. "Just... don't agree to any deals when you give him the cheese, be very vague," I warn.

We are still chatting, and sharing about our day, when a small orange dot, lights up weakly outside the window, another dot follows, and then another, and then another.

“What is that?” I wonder aloud.

Mother and Prim look at the specks of light come to life like fireflies being lit one by one. We are all drawn to the windows, and slowly, my mother takes one side of the delicate white gossamer curtains she brought from town when she married my father, and we peer out the window together.

We all gasp at the same time.

“It’s beautiful, Katniss!” Says Prim pinching my arm. “Go to him!” she squeals in excitement.

“I–” I move dazedly towards the door, when I feel a hand wrap on my arm above my elbow and pull me back.

“No!” Says my mother firmly.

“Why?”

“What are you–?”

“Hush, you two!” She commands lifting a hand into the air. Then relaxing her posture she says, “Katniss’ shirt is inside out, her pajama pants have a hole on the buttocks, and no child of mine, will go out to meet a boy who’s given her a magic candlelight path without combing her hair first!” Both Prim and I look at each other with matching smiles. “Now what are you waiting for? Go get changed!” we all rush back inside, and Prim shimmies out of her own fleece pants, and tosses them to me, while I straighten out my shirt, and my mother puts my hair into a high ponytail hastily. I’m dressed and wearing a coat in record time. I stick my feet in my boots, and rush out the door, just when he’s raising his hand to knock.

“Hi!” He steps back in surprise.

“Hi!” I return breathily. “Mmm, so… what’s all this?” I ask, looking at all the lighted candles around the porch, over the railing, on each step of the small ladder, on the side of the path, and even the posts of Lady’s pen have candles perched upon.

It seams even the wind decided to cooperate with Peeta’s efforts, because not a gust of air threatens to extinguish the candles he so painstakingly lighted all around the front of my house.

The glow casted by the small firelights flickering timidly in the still silence of the Seam, makes the snow covered ground sparkle warmly, like burnt sugar on candy brittle. The shadows dancing to and fro give our surroundings the illusion that we are in a magical place, far from the reality of our district. For the first time ever, somebody has made the Seam look truly pretty, and I couldn’t be more grateful and proud, that it was him who did it.

“How…” I finally ask aghast.

“Well… You kind of melted all the candles in the house into a single blob. Your mother couldn’t light it up. There wasn’t a discernible wick to work with… I looked,” he smirks. “I figured, I could let you borrow some of our candles. Plus some I burrow from Madge…”

“Of course Madge!” I chuckle, “Well… I think that this is beautiful!” I gasp taking in what he did. I can’t tear my eyes away from the shifting candlelight, growing and shrinking merrily in the quiet darkness before me. “Wow. You know, there aren’t many pretty things in district twelve, so when we find something beautiful… It’s hard not to stare at it, don’t you think?”

“I completely agree,” his voice sounds husky, gravely and so close I can feel the puff of his warm breath roll over my cheeks.

I tear my eyes from the front lawn, and slowly turn my face towards his, because he keeps staring at me like I’m the sun, the stars and the moon. The intensity of his gaze leaves me breathless.

“Peeta?” I breathe out slowly.

“Mhmm?” He inches closer to me.

“You’re staring…”

“How rude of me,” he whispers, "but some wise huntress told me once, it's hard not to stare at beautiful things," he lifts a hand to brush away a wisp of hair falling off my ponytail.

“Your staring is making you  reckless, though,”

“How come?” He asks closing in.

“You’re- you’re standing under some mistletoe Prim hanged up earlier today,”

His face break into a crooked, sweet smile as soon as his glinting eyes find the bundle of green leaves hanging above our heads.

“Well, I guess when your eyes are busy looking at the only beauty in the district,” then he brings his eyes to stare back at me, making me shiver, and not from the still cold of the night, “You’re bound to get caught in someone’s trap,” the tip of his fingers caress my face.

I close my eyes, lost in the sensation of peace and anticipation.

His thumb ghosts gently over my lower lip, making me shudder.

“It’s tradition, you know. You can’t default tradition,” I whisper looking at him under heavy lidded eyes.

He cups my face in his warm hand fully, “In that case,” he breathes out stepping into me, and my eyes fall close again when our lips brush tentatively, “Better uphold the good customs of our forefathers and foremothers,“

And I surrender to feel of his lips.

I think I finally get what all the hoopla about kissing is about.

Chapter Text

“And this, everyone, is, an angel!”

Fulvia Cardew, director of programming for the televised version of the Yule Festival to be filmed and transmitted to all of Panem on a recorded video the next day, says with a wide smile, gesturing with a flourish at the merchant girl with the straight, blond hair, and dark blue eyes, that can’t be any older than five, wearing what looks to me like a very expensive golden pale nightgown.

The kid is adorable of course, but so is Ster lurking in the back row, staring at her feet dejectedly.

I feel so much anger building up inside my chest, because how dare this garish looking woman come and tell my kids that one look is more angelic than another? Our social divide is already glaring, without a capitolite pointing out that the Seam look of darker skin, gray eyes and dark hair is somewhat lesser.

“I see what you’re saying,” says Hawkins placing a hand under his chin, and another one at his waist. “But, shouldn’t she be wearing wings and a crown?”

“Are you kidding me, right now?” I finally snap, “Are you serious? A crown? What is this? Do you see us as some kind of joke?” I’m screaming into their faces, first Hawkins and then the Cardew woman. “I didn’t sign up to help you make my children into some freak show–”

Someone starts cackling loudly, a wheezy, mocking laugh, sharp and grating. “You tell ‘em, sweetheart!”

I turn around, still seething to see Haymitch Abernathy, resident drunkard and only living Victor of District Twelve, has decided to joined us today at practice. I have no idea what the useless oaf is doing here, but I’m about to scream at him too.

He claps amusedly, “Bravo! Best thing I’ve seen in ages, surely,” he wipes his eyes from laughing tears, “I like this girl! She’s got… Spunk!”

“And you’re a drunk!” I yell at him.

All the children gasp, and one even screams when with impressive speed, by a paunchy, muddled age man, that only sleeps, belch and drinks around The Hob for a living, Haymitch has jumped out of his chair, knocking it backwards with a clatter, and has his large, ugly nose an inch from mine.

“You ain’t very smart, are you?” He growls under his breath, but then he’s suddenly dragged away from my personal space.

“Stay the heck away from her, old man!” Says Peeta putting himself between Haymitch and me. “This is a school, in case you haven’t notice. There’s no drinking here!” Peeta slaps a silver flask out of the old Victor’s hand, he’d just pull out of his pocket.

The punch comes out of nowhere, and lands Peeta’s heavy frame right at my feet.

All the children are crying now, while Hawkins, Madge and a handful of teachers and their assistants try to calm everyone down.

“Do. Not. Touch my drink!” Grits Haymitch out, standing over Peeta, who’s sat up and rubbing his jaw, glaring at the man above him.

I’m kneeling right next to Peeta, trying to help him up, but there’s so much adrenaline surging through me right now. In the blink of an eye, I’ve let go of Peeta’s arm, and on my feet and careening towards Haymitch’s middle.

“The hell is y'all’s issue, you lunatics?” Haymitch bellows, shoving me off of him harshly.

I land on a chair, and I’m about to go at him again, but Peeta tackles the man to the ground, and finally, somebody yells.

“STOP!” The school headmaster stands under the archway eyes sparkling with anger and reproach. “Everyone out, now!” He orders, al adults scrambles, and as fast as they can, to make the kids, crying and whaling file out of the place, leaving the three of us sitting on the floor, like a pool of heaving lungs.

“If you will conduct yourselves like savages, then neither deserve to be around the children of our community. You were called here, because you are decent, exemplary people we want around the children. We do not want to expose them to violence and profanity, they were subjected to before Panem was freed from tyranny. We want to reform our society, not scar our future leaders for life! You should all be ashamed of yourselves.”

With that harsh speech, Master Rogers leaves the room as well.

Shame isn’t a strong enough word to describe what I feel. I wanted to defend my district kids from more degradation and insults, but instead, I made a fool out of myself, and proved right every merchant nag that calls Seam folk, uncivilized trash.

Peeta holds his hand out to help me up, I sniffle loudly, but it isn’t until I’m in his arms that I realize I’m crying.

“It’s alright, Katniss. We’ll apologize to the kids and explain…”

“You two are fine pair of fighters,” The raspy voice of Haymitch cuts over Peeta’s soft calming one. “It’s both a pity and a relief you were never reaped. You would’ve been a pain in the ass to mentor, and even worse, you could’ve have a chance to win it all,”

“How’s that a bad thing?” Asks Peeta unable to keep the anger under control. “We could’ve been rich like you.” He practically spits.

Haymitch laughs in derision, “Yeah, at what cost, boy? Sweetheart there would’ve been killed under suspicious circumstances, your family’s shop burned to the ground with everyone you loved inside in an accidental fire, you would’ve been paraded around the districts as a complacent trophy like Snow boot licking peon, unless you went quietly when they told you it was time to sell your body to the highest bidder. It’s already been said publicly, boy. Go read Finnick Odair’s memoirs. Being a Victor isn’t all that’s cracked up to be. Nothing glamorous about being a fucking prostitute.”

Peeta tightens his hold on me while Haymitch takes a long pull from his flask, “Yeah. A relief you weren’t part of it.”

“Not if you’re dead,” I snap at him, “Some of those kids had a chance, if you hadn’t been knocked cold on your ass.”

“Sweetheart, don’t you get it? Being a Victor is exist like a living dead. Your dead inside already, but your body is forced to keep on walking and smiling like a hollowed out puppet. So, you’re neither right nor wrong. Now if you excuse me. I gotta go tell the headmaster that imma pay for a new set of swings or some shit. They ought to replace that slide in the playground, if you get cut on there, at the very least you’ll catch tetanus… Perhaps, even blood poisoning,”

We stand there staring at Haymitch exit the room stumbling. Neither of us says anything at first, too shocked and too ashamed of ourselves for words.

“Come, I’ll walk you home and try to find the kids to give them the honey buns I made for them today. It’s a new recipe I’m tinkering with,” he says in an even, mechanical voice.

“How did you get honey?” I ask him from under his arm, partly because I want to grasp at whatever will make us forget this awful episode, but also because I’m really curious about the honey. It’s difficult to find the stuff during the winter months.

He looks down at me, and smiles sweetly, “Madge had a jar. She heard me trying to barter at the grocer’s for a tiny bottle he has behind the counter, but he wouldn’t budge on the price.”

“What was he asking for?” I ask peering up at him with genuine interest.

“Six loaves of multigrain bread and a plum pie,” he says easily, still smiling at me.

“Well, that’s greedy. Did he try to backtrack when Madge offered the bigger bottle? What did you give her in return?”

He laughs and kisses the tip of my nose.

“Of course he squirmed, specially after Madge said to save a serving of the honey, and to make her a custard with it come spring, so she could eat it with the strawberries you harvest for her between spring and summer.” He lets his arm slide lower down my back, until his hand sits lightly on my waist. He stares deep into my eyes, and the sensation of butterflies fluttering in my belly takes flight.

We never came to an understanding the night of the blackout, when he turned my yard into a candlelit winter wonderland, and we shared a sweet, toe curling kiss under the mistletoe. We simply enjoyed the magical moment and left it untouched, like the most perfect memory either of has ever made.

But we still talk, and sit too close to each other than is proper, and his fingers always find some excuse or another to bump with mine, and I try not to notice the way my heart races, when he licks his lips while watching me when he thinks I’m not looking.

Secretly, I’m hoping for another kiss at some point, but I’m scared of what that could mean. I don’t know if we will be allowed to keep his bakery if he gets involved with me, but at the same time, I’m scared to find out he’d chose his business over me, because while I understand wholeheartedly that option, knowing that I wasn’t good enough for him, still hurts, even in the hypothetical realm.

“So, would you like a honey bun?”

I bite my lower, “I rather take just some honey from you,”

His smile widens, “You can have all the honey you want, just gotta ask,” He leans down, and kisses my lips softly.

“Miss Everdeen?” A women calls, and Peeta and I jump away from each other like naughty children that have been caught stealing spoonfuls of the last of the milk. “Oh, I’m sorry to interrupt,” the woman, a capitolite with shaven head and green vines tattooed on her scalp, says embarrassedly. “I just wanted to introduce myself and have a word, but… I see you and your boyfriend are busy. Please, if you get a chance, ask for Cressida at the inn.”

“Oh… Um… No, we’re not, busy… We were just done, and… Yeah, we can have a word. We were just leaving,” I tell her flustered.

She eyes us for a moment, “Miss Everdeen, I’m Cressida, and my job is to film everything that goes on during the production of the Festival. That said, I’ve been recording things here and there since we arrived.”

“Oh no,” I gasp, “You didn’t tape us going at it like savages, did you?” I ask feeling like puking, “We really aren’t that way, we… It just was a very bad day… I… Please,”

“No! Not at all miss Everdeen. No. My crew wasn’t filming this part. Fulvia hates being part of the footage, so we didn’t record anything today.”

I place a hand on my chest and breathe deeply. “Oh, thank you.”

“Yes. Well, just so you know, Fulvia was wrong. She was talking about Angel costumes, but those were choir robes. They all look the same, and there won’t be any wings or crowns. She has no clue. But, I made a call back to the Capitol, and got to talk to our designer. He’ll be in the next train to Twelve, and he’s got this idea about dressing a few of the children for the singing number.

“I think he wants to talk to you directly to consult over his ideas. He thinks you might have a more clear view of how this production should be conducted, and the best part of all, he’s independent from Fluvia. What he says goes in the dressing department, even if Fluvia says otherwise.” She leans in closer, and smiles conspiratorially, “most of her ideas are dumb anyway.” She winks at me, and then steps back.

“Oh, and just a heads up…” She looks at both me and Peeta, “You have been very cute and discrete, but you can never expect to keep the cameras away from such a striking couple.” She smirks and leaves the room.

Once more, we sit there watching a person leave. Is it what, the third one today?

“I guess that means I can’t sneak anymore kisses in school grounds.” Says Peeta softly, “This truly is a bummer too! I’m absolutely no angel, I don’t think you have any idea how long I’ve dreamed about kissing my girlfriend in one of the school halls? So… Naughty! So tempting…”

I turn my eyes to him, watching him in-comprehendedly.

He only smiles sweetly, “Come on Everdeen,” he takes a hold of my hand and gently guides me to exit, “Honey buns are waiting to be delivered, and they’re much better served while warm and sticky”

We’re half way to the Seam, hand in hand, when I finally say, “You were okay with Cressida calling you my boyfriend?”

He makes a facial gesture, “So were you since you didn’t denied it,”

“Hmm… So… That means you’ll kiss me whenever you want?”

“Even if there are cameras around, unless that makes you uncomfortable,”

“How about your mother?”

“She’ll… Be alright… Eventually.”

I nod, knowing his mother will be more difficult.

“And what about the rest of town? What about the bakery?”

He stops in the middle of the snowy road. “Katniss, if you let me kiss you in front of President Paylor herself, I’d kiss you with as much care and respect as I would in private. If you agree to be my girlfriend, officially, then I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe and happy. I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to show you how I feel for you–”

“I don’t want you to come to the Seam and become a miner!” I say firmly.

“Then I won’t. I can be a Wrestling Coach if my mother decides she is too much of a snob to let me keep the bakery, and marry you,”

I snort, “Sure. She’ll love to have a Seam girl as a daughter-in-law,”

“Hardly.” He takes my face in his hands, “But you aren’t any old girl from the Seam, you’re Katniss Everdeen, and I don’t care what my mother thinks… I love you, Katniss, I have for years, and now that I have a chance at being with you, I won’t let it slip off my fingers so easily.”

“Peeta… Love? How can you love me? You met me when I was a half dead wretch–”

He tilts his head back and laughs bitterly. Returning his face to mine, “You still don’t get it. I gave you that bread, because I already loved you, not the other way around,”

The butterflies are scampering away in my stomach again, making me shiver all over.

“So, will you stop worrying about the rest of the world, and let me show you how happy we can be?”

“I think so… But, I’m a pessimist… Or so does Prim say.” I warn him.

“Well aware of that, ma'am, now shut it so I can kiss my girlfriend in front of her neighbors,”

He does just that, taking his time getting acquainted with my lips, and it’s as sweet and magical as it was the other night, except this time we have an audience, and the only worse possible person to see us kissing, is the witch herself.

For the second time today, Peeta gets punched in the face, this time by Gale’s fist.

Chapter Text

Red. I see red.

Rage and anger swirl around my chest, evolving into a volcanic beast that consumes my every nerve ending, setting me on a destructive fire that will burn to ashes Gale Hawthorne, if I can put my hands on him.

As in slow motion, I felt, more than seen, Peeta’s lips and warmth being ripped away from me. His eyes went through a very rapid trip, from dazed to confused, a flash of understanding passing his gaze and then realization that everything was happening too fast for him to react in time. And then Gale’s knuckles crashed against Peeta’s ear, of all the places he could’ve thrown a punch.

I scrambled forward as fast as I could, shoulders forward and chin tucked into my chest, I let the full weight of my body hit Gale square on the chest, but he’s been in the army for months now. The lean, half starving miner is gone, and in his place is a tall, dark, muscular, brooding brick wall, that only staggers back an inch, because I caught him off guard.

“The fuck is going on?” He screams.

“You, asshole!” I scream in answer. “How dare you, Gale Hawthorne?”

“Katniss, don’t…” Says Peeta wincing dipping his pinky into his ear and wiggling it. “It’ll be–”

“How dare me? Me? I’m not the one with a merchant’s fucking tongue shoved down my throat like a Seam slut. You’re such a cliche, Kat–”

It’s Peeta’s turn to level Gale up.

“Don’t you dare call my girlfriend that!” Peeta looks crazed with rage, standing above Gale sitting on his ass on the frozen path with his hands curl into fists.

Gale only stays down for a second though. With lighting speed, he jumps to his feet, and launches at Peeta bearing his teeth and growling like feral animal.

“Stop it!” I yell, bending at my waist, cupping handfuls of snow, crusted over with coal dust, and lobbing it at them. “Stop fighting, you idiots!” I scream, but the boys don’t seem to listen.

Slowly, heads start peeking on darkened windows and behind half open shutters. We’re attracting an audience, and I’m mortified, thinking that for the second time today, I’ve been involved in some row, turned physical altercation. I’m so angry at the two of them, I feel like I’m about to cry.

“Stop it, please!” I whine loudly, but my plea goes unheard.

And finally I hear someone running in our direction. A commanding voice shouts a sonorous, “That’s enough!” And finally, Peeta and Gale still.

Heaving short, fast breaths, I look up at the man dressed in New Panem’s military uniform, staring at all three of us unhappily.

“Never in my life, would’ve I expected this behavior from either of you!” He says harshly. “Miss Everdeen, go on home, I’ll sort this two out–”

“No, Darius, please,” I choke on a sob, realizing how much my eyes are burning with tears. “Let me stay, I wanna be here–”

“Katniss,” the only law enforcement I consider my friend, sighs. “Fine,” he acquiesces, “I’m letting you all go with a warning. Gale, you’re on paid leave, don’t ruin it for yourself. The corps of New Panem don’t take kindly to trouble makers.” Darius says grimly, “Off you go. I’ll walk miss Everdeen home,”

“With all due respect, sir,” says Peeta resolutely, “I’ll walk my own girl home,” he says, then his eyes quickly flit to me, “If she lets me,” he adds faintly.

Darius cocks an eyebrow, but his face remains stonily serious.

“The hell you will, punk! If anyone is walking Catnip home is me!” Hisses Gale.

“I don’t need either of you to walk me anywhere!” I snap angrily. “I can take care of myself, without either if you fanning over me like I’m some kind of weak, fragile damsel in distress!”

“Okay, that’s enough! I’ve had it with you!”

“It goes to you too, Darius! I don’t need–”

But he grabs my elbow firmly and strides in the opposite direction towards my house. Then twists his torso and yells, “You two! Home. Now. It’s an order, or you’ll spend the night coming up to each other in my cell!”

When the Snow was assassinated, and his regime of tyranny fell from power, the new leadership disbanded the Peacekeeper force. Not many loyalist were left in the force anyway, most of them died at the hands of vengeful district folks, who rebelled after a life of oppression and misery. In District Twelve there were no peacekeeper deaths, only the head peacekeeper got roughened up by some of the women he had bought unscrupulously for his own pleasure, and no one said anything about it after.

Panem still needed some kind of law enforcement to keep the peace and order, and they came up with New Panem’s army. Anyone can be a soldier, really, but people like Darius, who already have experience, the training and deflected to the rebel side before things got really hairy for the peacekeepers, were absorbed into the new army, re-doctrinated under the new laws and code, and sent out to protect and serve where they were needed.

Darius was one of the few that was allowed to go back to their previous station.

Once, I asked him if he was disappointed he was sent back here, but he smirked at me, and said he requested the transfer. I asked why would he want to come to twelve, and he winked at me, saying “The girls here are fiery. Show some Twelve pride, miss Everdeen, huh?”

Darius was the only peacekeeper I ever truly liked. He was never cruel, but always was good for a laugh and the occasional under the table trade of Capitol items, when there was a prey he really wanted to eat. I consider him, one of my very few friends, so when looks sternly at me, I feel my cheeks flame up in embarrassment.

“So… You and the baker, huh?” He says with glint in his devious green eyes. Like that, he lets my arm go, and I’m walking side by side with my friend, and not my guard.

I rub my elbow where he took hold of me earlier.

I nod meekly, because I can’t believe this is happening.

“Since when?” He asks curiously. There’s a small edge of something else I can’t quite place.

“Not long,” I rasp, “Tonight, actually, he asked if I would make it public. I just didn’t know the public witnessing our first official kiss was Gale.” I say feeling terribly uncomfortable.

“And Gale didn’t take it very well,” he finishes my thought.

“Nope. Of course he didn’t.”

Darius laughs.

After a beat of silence, he blurts out, “I used to have a thing for you a few years back,”

I snap my head in his direction, feeling extremely uncomfortable. He smiles down at me, and sadly shakes his head.

“While I was doing retraining at the new military headquarters in Four, they brought this group of Avoxes. They were rehabilitating them, and whatnot. The poor fellows, have been so abused, some of them are too far gone to help, but, there are some…” He pauses and brings his hands to his mouth. He blows warm air into them, rubs them together, and shoves them into his parka pockets.

“There’s this one girl. Her name is Lavinia. She’s got deep, dark, red hair.”

I chuckle, “So, redheads keep to their kind?” I ask nudging him with the same elbow he had grasp.

This causes him to laugh out loud. “Well, you were engaged to Gale when I left, so obviously you were a moot point. I wasn’t about to get run through with an arrow for a scrappy, scary creature such as yourself!” He laughs some more. “Plus… There are too many brunettes around, we need to maintain the redhead population afloat, otherwise will get overturned by you people!”

I smile merrily at his joke, slapping his arm halfheartedly. “Shut up!”

He sighs after our laugh dies down. “Her best friend was killed by a Capitol hovercraft. Peacekeepers held her down while her tongue got ripped out of her mouth for treason.” His eyes fill with moisture, “Her big offense was being the daughter of a District Thirteen informant. She was only seventeen, and she saw her whole family get punished, and the only friend willing to help her get away was murdered right in front of her eyes… By my own people,”

He sobs, and I feel so helpless.

“How was I supposed to approach her?”

We’re only a few yards from my house, so I wrap my arm around his waist awkwardly, and clumsily walks to my house.

“It’s okay, Darius. No one said that getting out of this mess was going to be easy.”

Nothing is easy in the world we live in.

KPKPKPKPKPKPKPKP

I try to avoid Peeta for as long as I can the next day. I’m still sour with him, but not as much as I am with Gale.

Gale has tried to come ‘round the house, and even has gone as far as going into the woods, judging by his military issued boot prints around the edge of the district.

I huff annoyedly. He won’t make it easy for us, and I really don’t want to get us more pissed off at each other than we already are. I still care about him and his family as if they were my own blood.

It’s funny that lately, Prim and Rory have taken to introduce each other as ‘cousins’, which, we really aren’t. We do have a set of cousins on my mother’s side, the town thatchers, who never come to the Seam, although they get paid to maintain every roof in the district cared for, and Seam houses are always in need of roof repairs.

Again, we only share DNA, and nothing more.

I walk past a group of chattering women in the corner of 2nd Street, my game bag loaded with squirrels that had the bad luck to cross me while I was trying to let up steam. The women grow quiet as I walk past them, staring me up and down, and as soon as I’m a step ahead, their gossiping renews, this time I catch whispers of “baker” and a couple malicious “Her"s and “soldier” and “spectacle”.

I have half a mind to turn around and scream at them, but in my anger, I fail to hear him approach, even though his tread is worse than a stampede of stomping toddlers.

“Lunch,” he says quietly, presenting me with a paper bag I’ve come to be very familiar with. “It’s a bagel with cheese, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it,”

Someone snorts snootily behind us, as if the mere fact that Peeta gave something offended them.

“Well, I never!”
“The nerve of some people!”
“Can you believe that?”

Their snippy little comments anger me to no end, so I do the only thing that will shut the up, if only for a moment. I grab Peeta by the collar of his coat, pull him down to me, and kissing him soundly in the mouth.

It isn’t one of our tentative, sweet, shy kisses either; no, this one is loaded, and rash and passionate.

Peeta tenses at first, but soon, he gives into it as well, his arm snaking around my wait, and letting me lead the kiss.

After I get my fill of his delicious taste, I let go of him, and turn to the harpies gawking at us with their mouths hanging open.

“You wanna gossip? Talk about that! The baker and The Huntress are dating!” I grit between my teeth, at their strikes faces, and before they can resume their mean spirited whispers, I say loudly, “Come on, Peeta, let’s make out some more under the mistletoe in the square!”

“Yes, ma'am,” he says letting me drag him by the hand, while the women keep staring at us in shock.

We march straight to the tree Hawkins hung all that mistletoe the other day. I don’t say anything else, simply stopping as soon as we are under one bundle of green sprigs, and without ceremony, grab him by the lapel of his jacket and kiss him again.

He rests both his hands on my hips, and gets lost in the give and pull of our seeking lips. Up until now, we have only shared close lip kisses, but suddenly, I want to taste all of him, I want to steal his breath and explore his mouth with a hunger I’ve never felt for anyone before.

The tip of his tongue licks the corner of my mouth, and I open up under his. His tongue dips inside quickly, and we both sigh and moan together at the new sensation. My hands slide softly to coil around his neck, my fingers finding his curls under his winter hat.

I think he likes it when my nails drag lightly against his scalp, because he makes a sound on the back of his throat, and his fingers dig into my material of my trousers, pulling me into him. I’ve never been quite this close to him, but we’re still about an inch apart, and that feels like huge chasm to be conquered.

Of their own volition, my feet scoot closer still, and I’m practically flushed with him; that’s when his arms circle my waist tightly, erasing any remaining gap between our bodies.

We must’ve kissed for ten minutes straight, when we finally need to come up for air, still, he cups my cheek gently, and rests our foreheads together.

“Wow… That was… Amazing,” he smiles crookedly

“You’re not off the hook yet, though,” I breathe out. “I just wanted to kiss my boyfriend in front of those witches!”

“Hey, I’m not complaining!” He says with a hand gesture, to immediately look contrite, “but I am sorry about last evening.”

“Yeah, about that. Please don’t get into fights because me anymore,” I beg. “Just as you don’t like seeing me hungry, I don’t like people using you as a punching sack. I hate seeing you bruised up,” I say raising on tippy toes, to kiss him on the cheek, right where his mother shiner used to be after the bread incident. “How’s your ear?” I ask him, trying to take a look at it.

“Meh, I’d had worse. My brothers were a nightmare growing up. Gale Hawthorne with all his military training can’t compete with the pounding of two wrestlers and the accuracy of a mother’s rolling pin,” he tries to laugh, but the comment just upsets me.

I kiss him softly on the lips, “No more fights,” I say quietly.

“Well, I would love to promise I’ll never start another altercation with anyone, and I probably won’t, but… Don’t look now…” His eyes shift nervously behind me where I know the store fronts of Main Street are linen up in neat row. “My mother is standing outside the bakery.”

“She looking at us?”

“What do you think?”

“Does she look mad?”

“Let’s say, that it’s good thing people can’t shoot daggers out of their eyes.”

Chew on my lip, trying to think, what to do, how to approach her and what should I say to her, but then he leans in and kisses me on the nose.

“Come on!” He says taking my hand in his, and we take off running.

We don’t stop until we are past the Seam, and nearing the end of the district. It’s a place I know like the palm of my hand. It’s a place most people know. It’s the the only place in the district where anyone could close their eyes and pretend they were free: the meadow. Except, there’s no rolling grasses, or musty aroma of wet soil. Everything is white as far as the eye can see, or as white as anything can be in the district.

We stop running, he lets go of my hand and bends over, both hands in his knees, and starts to breathe.

I used to run track and field in school, and for the most part still can sprint without getting too winded, but the cold air feels like knives stabbing my lungs, so start to do some breathing exercises to level up my breath intake.

“You know. We have to. Face her. At some. Point.” I say between breaths.

“My nineteenth. Birthday. Is in. Three Days!” He says smiling widely.

In the old Panem, people could get engaged at eighteen, but it wasn’t until they were nineteen when they were considered of age. Parents really could rule over a nineteen year old, since they were considered adults and an individual part of society.

In the new Panem, the age limitations for things hasn’t changed much. Even with the influence of District Thirteen, were children could join their army at fourteen, our people rejected the idea. Nineteen is firmly considered the legal for taking control of a business, applying for a dwelling and getting married.

My stomach gives a little heave, thinking of it. I won’t be nineteen until May 8th, which means Peeta will have about five months until he has to seriously decide if he’s willing to hand around me.

“Hey,” he takes my chin between his fingers. “You’re looking a little green there.”

I scowl.

“I– I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. You’re thinking too much.” He says kissing my forehead. He takes my face in both hands, and makes me stare into his blue eyes. “I haven’t ask you anything yet, and you’re already thinking of ways to let down gently, real or not real?” He asks.

“Peeta, I don’t want children,” I start.

“I know, and that’s fine. When I was twelve, I kind of decided I was never having children either.”

I look straight at him, “How come?”

He takes my hands in his and brings them to his lips.

“I saw you under that apple tree, wet as a dog in the chilly rain, so frail, so tiny. My heart ached. Then a few months later, in spring, I saw pulling a wagon out if the Justice Building. I didn’t know what it was at first, and then Delly told me that her cousins had to sign up for it one year. You have no idea how terrified I’ve been ever since, counting in my head how many times could you name have been in bowl. I never signed for tessera in my life, but if it happened to Delly’s cousins, it could have happened to anyone.”

I nod in understanding. Then I chance a whisper so soft, I’m surprised he hears me, “I don’t want you to ask me yet,”

“I won’t, until you’re ready.”

“Okay,”

We kiss sweetly. He hugs me to him, and then chuckles.

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just that, we’re dancing around the possibility of a future together, and we know we might not have children when we married and that, yet, I don’t know what’s your favorite color,”

I smile back at him.

“Green,” I say thinking that maybe I ought to say is blue, but maybe that’s too forward.

“Makes sense,” he says lifting his eyes to the woods beyond, where a few evergreens grow.

“And you? What’s your favorite color?”

“Orange.”

“Orange, like that awful wig Hawkins keeps saying he got as a thank you gift from Effie Trinket?”

He laughs, “Ugh, no… more muted. Warmer, like a sunset,”

I smile and close my eyes to bring the image of a sunset to my mind. “It’s beautiful,”

“Not as beautiful as you,” his lips find mine, while swirls of green, reds and shiny golds color my thoughts.

Chapter Text

We've been sitting across the witch for about five minutes, while she stares at us stonily. I fight my urge to squirm under her penetrating gaze, nothing good will come of her knowing she unnerves me this much.

If there's one thing I'm proud about right now, is the way Peeta holds my hand, openly, for everyone to see. Just knowing he's not ashamed of me, or is trying to keep our relationship hidden from the district, more specifically his mother, is more rewarding than I ever could've imagine.

People usually treated me with a modicum of respect because of my hunts, but now that anyone, Seam or merchant, can go into the woods and try to hunt on their own, I've become just one more hunter, albeit with the most extensive experience of all, of course.

"So you two are together now?" She says pointing a finger between the two of us.

"Yes, Mother, me and Katniss are together now, and nothing you say will change the way I feel about her. I'm almost nineteen, and you can take the bakery away from me if you want, you can beat me with your bare fists until I'm unrecognizable, and you can disown me, and would still choose to be with Katniss. I don't care what anyone thinks. I've made my mind, and I've chose her--"

"Boy, go downstairs," His mother cuts him off dryly. "There was a tray of pastries to be delivered to the Mayor's house, and I'm sure your father has been too swamped with patrons to have moved the pastries yet."

"I--"

"Go!" She yells at his protest. "I want a private word with your little girlfriend, privately,"

"Mother, if you're trying to intimidate Katniss with threats, you may as well pack my belongings and--"

"PEETA, GO!" Her face turns red with the exertion of screaming at him, her nails digging in the faded upholstery of her recliner's arm rest. Her eyes are like two pointy daggers ready to strick, but still, Peeta hardens his jaw, and squeezes my hand in his. 

My heart hammers against my ribcage, I feel the adrenaline starting to gather, and I know I'll dip into if this woman dares to touch my boyfriend in front of me.

I know we are at a stalemate the moment I notice Peeta is staring back at his mother with the same danger written in his eyes. I wonder if they've ever gotten to this point before, or if this is something he's doing- holding his ground- because of me.

It becomes clear to me, that unless I tell him to go, he will never leave me alone with his mother.

But it's necessary that we get past this. She needs to know neither of us is scared of her. We are a team, and he's done a marvelous job standing up to his bully, but is my turn to show her she doesn't scare me. I'm not a little kid anymore, cowering under her apple tree.

"It's okay, Peeta. I'll be fine. You're father needs help, and if we're gonna be together, then I should be able to talk amicably, with your mother," I look at the witch pointedly, and she only arches her brow.

Peeta studies me for a moment, as if gathering courage, or passing it on to me, I'm not sure, but finally he agrees to leave my side, giving his mother a hard stare before walking away.

"Huh. I knew being around you would be good for him. Made him grow a spine." She says sitting back.

"No, it's made him get into violent clashes with people, which isn't the same thing at all as having grown a spine. It takes more courage to be mild mannered and civil under duress, than lashing out at everyone." I tell her meeting her gaze straight. "You just don't see his strength of character like other people do, and that's on you."

She simply stares quietly for a long while. Then she stands up, grabs her coat and orders me without even turning to face me, "Follow me,"

I never took my own jacket off, so I stand up and follow after her stiffly, wondering if she's going to take me to where they slaughter their pigs, to not leave traces of the moment when she murders me.

We go down the only flight of stairs accessing the apartment above the bakery, and come to the very hot kitchens below.

Mr. Mellark is kneading some dough, so when he hears us, he looks up and grimaces at me shamefully, no doubt knowing his wife is a scary handful. We go past him, and out the back door, where I've always conduct my trades with them.

It's strange to think about the baker as anything other than a very loyal and generous costumer. But I guess now, he's my boyfriend's father. 

The cold outside meets my face like an open-handed slap. Is a shock to be in this freezing temperatures, after coming from being so close to the heat of the bakery ovens, but Mrs. Mellark doesn't seem to mind or notice the change, while my skin prickles painfully.

For a wild second, I think I was right in suspecting the witch was leading me to the pig pen to be slaughtered, since that's the only thing back here-- except for the trash cans, that will no doubt come in handy once she's got me fillet like one of her food animals.

Surprisingly, we go past the pen and the cans, walking under the pitifull looking apple tree that almost became my grave marker, and on to where the line of the bakery's property ends, and the textile shop starts next door.

We walk all the way past it, and into the next shop, the cobbler, and then, we come into the property I know belongs to Rooba, the butcher. Instead of walking past it, we go up to her back door, which I'm very familiar with as well, and knock vigurously.

After a long moment, Rooba herself comes to answer the door, and frowns as soon as she sets eyes on us standing on her stoop together.

"Hello, Rooba, came to see Mother." Says Mrs. Mellark stepping inside the door.

Rooba's frown deepens, her usually lively eyes flick to me and then back to the witch.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" She asks uneasily.

"The way these two have been behaving, sucking faces publicly, flaunting their relationship on everyone's faces like there will be no consequences for their actions, will eventually make the rounds to your shop. Mother is bound to hear about it, and is best she hears it from me first." Mrs. Mellark says with an edge of annoyance, "I figured I'd let her see the girl, for herself, and... If the girl can stand a meeting with Mother, then Peeta will have my blessing without further issue."

This part surprises me quite a bit, but I blurt out, perhaps what surprises me the most, "Are you two related?"

Rooba looks at me as if I've just insulted her deeply. She shakes her head, and says gravely, "We are sisters-in-law." She takes a big breath, "Hortense lives here, even though my husband, her son, died years before you were even able to wield a bow, because the bakery is too warm for her liking, and she requires help to move around, and me and my children are usually less busy than the Mellark brood."

"I had no idea..." I feel terrible for her.

"You had no reason to know. Come on, lets get this over with,"

We go upstairs to Rooba's apartment above the butcher shop, where we find a woman, not as old as Sae, but close in vecinity, sitting in a wheelchair. She looks deceivingly frail; there's something about the way she looks at me, eyes brimming with prejudice, that lead me to believe, this woman has probably dished out the Seam-Merchant divide with malice all of her life.

The first words out of her filthy mouth demonstrate I'm right, "Stupid creature with no common sense! Why are you disgracing my home, allowing Seam trash to set foot inside my door? Have you no respect and decency?" She spits on the floor, "I thought I've taught you better than that!"

Rooba steps in, giving the woman the meanest stare I've ever seen the her give anyone.

"Hortense, this is my home, and miss Everdeen is here as my guest. You will be civil while talking to her and your own daughter!" She demands angrily.

I've made a lot of trades with Rooba over the years, big animals, like deer and the very occasional wild hog, go to her no matter what. She was instrumental to secure Lady for Prim, from the Goat man many years ago. We always do business fairly, and enjoy a cordial relationship, my business provides her fresh meat, and my pocket gets filled with actual currency for my troubles. I've would've never suspect she has to share her living spaces with this evil woman.

All the same, I'm touched Rooba spoke in my defense. My respect and gratitude for the butcher has grown tenfold, but my understanding of Mrs. Mellark is also immediately clearer.

There's a vicious circle of verbal abuse she's been part of, and I'm surprised anything as gentle, sweet and genuinely good like my Peeta, ever survived this environment. My heart breaks for them, coming from a home where you're treated like punching bag is never good.

"Everdeen? Is this the hunter or the whore that has ensnared my stupid, weakling of a grandson?" Hortense looks me up and down with disdain.

"Mother, my son is not stupid or a weakling. He's as sharp as father used to be, with a keen mind for business and a trained eye for--"

"Your son cavorts with Seam whores shamelessly around the district, sodding your good name, and you compared him to your father? How dare you? He's nothing but a stain on our family name, a shameful mistake that should have never come to be, if only you could've kept your legs closed, instead of trying to beg for a man's affections like a--"

"Hey!" I scream, not quite offended at the way my own honor has been called into question, but because she's talking about the man I love, his mere existence and his parents in so such a derogatory way, it makes my blood boil.

I leap forward, only to be held back by Rooba at the last second. I manage to get into the nasty old hang's face, and scream my lungs out irately, "You talk that way about my loved ones, and I'll stick an arrow right through your shriveled up heart!" I hiss through my gritted teeth making the woman cowered back into her chair, while her eyes widen in stunt fear.

She composes herself once I've been pulled away, and I'm at a safer distance.

"So the hunter then?" Hortense asks eying me with less contempt, still, her face can barely hide the sneer.

If Peeta's mother is known as 'the witch' by everyone in the district, her mother is got the be 'the mother bitch'.

"Mother, she's one and the same Everdeen: Peeta's girl, and the huntress." Says Mrs Mellark evenly. "She's not a whore, she's quite possibly Peeta's future wife. I've seen what I came here to prove. I don't care what else you have to say to me."

The bitch's response is immediate, she spews insult and aggression in her shrilly voice, calling her daughter a failure and a disgrace, and all her grand children as well, but the witch only turns her eyes to me, and nudges her head indicating it's time to leave.

I follow wordlessly, while Rooba yells for the old woman to shut up, and soon enough I hear her heavy footfalls running down the stairs after us.

"What was that all about? What did you accomplished by bringing Katniss here, and getting Hortense all riled up?" Rooba demands as we head for the door.

"I wanted to see how serious the girl was about my Peeta. I'm not about to allow her play with his heart, and then stomp on it, like he doesn't rate her affections. He will not become his father, I can promise you that! But..." She glances at me, satisfaction written in her eyes, "She showed devotion not only to him, but the whole family. If Peeta wants to throw in his lot with hers, then I won't stand on his way. Is that good enough reason for me to have come see my mother? I think yes." 

"I guess, but now you've left me to deal with that ogre for who knows how long." Rooba says shaking her head pitifully.

"Threaten her with sending her to the elderly home. She'll shut up about it, is what the Fletcher's do to their monster of a mother." Mrs. Mellark shrugs.

Apparently, being a horribly overbearing mother, is a must for merchant women.

"Come girl. Peeta is gotta be home, looking for a pitchfork to come in your defense by now." She sneers.

I follow her mutely back to the bakery, but when we're only a few paces away from her yard, I can't contain my anger any longer.

"So taking me to see that harpy was your idea of how best to prove my allegiance to Peeta?" I snap, "What kind of sick game os this? If you want to ask me something, then do it! I have no time for this mind games!"

She stops and turns to glare at me, "I did what I had to do to make sure you'll endure the worse, my kind will throw at you. Peeta is in love with you, if you haven't noticed. He'll give up his claim as rightful owner of the bakery if I forbid him to see you.

"I don't want a miner for a son. Miners die terrible deaths! If the earth doesn't claim them first, then miner's disease will get them. I saw a miner when I was a little girl, cough up coal dust, until his hands and nose and mouth were black as soot, and that was only be the beginning of this man's health problems. Do you have any idea how their lungs shrink up like prunes? 

"That's a death I will not wish to my worse enemy, let alone my child, as headstrong and stubborn as he is. No. Peeta will man this bakery when his father and I are gone, and if you stay with him, and I'm positively sure, you will, then you need to grow the thickest skin around. As thick as your mother's I guess." 

I wonder how is it that she knows so much about miner's disease, but I guess in Twelve, everyone has seen the long term effect, working in the mines has.

"I'm not sure I'm gonna marry him, so you can stop worrying about it," I say tersely.

She arches an eyebrow. "Why wouldn't you marry him?" She asks.

"I'm never having children. I told him as much, and he said he doesn't care, but when the time comes, and he gets filled with age, he will probably wish he had children to pass his business on to. I can't hold him from a future where he can teach his children the ropes of running a bakery and grow old knowing his legacy will stay in his family."

Mrs. Mellark simply rolls her eyes, "Have it your way, girl. Children won't make or brake a marriage, I had three sons and that didn't help mine. In my experience, having children won't change the way a man feels about his wife. Only intensify it."

"I don't want him to resent me. Plus, it might be too soon to even think about marriage, we've only been dating for three days." I counter.

"Girl, you just threatened to shoot my mother with an arrow, if she was mean to your loved ones. What does that tell you?"

I stare at her. Not that I want to admit it to myself, but I did think of Peeta as "the man I love" back at the Bitch's house. The thought came spontaneously, without reserve or struggle.

I know exactly what this means! A seed was planted in my heart when we were just children, it's laid very deep roots inside my heart and the resulting sprout, is turning into a green, exuberant and strong tree, more imposing and big as any I could find in the woods.

I shake my head.

"I still believe he should think about it. I know how to be in the Seam, and be hungry--"

"Katniss," Mrs Mellark says, using my name for the first time, with what seems like great difficulty. "It's time you realize something, my son will be your family if let him. He wants to be. If you take him up, and I truly believe you will, because no girl would act so defensive of a boy they don't care deeply about, they way you do for him, but if you marry him, he will never let you go to bed on an empty stomach. That, is a guaranty." She pauses and rubs her forehead tiredly, "As much as it kills me to say this, you'll be his family, and if he hasn't completely cut me off by then, you'll be my family too. I'll have your back where the women of town and their gossip are concerned."

Peeta steps out if the bakery's back door, and comes to sit next to me under the apple tree.

After my talk with his mother, I've been sitting out here in the frosted ground, staring at nothing, playing with the fraying ends of my boot laces. 

"Hungry?" His voice comes out as more of a trembling gasp. 

I focus my gaze on him. He looks at the brink of tears. 

He offers me a paper bag, and when I open it, it has a sandwich, on a very dark bread. 

My throat constricts painfully, looking at the offering. I'm about to through it into his face and cuss him out for making me relieve that terrible day, but he whiskers so low, I almost miss it.

"Is pumpernickel. A new recipe we're trying. It's mostly eaten in Eleven. We don't usually have the ingredients for it, in fact we only got them during Victory Tours, when the bakery had to provide sample breads to represent all twelve districts." He combs his fingers through his ashy blond curls, that are a shade darker now that he's older, making it stand in all directions. "I wanted you to try it earlier, but..."

"It's okay." I say choking. I place the bag on my lap, and cup his face in my free hands, "I'm not hungry, Peeta, but thanks for giving me bread," I say meaningfully, hoping he gets how deep my words really go.

"Yeah, I know," he says quietly, eyes red rimmed. "But our story started here, under this tree, you know," I know, I could never forget, "I don't ever want you to be hungry under this tree, though. Not ever."

"I won't." I say with confidence in him. "And... Ours, is a love story, Peeta. I think it's time we create some happy memories to link with this tree, don't you think?" I say softly, caressing the delicate skin under his eyes, where an angry red welt stood out once.

He nods, smiling weakly, "I agree."

"We'll sit here every season, and share sweet kisses, until we are too old to move around freely," I propose closing in the gap between us, kissing his lips as tenderly and leasurly as I can, because he deserves to have nothing but good memories, and is time for us to heal, and leave our pasts behind. 

When we finally separate, he curls an arm around my shoulders and pulls me to him. 

He kisses my forehead, and then he tells me, sounding more like himself, "So, I hear you are now using Grandma Hortense as a practice target," he chuckles thickly, still trying not to give into his darker feelings. 

"Oh yes," I say laying my head on his shoulder. "And I became best friends with your mother,"

"Oh I don't doubt it." He brings his other arm to embrace me more firmly, and burrow deeper into his warmth, "Can you imagine it? Every family event, you and my mother will be wearing matching dresses, and will sit together all night, very cozy, sharing recipes and old sad stories about your childhoods. Very nice, I'm looking forward to it!" 

I laugh. 

"Hey, can't help it if you don't know how to choose the women in your life!" I tell him cheekily.

"Meh... I won the jackpot with you, so I'm not too heartbroken. I'll have fresh squirrel stew every night! Who else in the district can boast of that?" 

"Rory Hawthorn?" 

"Mhmm, no... He gets rabbits. Completely different rodent."

I laugh even harder. 

"Why won't you shut up and kiss me already?" 

"Don't mind if I do!"

Chapter Text

Prim and I walk with the Hawthornes to the Wrestling  match the day before the Festival. Gale is conspicuously absent, and I can't say I'm sorry about it. I'm still not very happy with him, but I try my best to not show any ill feelings toward him while chatting with his family.

Posey, Gale's baby sister, is almost seven years old, and is singing in the choir with the rest of the lower leve school kids, I've been trying to keep a respectable distance between me and Peeta on the few times he's come to deliver treats for after practice. Peeta has been a doll, with my trying to maneuver our relationship delicately around the Hawthorns, never pressuring or getting frustrate, he tries the hardest to get into Posey's good graces, which really, isn't that hard if you're feeding her cookies. 

Rory truly doesn't care; of Gale's siblings, he was the only one who didn't blame me when Gale left, in fact, he kind of defended me, and even coerced Posey into speaking to me after she gave me the silent treatment for a month. 

Things aren't back to normal with the kids yet, and I'm grateful at least Hazelle understood and didn't held me accountable for her son's decision. Still, I don't know what would any of them think of me being involved with a merchant, and I'm trying to ease them in on the idea of me dating Peeta Mellark. Whatever happened between me and Gale, Hazelle is like my second mother, and love the kids as if they were my blood.

So, it surprises me when little Posey asks, in her sweet, tilting voice, "Catnip, if mister Peeta is named champion again this year, will you kiss him in front of everyone?"

"I... Um... He- he won't be champion this year Rollie-Posey," My throat is suddenly very dry. "He's not in school anymore." I rasp, clearing my throat at the end.

"Aww," she says in disapoinment, "My friend Cotton, said her older sister, Belinda, says you two are cute kissing, and that she hopes to have boy look at her the same way mister Peeta looks at you." She pauses for a moment, then peers at me, holding my hand, "Is that why Gale left us? Because he didn't look at you with hearts in his eyes?"

If I felt uncomfortable before, this questions is downright terrifying, luckily, I don't have to answer, at least not right away.

"Posey! That is not polite, young lady! Apologize to Katniss right away! What your brother does, has nothing to do with Katniss, and you should not say things like that to her or him. It's not nice." 

"I'm sorry, Mamma," says Posey contrite at her mother's scolding. Then she turns to me, and starts to apologize, but I stop her gently. 

Stopping our procession of people, I kneel until I'm eye to eye with the girl, and wipe away the wayward tear staining her cheek, "Sweet girl, don't cry. It's alright, Gale and I love each other, but... You know how you and Vick bicker at times?"

She nods, "He says my dolls are for babies."

"I know he thinks that, but, you and I think dolls are for nice little girls, that like to play pretend with them, no matter how old we are, don't we?" 

She nods again. 

"What happened with me and Gale is the same, but a little different. We bicker about grown up things, just like you and Vick bicker about sibling things. In a way, Gale and I are too much alike, but there are things we think completely different things. You can never marry someone you don't think alike, you'll never be happy. But, we are still family, we will make up, just like you and Vick do after a time apart. Things will get better, and Gale will find himself a sweetheart he has many things in common with, and who makes him very happy."

"Will she like the same way as you?" She asks with apprehension.

"Even more!" I kiss the top of her head, "Let's get going or we will miss the match," 

"Okay!" She smiles radiantly, and rushes ahead. Prim and Rory who have been standing close by, listening to every word, take off running after the littlest Hawthorne, Vick gives me a half smile, and hugs my midsection before jogging forward. Is only Hazelle and me walking silently, side by side, now. 

"Thank you, dear. That was sweet of you, and made a lot of sense to everyone, including me." She says, her grey eyes trained on the children dashing ahead of us. "You didn't have to explain that to her, you know, but in glad you did." 

"It was no trouble at all," I say feeling a knot in my throat. "I didn't want her to think... I do love Gale, but we would've never work as a marriage," I say, "Not like my mother and father, and I couldn't lead him on. It was better to have him get angry at me then, than to have him hate me later when there was nothing we could've done about our situation."

"Oh, Katniss!" Her roughened hand caresses my arm, her eyes are soft and full of understanding, "I do know breaking things off with Gale was hard on you too. It was the right thing to do, and he knows it, deep down he does. We love you too, and I support and respect whatever you decide to do. If the Mellark boy is the one who holds your heart, then he's the one you should give it to. Not anyone else. You go find love and happiness, same as your folks, same as Gale's Pa and I had. You won't regret it, even if you decide to never bring children into the works. Gale couldn't understand it before, but I think, after all the misery and death he's seen in the army, he sees your point of view. You should speak to him, and make up. I know my boy can be hard headed, but he won't begrudge you your happiness."

She pats my cheek fondly, and I feel like a heavy burden has been lifted off my shoulders. I didn't know how stressed out about this I've been, until this little interaction with Hazelle, but I'm glad we spoke. 

Now, my only hope is that things go as well with Gale too.

Peeta and I agreed to walk home after the match, since Gale was to joined his family and walk them home. What I wasn't expecting was walking with Peeta's oldest brother, Barley, Prim, Rory and the Cartwright boy, Saul. 

It wasn't the relaxing, easy stroll I had been secretly craving. 

Saul came in third place for the qualifiers, Braley and Peeta are former champions, of course, and Rory is a boy, seriously thinking about joining the wrestling team, so all the did was chat about the match and all technical aspects of the event. Prim kept asking questions about little things here and there, but I was completely and utterly mute the whole walk. 

I tried to smile and be polite to Bar- as he begged me to call him- and Saul, but I really felt left out of the conversation, since I really don't know all that much about the discipline. Both Peeta and Bar try to bring me into the debate about opening up try outs to girls, since it just seems very lopsided, that boys get to have this grand event and there's nothing special for girls to look out for. 

To be honest, I really try hard, but socializing isn't my strong suit, so I stumble out little responses here and there, and make an effort not to scowl.

My mood has progressively deteriorated, to the point of sourness. It's not that I mind the extra company, and actually being friendly with one of Peeta's siblings is something I dearly want to nourish for his sake, but is the fact that I get all tongue tied and my thoughts tangle in my head, until I'm afraid I'll make a fool out of myself if I open my mouth for more than a 'yes', 'no' or 'I guess so'. I'm frustrated with myself.

When we get to the fork splitting the road between the Seam and Town, everyone slows down, and come to a complete stop, exchanging parting words with one another. Barley shakes hands with Rory as if he was older than his fifteen years, and wasn't the incarnation of a Seam rat- which greatly surprises me- and asks him to stop by his house next week with a rabbit, if he can spare it. Once Rory agrees, Barley moves to say his goodbyes to Prim, they are a little more friendly than I would've guessed, but everyone is comfortable with her. Then he comes to me.

"Um, So... I heard all about putting Hortense in her place the other day," he says scratching the back of his neck not unlike Peeta does when he's feeling awkward. "Good for you! Is healthy for her to get knock down a few pegs every so often. I guess that's why Mother can't stop bragging about you to every stick with a pair of ears that comes to greet her,"

Bragging? That's a new one!

Barley looks at me shyly. I find it so weird for a Melkark to be this awkward, but I shouldn't, after all Prim is my complete opposite in every way. 

"Well... that woman was being possitively awful to everyone. She had it coming." 

Barley chuckles. It's not as rich and deep and heartfelt as Peeta sounds when he chuckles, and I surprise myself by thinking how I got the better brother. 

"Yeah, I think that's what finally won my mother over, when I told mother and father that I planned on marrying the blacksmith's only daughter. Mother screamed and bitched about how sickly and weak Goldie always looked, but once everyone realized Goldie could hold her own with Hortense, frail looking and all..." Another chuckle, "Let's say any girl that can face Hortense and not leave with her tail between her legs, is a worthy Mellark wife." He smiles sweetly, looking between me and Peeta who's chuckling as well. 

Goldie Marvin-Mellark, is a very fragile looking town girl, with wispy white-blonde hair, and crystal blue eyes, that look just a tad too big for her thin, pointy face. Mother says the blacksmith went almost out of business trying to provide her medical care for some illness that targeted her blood and made it hard for her to fight infections, since everyone of his previous children died in early childhood, he was very driven to keep his little girl alive. By some miracle, Goldie beat the disease, and lived to adulthood, but the biggest surprised came when strong, handsome, and coveted Barley Mellark dropped his claim to District Twelve's only bakery, to become a blacksmith apprentice, and soon after married Goldie, a girl so thin, and weak looking, she could be lifted by the merest wind gush and be carried away. 

There was doubt there would be any heir produced by Goldie, until the day her belly started to round and grow under her tiny dresses, and her cheeks took a healthier glow. The blacksmith paid an insane amount of money to have the town physician to deliver the baby, since it was such a high risk endeavor.

I can see how the Witch would find fault with Goldie, and it irks me she's devised the perfect way to test the worthiness of her sons' love interests, but I say nothing of the sort.

"Goldie sounds like a great lady," I say instead, earning a dazzling smile from Bar. 

"She is! The very best!" He tries to give me a one arm hug, that's a little stiff and awkward, but, I'm less annoyed now, than I was a few minutes ago. "Alright, gotta go, Peet. See you tomorrow, I'm coming to help with the bakery booth after the play, so you can see the choir at you leisure," he blinks one eye at Peeta, who beans widely.

"Thank you, Bar! See you tomorrow. Give me love to Zoos."

They both turn, and frown at the time, at the way Saul is leaning forward, closer to Prim that's appropriate, considering he's engaged to be married to Prim's classmate.

"Saul, time to go, bud. Maisey is probably waiting for you," says Bar with a hard tone, making the boy jump in his skin. He says his goodbyes hastily- and very nervously when it comes to me- and lumbers after Bar as they make their way to town.

Peeta drapes a protective, brotherly arm around Prim's slim shoulder's and starts walking away, not even wishing Saul a good night. Rory falls into step with them, and I come bringing up the rear.

Rory waves everyone goodnight after a few minutes walking and goes home, leaving the three of us alone. 

Peeta asks us both questions about our day, and how we enjoyed the cookies he brought for us earlier, and after a moment, is Prim dominating the conversation, which is big improvement from just ten minutes ago when it was all about the match. Peeta shows as much interest and attention to whatever Prim is prattling about herbs and her animals or whatever class is she enjoying at school, and how she helped one of her friends get better after a horrendous boiling oil burn that covered half her hand, with some salves she made herself. Peeta even 'ooh's and 'aah's when she talks about breaking a new record on the long jump in sports class. 

It warms my heart to see how enrapt he is with my little sister's stories, he's not pretending or humoring her either! He genuinely cares about what she's sharing, and I love that about him.

We all pile inside my house to warm up by the hearth, where my mother has kept a roaring fire while reading a book in her rocking chair. Since supper has been on the stove for a while, and we have a respectable amount of food, courtesy of Panem's new leadership, which has distributed parcels of cured meats, dry powder milk and some grains, to celebrate Soltice, when Mother invites Peeta to stay for dinner, he agrees happily and without feeling guilty about taking food from us... Not that he should, EVER! 

Hes given us so much food this winter, I'm sure we all gained back the weight we lost during the very lean first weeks of the season. 

We eat amidst comfortable, amiable conversation. Mother asks Peeta a few questions about himself, but nothing too invasive. She's still a little cautious of him, and his commitment to weathered the judgement of the district now that is no secret to anyone, we are a new couple now. 

Sometimes I roll my eyes at him, when he nervous and shy around my mother. I told him that he has it very easy. Dealing with his mother will always be akin to torture, while he gets my mother, who's afraid of spiders, gets lost in her thought and melancholy at the most odd times, and so far hasn't made him sit for an interrogation session. 

After supper, Mother says she's got a headache, and bids everyone good night, before disappearing behind the raggedy curtains separating her bedroom from the rest of the house. The plates still need washing, and Prim has to put Lady up, so I decide to ask Peeta to help her out, while I clean up the kitchen. The faster Prim gets done, the faster I can slip outside and have a bit of some very needed private time with my boy.

Washing, drying and putting away the dishes and empty pots takes me about fifteen minutes. I wipe down the table, since it has to be clean and ready for any unforeseen emergency at the drop of a hat. We never know when a patient will come up banging on the door with horrifying injuries. I shudder at the though. I hate seeing people in pain.

I put every last piece of cutlery, cups and napkins away, and Prim and Peeta still haven't come back inside. They should've been done long ago.

Imaginig the worse case scenario, where some wild beast has manage to get into the district, and somehow has come to our house, lured by a plump, bleating goat, and has attacked and probably killed the only two people I'm sure I love, I rush to the door.

I feel my heart beat all the way up into my throat, my eyes start to sting and burn, and I'm painfully aware my bow and arrows are still in their hidden place in the woods; but when I'm about to yank the door open, I spy through the window, two blonde heads low on the stoop of the porch, next to each other. 

I inch closer to the door, still intending to come out and see what's the hold up, but I stay my hand when Prim's voice floats faintly through the hollow wooden door. 

"Nah, not him. I told Katniss before, town boys aren't my type." She sighs resigned. 

"Okay. That's good, Primy!" I detect relief in Peeta's response. But still listen on. "I was worried for a second there."

She sighs again, "There's nothing to be worried about, though. I really don't like Saul that way, and before you ask, yes, I'm very aware of what he feels for me, even though I've tried to disprove it time an again." She pauses and I can hear the scowl forming on her pretty face.

All I can think is: The little shit! He's engaged to Prim's classmate! I feel the urge to pummel him to a pulp, but Prim continues talking.

"No boy is interested in his big sister's midwife visits! No matter how close they are, boys just don't want to be with their sisters during check ups."

"Well, I feel so much better knowing you are aware of him and don't share his feelings."

"Yeah... I told him once I like Maisy, that she's a nice girl and I'm happy for him, but..." I see her shrug from the safety of the window. "I don't want to hurt Maisy."

"Fair enough. Now, who's the lucky guy?" Peeta says bumping Prim's shoulder lightly with his, a note of amusement in his voice. "Is it Rory?" He prompts but she shakes her head violently. 

"Eww, gross! Rory is like a very annoying, foul mouthed brother. No! Ugh!"

Peeta releases a belly laugh he tries to stifle behind a hand. "Okay, so not Rory, who then?"

She hesitates, "I- I don't... It's nobody." She says meekly.

I can clearly see Peeta frown. "Okay, that right there just told me that there's somebody. You know, you Everdeen girls suck at lying. Katniss couldn't fake a story to save her life, and apparently neither can you. Come on, who is it, though?"

Prim huffs, I see the rivulets of white vapor come from her mouth. "I... I don't know."

"Try me," he encourages. 

"Promise me to not tell Katniss or Mamma? They would never approve," She asks him, an although I can't see her face from here, I'm sure she's beseeching him with her full, blue eyes. 

"I don't know, Prim... I shouldn't keep secrets from them. Neither should you for that matter," he says rubbing the back of his neck. 

"Then I won't tell you anything," she counters, more challenging. 

He hesitates for a moment, and I shift back, away from the window when he turns to look at the house. 

He takes a deep breath, "Fine. You need to talk to someone about this, and I want you to trust me. I won't tell, because it's not my secret to divulge, but you should. You won't believe how accepting people can be when you face them with the truth. There's my mother for example. She could terrorize the bravest man, but once Katniss threatened to have my grandmother skewered..." He chuckles, and Prim giggles a little. "Come on. You can tell me."

"Fine... Katniss would never approve. It's an older man."

"How old?" He asks wrinkling his nose.

"I don't know... Ten? Fifteen years?" She shrugs, and I cover my mouth to keep me from screeching in outrage.

Still, I walk away from the window to give them some privacy, if I want them to trust me, I have to trust them and show I can respect my sister's privacy, and as much as I want to squeeze information from Peeta, I don't want him to betray Prim.

All I can do is hope one of them comes clean to me, or helps the other open up about it. 

Finally, is about fifteen minutes later, when I'm not sure if the end of their conversation or need to seek warmth brings them back inside. I think is a bit of both, because they look chilled to the bones, but there's a certain lightness on Prim's shoulders and steps, as if she just unloaded a very heavy burden. 

Peeta doesn't look troubled, in fact, he seems playful and cheery, but I've come to know, Peeta Mellark is a master, disguising his feelings behind carefully built masks, that only show you what he wants you to see. 

He finds my eyes, while on mid chuckle, and I see a small crinkle of the forehead. He knows. He won't betray me to Prim, but he knows I was eavesdropping. 

It hits me as odd, we haven't been friends that long, let alone lovers, and we can read each other faces so quickly. It scares me to the core, because it took me years of traipsing in the woods with Gale, to know him well enough to recognize his facial tells, but with Peeta, everything has fallen into place so quickly... It's unnerving. 

"So, tomorrow is the Solstice!" Squeals Prim quietly, careful not to wake mother. 

"Or, to be more specific, my nineteen birthday!" Peeta says cheekily. 

My eyes widen, because I knew it was coming and when, but somehow the reality of it didn't register until just now. Peeta will be nineteen tomorrow. A full on legal adult, according to Panem's laws. 

"Wow!" Exclaims Prim equally surprised. "I was talking about the Yule Festival, but, you're gonna be nineteen? How exciting, Peeta!" She gushes, "What do you want for your birthday?" She asks curiously. 

His eyes twinkle, not thanks to the glow of the fireplace, he looks at me quickly, and then says with a happy lilt to his voice, "I only wanted one thing for my birthday, and I got my wish already. I'm truly content with how things are, I don't need anything else, really," he smiles crookedly. 

I will still set out to get him a gift, something from me, that's meaningful and special, but I'm terrible at this kind of thing.

Prim only shakes her head smiling ruefully, "Well, if you think of anything..."

"Oh, I let someone know," he says and winks. "Well, it's getting late. I should go home. I will only get a few hours of sleep if I don't hurry up. Father and I preped everything for the morning, and Bar is coming at 4 a.m. to help with the baking and boxing up goods..." He sighs, "It's going to be a very busy morning," he smiles tiredly already, "The good thing is that Mother and Goldie are taking over the cleaning at around 8, so the rest of us can take a rest." 

"Well, I for one, I'm looking forward to your treats," says Prim patting his shoulder affectionately.

I walk Peeta out the door after Prim says her goodbyes and goes to get ready for bed. I button up the collar of his coat once we are outside. He stands on the ground, while I stand on the top step leading to my porch. We are eye level this way. 

He smiles sweetly, lovesick even, and his hands brush my sides shyly, I curl my own arms around his neck, and pull him closer, forcing him to take a firm hold on my hips. We really haven't been this physical that much, so we are still trying boundaries and learning what we are comfortable with, when it comes to touching and holding. 

"So, how much did you hear?" He asks quirking an eyebrow. "I know you did, with your ghost like tread and cat like reflexes. You're more elusive than Buttercup," he says knowing perfectly well I'm not crazy about the matted fur ball. 

"I walked away before I heard anything that would truly invade Prim's privacy," I say tersely. "I have standards, you know," I sniff out.

"I know," he says giving me a sweet peck on the lips, and then licking his, as if savoring the small stollen kiss. "I just wanted to know where does the statute of secrecy stand," he sighs.

I scowl, "I only heard she likes a man probably fifteen years her senior, but nothing else... By the way, I think I need to have a word with Saul Cartwright, let him know I'm watching him," I say curtly.

Peeta laughs, squeezing my hips appreciatively. "Oh, he knows. I showed him the last squirrel you brought Father a couple of days ago. I showed him where your arrow pierced it's tiny beady eye, and told him how you never miss. Always right in the eye!" He says with a big measure of pride in his rich laugh. 

"Still," I say grouchily, "that boy better wise up about what he's doing." 

"He will. My brother will see to it. Maisy and Goldie are cousins, and everyone is aware of Saul's stunts." 

"Even Maisy?" I ask troubled, "And his parents? I don't want anyone thinking Prim has done anything wrong to encourage that boy!"

Peeta kisses me fully, stealing my breath and wiping clean my mind if coherent thought. When he lets go of my lips, my eyes remain close for a second, until he talks. 

"Don't you worry about it. No one thinks badly of Prim. Everyone knows she's a good girl,"

"Good! And," I pause, looking into his eyes searchingly, "about--"

"Katniss," he sighs, "I don't want to lie to you, and I really hate keeping secrets from you, but... don't ask me about what Prim said." He begs, "Is not my story to tell, and she's already mortified."

"I- I won't ask about it. At least I won't ask who the guy is, I just want to make sure, she's safe, and she's smart about it. A man that old has to be married with children, and Prim is a child herself,"

He cups my face in his hands so tenderly, it almost breaks my heart. The look of adoration in his eyes leaves me breathless.

"Do you trust me?" He asks softly, "because I need you to trust me on this one. Prim is a very savvy girl, Katniss. She's not stupid," he tells me, begs me.

"I do trust you," I say truthfully, "I'm just... scared for my baby sister," 

"Well, her heart is not as fragil as we think, sweetie. Prim has a strength we haven't fully seen, so trust her instinct. The guy is not married, and has no children. Prim suspects he's in love with some else, but she doesn't know who."

I frown, "Do I know him?" I ask curiously. Because I can't think of one man in district twelve, single and childless at that age. 

Peeta's quirks sideways, "You know him. I dare say you even like him, but that's all you're getting from me." He quips.

"Do you like him?" I ask more puzzled now than before. 

He laughs and kisses my nose, "I kind of like him. I don't know him as well as you do, and I know he used to flirt with you, so that put a damper on it on my part."

"What? Who is this person?" I insist. 

"Good night, sweetheart." Peeta kisses me, flat out ignoring my question, "Have good night." He kisses me softly, and leaves me standing on my porch, glaring at his back, since he wouldn't say anything more. 

I knock on the bakery's back door, and swings open almost immediately. I jump back startled, and have curve my body away from the jug of steaming hot white tea I'm carrying in my hands. 

Mr. Mellark stands right in front of me, face as surprised to see me there, as I am. He's holding a bag of trash in his hand, which explains he was on his way to dump the trash, right when I knocked, and we just surprised each other. 

"Katniss! Good morning," he smiles, "isn't this a bit early for trading?" He says looking at my bundled up jug. 

The sky is just beginning to light up with the very first rays of sun, but it's still very, very early. 

"Oh, I'm here to help with the clean up," I say feeling my cheeks flame up, "If, that's okay. Or... Just take the tea, it's very good to give a wakefulness boost on days we need more energy." I say quickly.

But the burly man's face lights up, a smile curls his lips, and he steps aside to let me in. 

"That sounds wonderful, actually! Extra help is always appreciate it, as it's the tea. Thank you, Katniss. That's very thoughtful of you." He laughs a little, "My wife still hasn't come down, but I'm sure she'll be glad to see another pair of hands at work. Come on in," 

As soon as I step in, he steps out, bag in hand and straight for the trash cans.

The inside of the kitchen is gloriously warm. More than warm, since all ovens are fire up and holding a tray after tray of divine smelling goods, that makes my mouth water and my stomach protest angrily. 

Strong, thick, flour covered arms wrap me into an even more delicious heat, and a smooth, deep, manly voice whispers into my neck, just below my ear, "Hey, Beautiful! What a pleasant surprise." He kisses the skin where his lips brush under my ear, making me shudder despite the warmth around me. "What are you doing here?" He asks nuzzling his nose into my hair. 

Everything he's doing feels so impossibly good, my knees quiver. I close my eyes and greedily absorbe his heat and his love, and the way he makes me feel in the stomach. As if I'm free falling, face first, from the very top of the tallest tree in the forest, and my stomach knots up with emptiness and anticipation. 

"You have no idea how happy I am to see you right now," he murmurs into my hair, leaving tiny kisses on the nape of my neck. 

I release a stuttering breath and my legs twist together a little, very much like they do when I hold my urge to relieve my bladder for too long, except, this time is to quell a strange feeling of hollowness forming in most intimate parts. 

I'm not ignorant. I might've never done, let alone felt anything like this before, but I'm not stupid. We learned everything about conception at school in health class, along with safety measures for underground care. What I didn't grasp from the cold, clinical explanations written in my text books, I gathered from whispered, conversations I accidentally overheard in the girls restrooms, shared over breathy giggles and behind hands covering gasping mouths.

I'm perfectly aware what this sensations mean and what does my body crave. I'm just surprised at how consuming and acute the need is, I'm torn between wanting to burrow deeper into him, or stepping out of his embrace, in hopes that I can rein in my overwhelming, growing desire for this boy... MAN! I remind myself. Today he's become a man before the eyes of the law.

I turn in his arms, to give him a quick 'hello' kiss, then use the tea as an excuse to step away from him. 

"I brought you some white tea. To help you perk up. It's my mother's blend." I tell him. "I figured, If you have an energy boost, you can get done faster, and I can take you somewhere special... for your birthday." I say. 

I still feel that sensation of emptiness in my lower region, and shift on my feet, to distract me from it, because my boyfriend looks incredibly handsome, all disheveled and covered in flour. 

He grins brightly, "You're taking me somewhere? Where?" 

"Oh no! None of that mister! You go back to your baking and I'll start on the washing. The faster we get done, the faster we can leave." I chide, but then I slink forward, dropping the jug of tea on the counter. My arms coil around his neck, and I kiss him sweetly, "Happy birthday... S-sweetie," the last word is almost a shy whisper but makes his face light up with happiness. 

"Thank you. I can't wait to get away with you to my secret present," he says dreamily. 

"Then back to work with you!" 

"Where are we going?" He asks again when we go past the the road to the Seam. "The meadow?" He inquires. 

I give him a warning look and keep on going, hefting my game bag more securely over my shoulders. 

I should've ask Prim for guidance on this birthday present business, but she's busy getting ready for her duties at the festival tonight, and I turn into a ball of nerves every time I think about the choir performance, feeling sick to my stomach until I'm heaving with anxiousness. Last night I figured, throwing all my thoughts into giving Peeta a gift, will keep me blissfully distracted for the most part, preventing me from running into the wild, never to be seen again. 

Nineteen birthday gifts are usually special ones. Since people in Twelve don't often give gifts every, parents would save up as much coin as they can afford to then give their child something that would be useful for their adult life, something practical like a new leather coat lined with wool, or sturdy boots that will last for years, or maybe something for a new dwelling, like a chair, the best set of sheets they can afford and sometimes even silverware, if  incline to use them, since by then a person would be about to marry a sweetheart, which means a newly assigned shack in the Seam to live in if they're miners or a less dilapidated house in town as close to their shop as possible if they're merchant.

For Peeta, I've decided to take him out to the lake, since he said just the other day he's never ventured too far into the woods, and maybe only as far as the meadow. I thought we could go see real, white snow for once, istead of the sad gray slush we get in the district. That should be a treat, plus he'll get to see my most beloved place in Panem, my refuge: the woods I used to share with my father, and later with... Gale.

Thinking of Gale leaves me in a bad mood, so I hurry to think about my trip into the woods with Peeta.

We pack a ration of raisin and cinnamon bread, along with one apple and the last piece of cheese they had in the bakery. We also took what was left of the tea I brought over, although is cold and unappetizing now. 

We walk for maybe thirty minutes, into the quiet woods, under naked trees and frosted limbed pines. Peeta can't stop staring at every new thing we find as we walk. They way he drinks up the sights just makes me giddy with excitement, and I know I did right!

Although I decided today wasn't a hunting day- Peeta is loud and cumbersome in the snow scaring away all prey in the vecinity- I get my bow and arrows from their hiding spot after instructing Peeta to turn around and cover his eyes.

He laughs.

"What's so funny?" I ask annoyedly clambering over the dead tree that now houses my bows.

"I just find it amusing, that you'll go through this lengths... even if I knew where you've been hiding your bow and arrows, is not like I could ever wield them. I wouldn't know know the first thing about shooting 'em!" He chuckles again. "Now, if you tell me there's a giant cake I can attack with a bag of frosting... well, that's another story," he snickers. 

"I can never be too careful," I tell him morosely. "You can open your eyes now," 

The look on his face when he turns around and sees me, is a poem of awe, admiration and longing. He looks at me as if I was a goddess of the woods, and maybe to him I am. I doubt anyone other than my father and Gale has ever seen me with my bow and quiver full of arrows slung around my back. I recon is got to be a sight to behold, actually seeing a person... a girl as small and scrawny as I am with such weapons.

He comes closer to me, until he can cup my face easily, and kisses me soundly.

"You are the most beautiful, amazing, brave woman I've ever seen!" He whispers into my lips.

"I'm nothing of the sort... but I kind of like it when you say it. So, I'll allow your flattery," I smirk.

He laughs, "Come 'ere, you!" He pulls me tightly into his arms. 

We kiss again, deep and lingering. Hands slide slowly across hard chest or pliable back, skittering slowly and timidly over a foreign body, exploring, getting acquainted with dips and swells, looking for purchase on bony hips, or strong, broad shoulders. The more we kiss, the more of him I crave. I thought I knew about hunger, I thought I was an expert on it, but this hunger I feel for him, is an entire new kind, overwhelming and consuming, bold and daring, all burning fire and glowing embers. 

One of us moans, and he picks me up in his arms. As if we've done this all of our lives, my legs lift up to wound around his solid hips, like that's their natural place, and his mouth slide from mine, sucking and nipping down my chin, lower still, where his lips lavish my throat, and I tilt my head back to allow him more room to work his madening, sweet torture on my collarbone. 

I feel the excruciating desire to have his hands fondle my breasts, and that's when my foolish mouth opens to break the magic spell. 

I cry his name out, in a voice I've never heard come from me before, whiny, keening, and wanton, "Peeeetaaah," I only intended to have him remove a hand from my buttocks where he's holding me up, and place it on my breast, but, groans painfully, as if the sound of his name has wounded him, and I panic.

"Peeta!" I call out anxiously, scared that something has gone terribly wrong. 

Its enough to wake him from his own blissful fantasy world, eyes widening at our situation. 

"I- I'm so sorry, sweetie," he says hastily lowering me to the ground. 

"No, don't be sorry, we didn't do anything wrong," I say trying to hide my disappointment. 

"Katniss," he sighs clamping his eyes shut, leaning his forehead on mine, "That was... bordering on..."

"Blissful?" I offer, but he opens one aggravated blue eye, and rolls it when the weariness that flooded them evaporates. 

"No," he corrects patiently, "Inappropriate. We got too carried away by... by hormonal impulses. I promise I'll keep myself in check from now on. I won't be so --"

I kiss him to shut him up.

I can't quite tell him it was alright with me. I wish I could admit I'm not sure how far would I let things escalate if this type of passionate kiss happens again, specially when we're alone, but the words only die in my mouth and I feel out of sorts and on the verge of puking. So, instead, once the kiss is done, I hold on to his hand, and march forward, until we've reach the frozen lake.

Peeta's speechless! His blue eyes grow round and I think he Eve stops breathing for a second or two. There isn't a body of water in the district, and this lake is probably farther from the fence than anyone has ever gone, including Gale.

"I-I never knew this was out here," he gasps in astonishment, puffs of cold smoke leave his mouth. 

"Yeah. It's been here even longer than the Dark Ages." I say looking out into the vastly winter landscape, with the naked trees forming a ring around the solid lake. "There's a small concrete shack with an old fireplace on the other side," I ramble on to support my earlier statement. 

"This is amazing, Katniss!" He says letting go of my hand to kneel on the frost cover shore, keeping a sensible distance between himself and the edge of the ice. "H-how did you know this was out here?" He asks in wonder and surprise, looking with wide eyes every thing he can, af if he's trying to commit every inch of our surroundings to memory. 

"It's a place I've only shared with my father. He taught me how to swim right in this very lake." I say wistfully. 

Peeta turns his eyes back to me. And stands up with more wonder in his gaze than I can stand. I'm not anything half as amazing as this beautiful scenery. 

"Thank you," he says reverently, taking my hands in his tenderly, "I can't begging to tell you, how in awe I am to be the recipient of this wonderful gift. Your trust and willingness to share something this special with me," he brushes a strand of loose hair of my face. 

"Well, it's your birthday," I sigh when he kisses the top of my hands.

"And it's the best birthday I've ever had," he says sweetly, pulling me closer to him, brushing my forehead with his lips, "Thank you. You've made everything so much greater."

After that, we walk around the lake to where the little building with the chimney stands, I haven't been here in months, but it looks the same as always. There isn't any burning wood here, and sincerely we should be getting back home, so we decide to come back in the spring, when there should be greenery framing the water. 

Peeta enjoys his excursion like a little boy that has been gifted a box of sweets. When I offer to teach to swim, he freaks out, picking me up in his arms and spining me around laughing and planting tight lip little kisses all over my face. His joy is contagious!

He gathers pinecones, sticks, little broken up pine boughs with green needles still sticking from them, and soon he's making a wreath of all the little twigs and forest treasures he's picked up.

We come across a whole acre of holly bushes, and he grabs handfuls of the stuff. He picks the reddest berries he can find and adds them to his wreath.

People usually place wreaths of dry hay bunched together with string on their doors to celebrate the harvest. I've never seen one like the one he's made, with twigs, pine needles, acorn hats, and pinecones. The red holly berries make it colorful and pretty, and when snowflakes land on it, they shine on the midday sun.

By the time noon comes around, I decide is time to eat, rest and go back home to get ready for the festival.

We sit in a clearing, on a fallen log to munch on our little feast of cinnamon-raisin bread, cheese and cold tea. I take out my hunting knife, and slice up the apple in quarters, all the while, I keep inching closer to him in our log, until I'm cuddled up to him  leaching off his warmth. He slings a heavy arm around my shoulders, and we stay like that, happily sharing a meal.

A thought pops in my head, I brought him out here today, because I thought this would be a treat for him. But this is something I chose, I didn't take into consideration what he would've wanted, given the choice. With that in mind, I ask. 

"Peeta, if I could give you something special for a gift, what would you want?"

"Being out here with you, is all the special I want!" He exclaims happily.

I shake my head, "There must be something you, really, really, really want, though." I insist, "If you could ask for a wish, what would it be?"

He purses his lips sideways, and thinks hard about it for a few seconds, then he sighs almost defeatedly.

"You won't like it," he says.

I'm scare to ask, but I do anyways, "Try me,"

"Marry me?" He breathes out simply.

I think about it for a moment. 

The request sounds like such a small, insignificant thing, but in reality carries so many consequences and responsibilities. A marriage is just not something you rush into, and I know by experience, saying yes to a proposal has to be thoroughly tought out, still... since going to his grand mother's, I feel  committed to this relationship with Peeta, but is not a burden, nor it is unwanted. It doesn't feel forced or imposed on me, I'm not obligated to him or anyone, if I agree to it, it would be plainly because I very well want to.

So, the possibility of a marriage to him feels more real, more present... Right! 

I look at him pensively for a long moment. I can see the panic and anxiousness twirling inside his nervous eyes, and finally, nod slowly.

"Okay," I say breathe out, and take a bite out of my raising bread and goat cheese sandwich.

The salty of the cheese contrasts very nicely with the sweetness of the bread. I moan softly. Contentedly. Something momentous has occurred and I feel as calm and content as if I've just been given the news that Prim will be fed, clothed and looked after for the rest of her life. 

I conclude is the steadiness Peeta brings to everything that makes me feel like this is the right choice and time for us. 

"Okay?" He ask in disbelief. "So, you'll allow it?" He prompts, grabbing onto my shoulders, to gently turn me to him, so we're facing each other.

Since I'm not cocooned in his warmth anymore, I grunt unhappily when a gust of icy cold wind and snow dusting brushes around us, chilling me to the bone.

He rubs my arms down with his mittened hands, and I smile gratefully. I swallow my hunk of bread, and say, "I'll allow it. As long as we don't ever have to go see your grandmother."

He laughs, a deep, smooth, manly belly laugh, that resonates all around the woods and makes something inside me quiver, tense, and twist with anticipation. A feeling of hollowness between my thighs makes me jump off the log, before the want in me snaps free, and my greedy lips attack his mouth forcing him to fill the empty spaces of my being.

Peeta only takes my sudden response as an invitation to pick me up in his arms and twirl me around merrily, kissing my lips sweetly.  This only lasts a moment, and then he deposits me on the snow covered ground, to quickly grab his wreath.

"Here," he says, stepping shyly towards me. "It's tradition, for the future groom to offer a token of his affection to his sweetheart..."

He places the wreath gently on my head, with the outmost care, not to poke me with the holly pointy leaves. He's given me a crown, made of materials yielded by the woods themselves, more suited for the queen of the forest than a simple huntress such as myself.

"Now you're a magic being of the woods," He says smiling sweetly, shyly adding, "And my future wife. I may never be able to gift you pearls, and gold necklaces, but, I can give you my heart, my soul, my body and my mind. I'm yours Katniss, to keep for as long as you'll have me."

"And, the same. From me. To you." I say awkwardly, my brain and tongue failing me after all the gathered emotions of the moment. 

His eyes fill with understanding and something so sweet, intense and pure, I feel like crying. He knows how tongue tied I am, and won't push me to give him a wordy love declaration, despite his pretty speech, and the undoubtedly wish I would say something back to him. 

"We should go home, or Hawkins will die of a heart attack," I say instead, gathering. our things hastily, knowing that I have to be the worse person to try and do romantic gestures.

He doesn't say anything, just holds my hand, with a goofy smile stretching across his face from ear to ear.

I'm nervous but also happy, I'm also scare I'll packpedal, and break the engagement in a few days, like I did with Gale, although our circumstances are as different as night and day, and I can feel it in my bones, Peeta is the one I truly want to do it all with.

Just thinking about ending things with Peeta, makes me feel awful inside, scared and lonely. I guess that's good enough answer to the nerves churning my stomach uncomfortably, because a sudden rush of peace rolls over me, taking the worries away momentarily.

I start working out how I'm going to tell my family about this. I wonder if we should keep the news quiet, between us for a while, or if we should just come out and say it without any delay.

A slight smile comes to my lips, thinking of how the old me would be freaking out, stressing and mortified, wishing she could convince Peeta to pretend the conversation didn't happen until a later time, after we've spent a very long time getting to know each other. It's so strange realizing how his reckless bravery  seems to have rub off on me.

I'm so consumed in my silly, happy thoughts, I don't realize we are at my old meeting place with Gale, and there's a pair of gray, flaming eyes staring daggers at me from the spot we usued to share as a hiding rest stop, until Peeta pulls me back behind him, as a human shield. 

Chapter Text

Peeta and Gale don't coexist very well in my mind to begin with, but finding myself in the woods with the both of them, awkwardly facing each other, at the same time is just weird.

If I could have my way, I would just run back into the wilderness, some place neither could find me, for as long as the both of them call my name or try to follow me, as stubborn as the two of them can be. I can't say I care for this anxiousness eating my insides, or the sensation that my heart is gonna thump out of my chest cleanly if it accelerates anymore, but thankfully, Gale remains quiet and at respectful distance, staring but not scowling. In fact, there's a little bit of sadness in his eyes, but that's nothing I can fix out here.

"Hi Catnip. Peeta." He nods woodenly at Peeta in attempt at politeness I guess.

Of course, Peeta reacts with a friendly response before I can even scowl at Gale, for daring to talk to us after the last time we saw each other, when fists flew back and forth.

"Hello, Gale! How've you been?" How does Peeta chooses to forget, forgive and move on so easily, beats me. I guess I'm one to hold a grudge, while he just simply can't. "I hope we didn't interrupt a hunting session," he says furrowing his brow, as if the thought just crossed his mind, that Gale might be out here to hunt, and we probably interfered on it, by laughing loudly and carelessly. 

Gale grimaces and shakes his head. "Nah, came with Rory to check on the snare line, and got a second line put in by the Eastern pole. Nobody seems to go that way," he says with a shrug, "I'm not sure how you stand having all these new 'hunters' come out here, disturbing the paths we so carefully carved, specificallyso we wouldn't scare prey away. Everything is trampled now." There's a trace of anger and regret there. 

I know exactly how he feels, like the new hunters ruined a sanctuary, were everything was sustainable and every species respected the others' habitats. But, I also understand my people, there's still hunger to be quench in the district, and the fastest solution is coming out here, where at least they can gather berries if it comes to that. 

I sigh, "Of course it bothers me, Gale. The woods used to be my father's place, our place, he and I shared. But then things changed, and I shared the woods and its fruits with you, but then change came again, and you left, and then I started sharing the woods with Rory- as much as it can be, shared with him- and with hundreds more starving miners that can't feed their families on their salary." 

Gale's face lights up and falls in a single breath. He knows what I'm saying is true. He used to be a miner himself, he knows the hardships they go through every day; he's also aware he was the one who up and left, he abandoned the woods, left me and his family behind, he can't complai about things being different, really, not when he was the one to bring on the changes. 

Sensing my growing discomfort, Peeta chimes in, as if Gale and I hadn't have the most disheartening exchange right in front of him.

"So, will you come to the festivities tonight?" Peeta asks, redirecting the conversation that's grown stilted, awkward and uncomfortable.

"Uh, yeah." Gale concedes, digging the toe of his boot in the soggy snow. "My sister, Posy, won't shut up about it, she's in the choir with Catnip. My brother, Vick, is in the play, and my brother, Rory, is helping with moving scenery. Neither of them can wait." He takes a big gulp of air, "They say the bakery is providing free desserts," Gale's gray eyes- so much like mine- flit around the landscape, unsure of where to land.

Peeta smiles benignly, all aggression and animosity between them forgotten. "Sort of," he says enthusiastically, "The leadership of New Panem is footing the bill! We decided to make the least expensive treats so the money we're getting paid extends farther. I'm looking forward to the festival, this will be the first year we can feed everyone something for free! To tell you the truth, I'm very exited about the surprise we have for the end," he smiles toothily, like a little boy, "I've been working on it myself for a few days, and I truly hope I get to see some of the little ones smiles! That would be the second best birthday present of my life,"

"Which one was the first one?" I ask idiotically.

Peeta's eyes soften when he looks at me, the love spills from the blue orbs, like his feelings for me can't be contained anymore than a flood can be stopped. Nevertheless, his voice is jovial, and light when he says, "Being out here, escorted by the queen of these woods, has been possibly the best gift I've ever gotten," he winks at me.

My hand goes up to thump my wreath-crown, still adorning my head. No wonder Gale stared at me for a whole minute when we came across him, before he even acknowledged us. I must look ridiculous to him.

"Mmm, well, I'm glad you enjoyed your time out here. Is time get back to the district, or we'll all be late for the festival," I say, hastily pulling my wreath off my head, and immediately looking up to see if I've hurt Peeta's feelings with my action.

He smiles softly, his eyes are a well of understanding, and although he doesn't seem troubled by my taking off his token of gratitude and love, I handle it with the outmost care. 

We come to the edge of the woods, where the fence used to stand, and simply step into the district. Sometimes is hard to remember the days when we had to listen for the hum of electricity running through the wires, but now only a few of the posts are still in place, and the electricity has rerouted to power up the district instead.

"Catnip?" Gale calls evenly.

I look at him not knowing what to expect, and he points a finger at my shoulder. I turn my head and realize my bow and quiver are still strapped to my back. I huff, but there's nothing to do about just now. Is not like having weapons at home is illegal anymore.

"I'll bring them back next time I hunt." I shrug.

"I can take them back to the log for you," Gale offers eagerly, as if he could accumulate points in his favor by helping me.

I shake my head, "I switched hiding spots," I say curtly.

"Okay, tell me where's the new one and I'll--"

I fix him with a scowl that shuts him up right away.

Peeta chuckles, and tells Gale humorously, "She doesn't trust anyone with the location of her bows. Not even a klutz like me!" 

Gale hesitates for a moment, before we get too far into the district, and then touches my shoulder lightly. He keeps his eyes trained on mine for a second, avoiding looking down to where Peeta's hand is linked with mine.

"Catnip, will you be okay walking home alone?" He asks softly, a small plea that surprises me.

"Why wouldn't I be?" I blurt out a little annoyed, as if I haven't been making this trek for ages on my own.

"I just thought, maybe I could have a word with Peeta. Privately," again, his tone is soft and pleading.

I'm not sure where Gale's hiding all his aggression and fire, and I'm not sure I can trust him, but Peeta gives me a little nod, silently mouthing "I can take him" followed by a wink.

Peeta's over confidence doesn't do much to assuage my growing anxiety. He's not weak by any means, he's strong and capable in every account, but I just can't relax not being around to protect him. 

"Gale, I'm going to go, but if you so much--"

"We're just gonna talk, Catnip, I promise,"

I fix him with a withering stare, scowling the whole time.

"Fine!" I finally agree. "See you both at the festival." I take a step, and suddenly yank back to stare at the both of them through narrowed eyes, "Unharmed! Either of you!" 

"Katniss, you're late!" Prim grabs my hand and drags me into the house, like an unruly child that ran from her chores.

"Mother ran you a bath and left you some clothes to wear on her bed, but since you weren't here, she went ahead and used the water before going to check on Mrs. Prewitt. The woman is only twenty eight, but this is her seventh pregnancy. She keeps miscarrying, poor woman. But nevermind that, I'll put some water in the kettle for your bath." She walks purposefully to the kitchen, lighting a kettle full of water on the stove, "We are going to be late for the Poem Recitals!" She chides.

"I'm sorry. I... I was in the woods with Peeta, and he's never been out there, I thought it would make him a nice birthday gift to be out in the woods,"

Prim turns around sharply, and gives a disgusted kind of look. "Your little trip into the wilderness was your birthday gift to him?" She asks disbelieving. "Katniss, I love you, but that's not nearly good enough for a nineteenth birthday present!"

Ever since bumping into Hale in the woods, I've been carrying in the crook of my elbow, the wreath Peeta made out of forest pickings and subsequently crowned me with, but now that Prim has said my gift wasn't a good one, I start fidgeting with the springs of greenery adorning the wreath. I feel a little ashamed that I didn't make a bigger effort, especially staring at the very pretty gift Peeta fashioned for me out of simple little things he found in the woods.

"I guess you're right, Prim. But, I'm not sure how to give gifts."

"Sure you do!" She says shoving my towel into arms, after I slide the bow and arrows under  our shared bed. "You gave me Lady, and she's an amazing gift!" She almost chides. 

"No. Getting Lady was easy, Prim. It made sense to get an animal that would pay for herself tenfold, and the conditions to get her were just too good to pass up. Plus, he's a boy, and you're my little sister. I have no idea what do boys like," I whine scowling.

Prim rolls her eyes. "Yes, but you knew giving me the goat was the right choice, because you knew me. You knew she was going to make me happy." She's says looking older and wiser than her fourteen years, "If you think about it, Katniss, the perfect gift is something given from the heart, that the other person will treasure even if it's a bunch of rocks you picked up in the yard."

"Taking him into the woods made him happy," I shrug unlacing my boots. "He even asked me to--" I stop mid sentence, not ready to divulge what else I have him in the isolation of the woods: my own hand in marriage. 

I just can't admit it. Now that I'm home by myself, agreeing to marry him sounds scary and impossible. How pretentious of me to think this was nothing but a silly whim of a question burning the tip of his tongue after being in the unreal winter wonderland of the woods, where we were safe in our little bubble of peace and snow and twigs. 

Here, the reality is oppressive, with the gossip and naysayers that will try to poison our relationship, like the stings of tracker-jackers, injecting their venoms into our blood streams, until we are so crazed with fear we'll percieve the other as nothing more than a perverted Capitol creation, a mutt, fanged and murdorous like the things that used to tear children apart in the Hunger Games from time to time. 

Prim stares at me, "What did he ask?" She prompts pulling a show box from the bottom drawer of our dresser, housing the nicest pair of shoes we own, except for the ones mother still have from her merchant days. 

"He-he asked if we could come back later. I think he liked the woods." I say quickly, shucking my pants and shirt to the pile of laundry to be done. 

"Of course he did! It's the woods, plus you're out there alone... People used to think you and Gale went there instead of the Slag Heap," she rolls her eyes in annoyance, and I feel my whole face burn in embarrassment and indignation. 

"W-what!" I screech loudly, my breath hitching painfully. 

"Yeah, I know! As if you'll ever allow that to happen! People is just stupid. I hope Peeta wasn't one of those people who believed you'll go out there to make out and do unspeakable stuff. Rory yelled at Tanner Hendricks once because he insunated something of the sort. He almost punched him too for asking if I would go to woods as well in a very suggestive tone, but Saul got to him sooner. It was for the best, Tanner is a townie. Rory would've gotten in a heap of trouble if--"

"Alright, enough!" I tell her, "I had no idea you were aware of the stuff that goes on at the Slag Heap, nor what people say or think I do out in the woods," my face burns, remembering the passionate, desperate way Peeta and I kissed earlier in the woods, how it almost got out of hand, if hadn't been for his gentlemanly disposition, "We are not talking about the Slag Heap, and we're certainly not discussing what couples do there. I-I've n-never--"

Prim rolls her eyes, "Katniss, I have ears, girls talk about the mechanics of what goes on there, I doubt anyone can remain clueless while in school."

"Well... You're-- you're not allowed at Heap... Let alone with Saul!" I suddenly remember I'm not supposed to know about Saul, but I'm not as obtuse to have missed that part where he punched someone for my sister's honor. "I don't like the interest he's been showing to you. He's spoken for already, better to stay clear of him," 

Prim grunts, "Please! Have some faith, Katniss. I'm not a baby!"

"I know you're not, Prim. But you're my Little Duck, and I worry. I want you to be happy and safe. I want you to love a boy that corresponds you with all his heart and can be yours and only yours when you're both old enough--"

"I'm in love with Darius," she blurts out leaving me speechless and flabbergasted. 

I can only stare at her. "I'm sorry, I think I miss hear you. Did you say--?"

"I love Darius." She flops on our lumpy mattress, looking miserable. 

"Prim... Darius... He's older than me and a Peacekeeper to boot!" I hiss disapprovingly.

"Former!" She says throwing and arm over her eyes. "Former Peacekeeper." She sounds so despondent, I can't help but sinking next to her heavily. 

She moves her arm so one blue eye is peeking at me cautiously. "Please, Katniss, don't be mad. I know he came back heartbroken from the retraining. I... Um... Kind of heard him talking to you the other night, about the cute Avox he met in District Four, the one he liked but rejected him because she couldn't stand peacekeepers." Her voice is but a thin, sad whisper. "You know he saw me that night, when he walked you home, and Ruffles my head in greeting? As if I was just a little girl. He even called me Prim-Prim," a tear forms at the corner of her eye, "My heart still clenches when I think about it,"

She sniffles, and is all I can do not to cry with her, and go after Darius with a loaded arrow into my bow.

"Oh Prim," I lay next to her and wrap her in my arms, damned be that Festival! "Today was a bad day for anyone to smash my sister's innocent teenaged heart. I've got a weapon under my bed and I'm incredibly dexterous with it." I say into my sister's golden hair. 

She gives me a trembling, watery laugh, followed by a half hearted slap on the forearm, "You can shoot Darius. He has no idea, plus who else is gonna protect us from outlaws such as yourself?" 

"Me! I'll protect us from the world! Me and my bow!" 

We both laugh for a moment, until the sounds taper out, and die, leaving us in silence.

"Peeta proposed to me today."

She turns in my arms, to look me in the eyes, she recognizes the uncertainty in my voice. 

"Did you give him an answer yet?" She asks sounding like all her troubles have vanished and only mine exist.

"Yeah..." I trail off, "I told him yes, but..."

"But now you're not sure anymore," is not a question. 

I shake my head, hiding my face into Prim's shoulder like a timid mourning dove. 

"Well... Do-do you love him?" She asks, "I know he's loved you for a while longer than we've even know. I'm sure he'll understand and gladly wait until you're really, very sure." She tells me hopeful. 

"I... I've never felt anything like this for anyone else. I know that what I feel for him is special, but... I don't want to become mother. What if I give in? What if let myself fall in love fully, and then he's ripped away from me? I just... I can't..."

Roles reverse between us, Prim rolls us so she's hugging me, "Talk to him, Katniss. He's wise. He will listen and be kind to you. I know he will. He helped me a lot the other night. I know he will be good for you. Just give him a chance. I don't remember much about our father, or the way mama was with him, but I know our home was filled with love, because I can still feel it, everywhere. Please, Katniss, don't rob yourself from something that has the potential to be amazing. It won't be fair to you or him or anyone."

I nod. "He's talking to Gale, right now. I'm scared they're going at it. I don't want him to be fighting with anyone because of me," I rub my face into Prim's soft shirt, and sigh.

"Oh... That's so romantic!" She says dreamily, causing my head to shoot up. 

"How is that romantic? Did you hear what I just said?" 

She shrugs, "I think is sweet you have suitors. I'm actually surprised there aren't any more boys after you, you know. I reckon they don't deserve you, if they can't muster up the courage--"

The whistle of the kettle interrupts Prim's ridiculous musings, reminding us there are places we need to get to, so we disentangle from our cocoon of sisterly safety, and go about our business getting ready for tonight.

The festival is in full swing. People are strolling around the square arm in arm, laughing, sharing small morsels of food they picked up from the plethora of treats provided by the New Panem leadership, from cutely decorated booths sprinkled about the square. There are fires light up in low metal drums around the perimeter of the square, that serve to provide heat and light at the same time, and I see kids roasting nuts held with tongues or some white fluffy things stuck on the tips of sticks I'm unfamiliar with.

The white things seem to be very flammable, catch on fire if left unattended for more than a second, but before I can act in my alarm, the Candy Man, Delly's husband, comes rushing to the kid, and shakes the stick around, finally blowing into the ball of fire himself. The flame goes out easily, leaving a charred unappetizing blob behind, that resembles a pierce of charcoal. To my surprise, Candy Man pops the the burnt piece right into his mouth, fanning himself, and replacing it with a brand new white piece. 

"What do you think that is?" I say to no one in particular.

Prim chirps up happily, "Marshmellows! It's an old recipe according to mister Bart," she tells me smiling widely, "Come have a taste! They're perfect for winter!" She tells me while dragging me by the hand towards Candy Man and a very pregnant Delly Cartwrig... Erm... Parks... I don't think I'll ever get used to that. The name doesn't flow as well. 

Will my name sound so horribly mismatched if I ever marry Peeta? Would I be obligated to change my last name? Could I make a case to keep my old name? After all, I got it from my parents and it just sounds so nice together. 

I try switching Everdeen for Mellark in my head, and I'm surprised I actually rather like how it sounds in my head: Katniss Mellark.

Mrs. Katniss Mellark.

Mrs. Mellark.

Ugh! No! Not Mrs. Mellark! "I'm not his mother, and I refuse to be addressed as such!"

"What?" Prim asks stopping abruptly while people is trying to push their way around us. 

She's staring at me funny. "Katniss?" She pulls on my arm as if to wake me from a deep dream. "Are you okay? You look like you just stepped on Buttercup's droppings on your way into the house. What's wrong?" 

Great! "Um... Nothing is wrong," I try to sidestep the conversation, "let's go get some of those marshy meadows," I tell her trying to smile at her, but she only eyes me suspiciously. 

"It's Marsh-Mellows, and you're acting very odd. You just said something about refusing to be addressed as someone's mother?" She presses on.

"It's nothing, Prim. Just thinking out loud." 

"Okay. If you say so," she doesn't look one iota convinced, but she pulls on my hand again, resuming our trek to Delly and Candy Man. 

Children laugh and duck around grown ups that walk slower, it seems everyone, big and small are having fun, playing games, enjoying themselves. Seam and Merchant together, as if there was never a segregation of classes, mingle everywhere, forgetting hunger, cold and the old injustices of Panem.

we finally reach our intended destination, and Prim runs to say hello to Delly's belly. I roll my eyes. My sister could show a little more professionalism, being the woman's pseudo midwife and all. 

Delly laughs, a full, rich, sonorous sound, that fills the entire section devoted to the Sweets' Shop. I look at Candy man for a moment, and my gaze stays focused on him, the way he looks at his wife, is unexpected and quite fitting: he looks at her like she hung the sun, the moon and the stars on the sky above! 

Candy man is in love with his wife.

The realization hits me square in the gut, and I find myself jealous of Delly- not because of Candy man; he's actually not that handsome, he's balding and silver-haired, plus he's one of the few people in the District with protruding gut- I just want to have what she has: a man that looks at me with longing, devotion and smiles goofily when I laugh, even if my laughs come far in between. 

I look away from Candy man, feeling I'm intruding on a private moment between a man and his wife, and my eyes happen to fall on a pair of deep blue eyes, that reflect the exact same love, devotion and longing I found on Bart Parks eyes, this time, directed at me. 

My heart soars high in the darkening sky. I'm giddy with excitement just to confirm, there is someone looking at me like I'm more radiant than a thousand sunsets, more desirable than riches and table full of delicacies, that I'm treasured beyond reason and understanding. 

I smile at my Peeta, showing all my front teeth. I'm so happy I have him, I could cry. 

"Katniss!" Prim yells. 

I turn to her startled, and by the glare she's giving me, it's obvious she's been trying to get my attention for some time now. I shake my head to dislodge the giddiness and the bubbly feelings, into a more subdued emotion, and then step closer to Delly and Prim. 

"Sorry, I was--"

"Aww, you don't have to explain a thing! I don't blame you! I can't even count how many shoes soles I ruined at papa's shop when Barty and I were courting!" Delly laughs breathlessly, fanning herself with a folded piece of paper, her free hand supporting her back as she waddled toward me. "Those first months of newness, being in love, are just so... Magical!" She sighs dreamlike. 

Prim sighs with her. 

I try real hard not to roll my eyes.

"I... Um... Is not- I wasn't--" I can't stop stuttering.

"Oh, Katniss! I'm so happy for both of you!" She almost claps, "Peety has always harbored this, sweet, deep crush on you, ever since I can recall! He's never had eyes for anyone else! You're such a lucky girl to have a boy so absolutely besotted with you. It gives you that sense of security, of being safe!" Delly sighs again, then her eyes flit quickly somewhere behind me, and sorrowful shadow passes over her green sprinkled blue eyes, that evaporates just as fast as it came on. She smiles at me, taking one of my hands in both of hers, "Some people don't have the same luck you and I have, and never get to be with their one true love. So, I'm so very happy for you guys!"

She pats my hand, then turns still clinging to my arm, dragging me with her to the table all the sweets are displayed on. 

"Here," she presents me with one of the marshy mellows thingy. "Barty has been working on this ones for a few weeks, he just finally got them right! He was so worry they would be ready for the festival, but... they're a hit!" 

She impales the small cushy blob into a metal prong with a small handle in the opposite end and hands it to me.

"You bring it over the fire, and rotate the stick until the marshmellow is golden brown. Don't let it burn to a crips. It's not very tasty when it's charred. Think about it... nothing tastes good when burned," 

"Dark bread with nuts and raisins is actually very tasty," I counter under my breath, without even realizing what I've just said. 

"I-I guess. I've never eaten it, but if you think it is, then it must be," she says frowning slightly. I never knew Delly Cartwright's face was capable of scrunchings and furrowings of any kind. 

"Mmm... It's just a personal preference," I tell her hastily. "I had it once, when I was little. I guess the taste got imprinted in my brain."

The lines disappear from her brow, and she smiles, "Makes sense. There are always good memories associated with taste and smells. It's maybe one those cases!" Her smile is so genuine, I smile back and take the prong from her hand with grateful nod. 

Before putting the treat on the fire, I take a pinch, marveling at how soft and spongy it is. I wonder what is it made of... Spun sugar surely, but is light as cloud on the tongue, and sticky on the teeth. I chuckle, and put the prong above the fire. 

"This feels like a toasting!" Madge says sidling next to me, pink cheeks and lips, and dancing blue eyes that reflect the ondulating flames licking at the marshmellows above.

"I guess so," I say pensively, staring down at my own roasting sweet. Once is golden brown, I pull off the fire, and blow on it as sense dictates. 

The thing melts in my tongue delightfully, and I moan.

"That good, huh? Well, I hope my coconut cake can compete with Candy Man's new treat," says a deep, smooth, manly voice into my ear, right before a strong arm snakes around my waist, and my body gets engulfed in the most delectable warmth, distilling the dizzying aromas of cinnamon, dill and sugar. "By the way... you look beautiful this evening!" 

"Mmm. You don't have any competition anywhere, Peeta. Not here, not in the bakery, not in the woods, not in my heart," I squeeze his arms with mine, ignoring the exaggerated compliment. 

"That's..." His breath catches, "Very nice to know," his voice comes out a bit shaky, and he kisses my temple. "You've always been the one for me." He murmurs into hair.

I cock my head to the side, and ask him in mock suspicion, "So you've never noticed any other girls?"

He chuckles and loosens his hold on me, so I can turn to face him. He shakes his head ruefully, then grins brightly, eyes sparkling with mirth. 

"Oh, I noticed every single girl there is, but only you made an impression," 

"Is that right?" I bop him on the arm with my shoulder, and his smiles widens.

"Yup!" His arms surge out of nowhere and trap me in his manly, baker musk, "I had a crush on since forever!" He says brightly.

I close my eyes enjoying his scent, his warmth, his steadiness. "Peeta?" I start softly. "When did forever start?" 

"Oh... The first day of school, of course." He says happily rubbing my arms for extra warmth, not that I needed it. 

"When... when we were toddlers?" I ask aghast, because he can't really had harbored a crush for that long a time, but he nods his head with a sweet expression in his face. 

"You're hair was in two braids instead of one, and you wore this red checkered dress. My father pointed you out, thats when he told me about his unrequited love for your mother. I was surprised he got rejected and his sweetheart chose a miner over him,"

My heart is drumming wildly against my ribs hearing this story, I don't dare breathe for fear he'd stop talking, but he continues, massaging my shoulders gently.

"I- I wish I could say I was sorry, but... I really am not," I say meekly. 

He slides a finger under my chin and lifts my face to his. His eyes are bursting with every sweet feeling he's saved up just for me, for the last fifteen years. 

He sighs, "I'm not sorry at all, and I doubt my old man is, after everything's said and done. He used to tell me, that your mother ran off with your father, because when he sang, even the birds stopped to listen."

I can't contain the pride, and the effervescence, "That's true! They do--" I realize what I just said, and my shoulders hunch a little, "did..." I correct myself, trailing off. 

He senses the change in my demeanor, and kisses my forehead tenderly. "Well, he passed the gift on to you, you know," 

I roll my eyes, and reluctantly smile. 

"Really!" He insists smiling, "That first day of school, when the teacher ask who knew the Valley song, during music assembly, your little hand shot, right up in the air. She brought you to the front of the class, helped you climb on a stool..." He has a faraway look in his eyes, a goofy smile paints his lips, "and I swear. Every bird outside the windows fell silent, to hear your sweet voice." He focuses his eyes back on mine, so meaningful a intense, I feel found, signaled out, chosen, "I knew, that just like your mother, I was goner." 

"Peeta--"

"Look," he sighs, and holds both my hands in his, "Gale and I talked. He wanted to know what my intentions were--"

"Your intentions?" I repeat, temper rising instantly. 

"Katniss, just hear me out. Gale thought, that since there isn't a man in your home, he should step up--"

"A man?" I screech making Peeta wince. "Like I haven't been stronger and more responsible than any man in the district?" Peeta tries to mollify me, calm me down, begging even, but I'm an active volcano, ready to spew lava and burn everyhing in my path, I don't care if the whole district is watching. "Like I need a man to watch out for me? Does he think I can't look out for myself? Where is that self absorbed, meddling, dick at? I'm fixing to give him a piece of my mind--"

Peeta finally tired of trying to reason with me, kisses me in the mouth, so hard, our teeth buck against each other and I think some skin broke as the metallic taste of blood mingles in with his spun sugar and vanilla of his mouth. 

"Will you shut up, for a moment so I can explain?" He grunts, my lower lip trapped between his teeth in a display of dominance. 

I give an involuntary little whimper. I've never felt like this in my life: my undergarments are beyond damp, my skin is covered in goose flesh, there's an all consuming sensation, a need really, to fill in with him all of my empty spaces. If I was a dog, I'd roll over and showed him my underbelly in submission. 

Peeta Mellark just proved to me, he's more dangerous than I could've ever imagined, yet, I'm ready to jump blindly into the unknown territory that is our relationship. 

I nod, letting him know I'll be good and save my fire for another time. 

He releases my lip, right after soothing it with a swipe of his tongue, and sweet little pecks sprinkled on my mouth. 

"I'm sorry if I hurt or embarrassed you," he says pulling me to the side, where townsfolk aren't pressing around us.

"You didn't. I'm sorry I got so worked up," I say halfheartedly. He can not know what I just thought, yet, he's showing me with his words and actions he won't ever abuse this new found submission of mine no his advantage. 

"No," he says seriously, "You have every right to be furious about it. Gale did meddled in something that wasn't his business, but, the way I see it, he didn't in a misguided attempt at amending his faults. He figured, somebody had to give me one uncomfortable talk, to prove that you're not alone,that there's someone looking out for you, as unwelcome as his intervention was, his heart has in the right place. Just the execution was all wrong." He shrugs, and although I still want to murder Gale, I can sort of see Peeta's point. 

"I'm still gonna give him an earful," I say crossing my arms over my chest brattily, not ready to let go the grudge.

He laughs. "Well, after tomorrow, be my guest. Just let me know so I stay out of your way when it happens." He pauses and exhales a breath.

"So, what did he want?" I ask curtly.

He shrugs, "You know, the usual: 'be a gentleman with her or else', 'what do plan to do for a living?', 'are you aware she's a Seam and you're a merchant?', 'don't you even think of hoodwink her, or I'll hunt you down and fillet you into thing slices'... You know, Gale was practically as obnoxious as my mother was to you, so, I figured were even now." He shrugs again. 

"The gall!" I growl staring into the pavement. 

"I know!" Says Peeta, "He actually asked me if I was planning to live off your hunts, as if I couldn't support my own cushy life with the only bakery in town!" He laughs, and I'm not sure if he's joking or being truthful. 

I don't have a chance to inquire, because Cressida and her team of camera men appear from between the crowd and march right at us.

"There you are!" She exclaims relieved, "We've been looking for you all over the place. Your sister said she saw you two around here not a minute ago. Thank heavens she was right!" She turns to whisper something a man following her with an official looking tablet writing things down almost frantically.

After she straightens up, the man quickly brings what mistakenly tought was his watch to his mouth, and starts barking sentences into a communication device strapped to his wrist. The only thing I manage to gather from him is the phrase above the hubbub of the crowd "Found Girl on Fire. Over. Requesting confirmation that Cinna still awaits her." 

"My assistant, Mesalla!" Cressida chimes in noticing I've been staring at the man. "My camera crew: Castor and Pollux. We all deflected the Capitol before Snow fell." She informs me with a hint of pride. 

I see Peeta's brow furrow. "You were behind all the rebel Propos, weren't you?" He asks half in surprised half accusingly. 

Propos popped up everywhere during the small war that ensued right after Snow's assassination. The rebels used anything and everything they could record, to rise supporters and simpatizers, urging the districts to join the militia and later, when it was properly formed, the army. 

"That was us," she says and this time there's a wicked smile in her face. "My best work is still the interview with Finnick Odair and Annie Cresta. But it was my boss, Plutarch Heavensbee the one to coined the nickname 'Start Crossed Lovers or District Four'. It was genius!" She gushes. 

"Yeah, nothing sells more sympathy than the love story of two people that were used, abused and controlled by one dictator's benefit. It was genius to use their story to gather support." I turn my eyes to Peeta, because I've never heard this sarcastic, harsh tone, dovetailed in a seemingly agreeable comment. 

Cressida seems to have caught the gist of it, because she looks both suspicious and doubtful that there was any kind of insult hidden in Peeta's casually laid words. Still, she turns to her assistant, and confers with him for a moment, until finally he nods at her sharply. 

"Alright, Cinna would like to extende a humble invitation to meet him backstage, for a quick consultation," says the man, Mesalla. 

"Who's Cinna?" Both me and Peeta ask at the same time. 

Cressida smiles fondly. "He's the one who designed and made every single costume used in this production. I told him about the angel fiasco, and he liked the small video of you I sent him. He said you inspired him to go in a different direction, and has been very excited to meet you. If you please, come with me, it won't take a minute!" 

I look at Peeta, almost at a lost, that sadly to me, he reflects right back. 

"Boy!" The odor of stale liquor hits my nostrils first, "I've been trying to get a piece of glazed cake, for ten minutes! Your brother looks like he's about ready to stomp away from y'all's booth! Sweetheart can manage a meeting with a Capitol stylist, although I would suggest, you listen to this one. He knows what he's doing. One of the best rebel spies amongst the celebrity crowd. Very trustworthy. Now, get, so I can get my cake!" 

Not that I'm ready to accept Haymitch Abernathy's word easily, but if someone hates the Capitol with a passion is our resident drunk Victor. 

Haymitch is confrontational, blunt and nasty, but he won't lie about a Capitolite. Looking back at Peeta, I take his face in my hands, "The choir sings before midnight,"

"I'll see you then," he promises me. 

"See you at midnight," 

I know only a mayor event, like lightning striking the tents, booths and the single tree in the square, will keep us from meeting at midnight, when he'll walk me and my family home. 

The middle school children start their part of the program: Poem Recitation, while I make my way behind stage following Cressida and her crew. 

There is a set of stationary cameras all the way in the back of the makeshift open air auditorium, giving Cressida's people freedom to roam around the district capturing different images of the rest of the event. Right now, their lenses focus on me, because apparently, there's something about me that fascinates Cressida's bosses. 

"In reality, they like your boyfriend a lot too, but they can only dress up one of you for the show, so you're it!" Says the camera man called Castor, smiling widely.

His brother, the Avox, Pollux, makes a funny hand gesture, and Castor responds with a guffaw before saying, "Yeah, I agree, pretty without need of Capitol products, too bad is not up to us," 

I'm not sure what he means by that, but I can't puzzle over it too long, since we are nearing a tall man, all dressed in black with the most mesmerizing Amber colored eyes I've ever seen. 

"Miss Everdeen, such an honor!" The man says softly, smiling pleasantly. "My name is Cinna, and I've been working with mister Hawkins to create the look of the Festival's production." He says still in the same pleasant tone, soothing and rich. "I wanted to create a nice atmosphere, while still staying rooted to reality. I used all raw materials for the costumes, even though Hawkins insisted on the more synthetic kind. I just couldn't. Not when the District is so natural and sturdy on its own right." 

I'm caught by surprise, I figured this man was only an assistant, like Mesalla, who was in charge to take me to his boss, but him being the main guy, and looking so... Normal, is indeed a very nice surprise. 

"I want to thank you for standing up against those silly angel robes. I was hired to make them and I did, but if I had been given free range, I would've made a more simple choir robe. After seeing your video, I decided children here need more that just a robe, so, I made everyone simple, sturdy outfits, they can use all year round." 

I follow after him and come behind a piece of scenery, and I'm shocked to discover the children's choir there, already dressed in their new outfits. They aren't the same color, nor the same set of clothes, yet, they all complement each other. 

"What do you think?" Cinna asks quietly at my mute reaction. 

"They look... amazing," I breathe out. My eyes rove over each child, and then come back to see Cinna studying me intently. "Thank you," I choke out.

"You must think is all despicable for all the ways we've wrong the districts, but some of us always knew something had to be done, and worked in favor of a free Panem. All I'm trying to do here is even out the balance a little."

"Well, you've done something very good for the kids. Thank you." 

He smiles gratefully. "I'm not done though," he says cryptically. "Come with me, my associate, Portia, has a little outfit for the Choir Director," he says winking an eye.

I'm directed to a small square room at the very back of the the tent that's passing as back stage. A very pretty woman, tall and impeccably made up, greets me, introducing herself as Portia, Cinna's partner. She helps me into a red dress, the likes I've never seen before.

Is a simple piece, with long sleeves, and a rounded neckline and a pleated skirt just long enough to brush above my knees. The interesting thing about the dress is that every time I move, and the pleats of my skirt fan out, hidden strips of material in shades of orange, burnt yellow and shocking pink peek out of the folds, mimicking the flicker of flame. 

Im outfitted with black leggings and shoes that also shine to the light like burning coals. 

Portia calls Cinna into the dressing room once I'm in my new outfit, and two of them stand at the door, looking at me with matching satisfied expressions. 

I've never been one to use makeup, I don't see the use of it, but Cinna brings forth a whole suitcase full of the stuff, and starts shuffling stuff from side to side. After a moment he comes up to me, holding three items in his hands, a small, round tin he calls lip gloss, a little plastic tube with something pink-ish inside, and what looks to be a fat pen. 

The tube, Cinna informs me is foundation, "To even up your beautiful, natural skin tone." 

The fat pen, is actually mascara.

I've seen girls in the school restroom dabbing on their eyelashes a crude substitute mixed by the apothecary for a price. Some Seam girls learn to produce their own kolh with ground coal and whatever grease they can find, as well as rouge and lip colorings. I just never had time to even feel curiousity about it, but with Cinna's Capitol grade material, I feel like it is too much. 

Im afraid I'll sido ate with all the products he's slapping on my face, but surprising I don't. Though, I am mentally preparing myself to the shock of looking like fake, cheap version of a Victor from District Two, with their garish dos, but then Cinna is presenting me with a mirror, and I'm surprised at how like myself I look... only... sharper, my features look better outlined and softer, my eyes look somehow vibrant and defined. My lips are just a shade pinker than my natural tone. I'm flabbergasted! 

"You know, Cinna," I say slowly, staring at my own reflection,  "You're alright!"

He chuckles.

"And here is the finishing touch!" Says Portia coming from behind Cinna, holding the wreath Peeta made out in the woods to crown me with. 

How they got their hands on it, I have no idea. 

"Your boyfriend is very skilled," says Portia handing the wreath to her partner, admiring the crown of leaves and twigs Peeta crafted. "He's got an artistic flair to him."

"Oh yes! He's amazing. He decorates the cakes and cookies at the bakery, he comes up with the designed all by himself, and never repeats one confection, so everything he does is unique!" I gush, realizing I sound like a lovesick simpleton when the words come out loud.

To my surprise, Portia exclaims enthusiastically, "So he is an artist!" 

"Sure," I crack a smile, "A frosting painter and a baker who never puts sugar in his tea," I say with a contented sigh.

"He sounds divine! I should go out there and make his acquaintance, I'm curious about his decoration habilities." She smiles at me warmly, then excuses herself, so she can go make sure the theatre kids have all their costumes in order, while Cinna afixes the wreath on my head similar to how Peeta did it, just he weaves my braid around it. 

"You're not at all what I was expecting," I blurt out when he's fastening the tip of my braid to last green bough of holly. 

He laughs, "What were you expecting?"

I look at him. He's pleasant to look at, smooth skin, the complex of cinnamon mixed in milk, dark cropped cut hair, light amber-brownish eyes, no tattoos, no strange body alterations, only a golden loop earring and as only makeup concession, a small amount of golden eyeliner that brings out the amber shade of his eyes. He could be a fellow district denizen. 

"I guess, I expected someone more outlandish?" 

He shakes his head ruefully, but says nothing, "Go on little troublemaker! Go show the whole of Panem what a Girl on Fire looks like!" 

The upper school is done with their almost twenty minute long play. Someone says they shortened so it would be easier to jam into a TV showing if they decide to use all the footage they got from it. The kids scamper off the stage on different levels of dishevelment, some look very pale and sweaty obviously on the brink of nervous break down, while others smile widely, proud of themselves for not fainting in front of all the whole district and possibly Panem. 

Mayor Undersee is set to address the crowd, give a few words of gratitude to the president of New Panem and all the good people behind this enormous effort, thanking everyone  for a beautiful Yule Festival, full of merriment and delicious foods. In the last week and half anytime I've  come to his house either to trade or spend a few minutes rehearsing with Madge, the man has been hard at work writing and rewriting his speech for tonight. I've heard so many times I could recite it by heart in his place, but my nerves are killing me as it is, and I'm just accompanying the children from the lower school, with my back to the audience for the mayority of the songs.

I barely enjoyed the play, sitting behind the stage; all the same I doubt standing in the audience would've been any different. The nerves are eating at me.

My legs are restless, bouncing and shaking, my chair starts to wobble. I have a knot in the pit of my stomach and I know I'll embarras myself before the night is out someway or another. It will be my luck, every gory detail of my demise will be transmited live to the whole country. 

Peeta comes out of nowhere, and stops dead in his tracks.

He stares at me like it's the first time he's ever seen me, I think he finds my polished appearance  particularly fascinating, but the expression of longing and devotion is replaced by a slight frown, when he realizes there's something wrong with me.

Peeta kneels right beside me. He prys my clenched hands off the skirt of my flame like dress, and rubs soothing circles on the tops.

"You'll do fine, sweetheart," he says. "Remember, you're your father's daughter. Birds stop, to hear you sing."

"I don't know, Peeta. I've never sang in front of so many people."

"Just close your eyes and think of your father then. It'll be like honoring him with what he passed on to you."

He kisses my hands lightly and stands, pulling me up with him since they're calling the choir to perform now.

"I told the kids that I made them a special cake, just for them, if they sing without being scared. Should I offer you some cake as well?" He winks and smiles, knowing that he's made my fear all but disappear.

"No," I still pout a bit unsteadily, "A baker boy once mentioned something about a rare bread that people in twelve rarely eat, something called pita?" 

He laughs.

"You're too good to me, sir," I say softly, I stand on tip toes to kiss his cheek, right where I remember his mother had hit him all those years ago. 

"No, I'm just smitten with the prettiest singer in Panem." He counters sporting a goofy smile that only confirms his claim, "Now, go get 'em tiger!" He says placing his warm, big hand on the small of my back and giving a gentle nudge forward, toward to stage. 

I hear his sharp intake of breath, with a very low grumble that sounds something like the F-word, I turn around just to watch his face, eyes wide and drinking me in like I was the last drop of water in the whole world. He bites his lower lip while his eyes sweep up from my calves, briefly stopping on my romp and then startling when he realizes my torso is twisted sideways and I can clearly see him ogling me. 

He smirks, boyishly hicking one shoulder and making a hand gesture that suggest he's not one bit sorry he got caught eyeing me suggestively. 

"Can't help it, Everdeen. You're not pretty... you're more radiant than the sun!" He puts one hand on his chest, above his heart and says dreamily, "I have a weakness for you, sweetheart!" 

I duck under curtains separating the front and the back parts of the stage, my checks aflame, but oddly, feeling empowered by Peeta's shameless suggestiveness. From anyone else, the mere look of his face would've mortified me, but it's Peeta, and he makes everything easier and lighter. He soothes my nerves without even knowing it with his steadiness. 

I've come to realize, I never stood a chance with him, but instead of scowling at the tought, I smile.

With his advice in mind, I look at all the children standing still on their platform, so well behaved and quiet, regardless the fear etched in their wide, rounded eyes. Their cute little faces freshly cleaned, donning their new shiny clothes and matching terrified but excited grins full of cookie crumbs and spiced milk mustaches, that obviously Peeta snuck to them after their faces had been washed by whoever was in charge of dressing them for the presentation.

I know I can do this with them. For them.

Suddenly, I realize, I've gotten as far as I have, only because a gift of burnt bread a merchant boy once gave me.

The charred crust tasted of hope, and looking at the tiny faces of my choir mates is clear to me: Peet spreads hope.

He did to all this little ones with his treats and the way he interacts with them. He gives hope to the people in the district with his generosity, why his mother let it slip (If a little annoyedly) it was Peeta's idea to start day-old-bread day, selling bread at discounted prices for people who couldn't afford it any other way. He's singlehandedly making our people's lives just a little bit better in the one way he can. 

I know exactly what I want to give Peeta.

The choir is announced. 

The curtains pull away revealing the crown in front of us, and every tiny lung on stage, plus mine hitch a breath collectively. 

"Alright children, miss Everdeen, as we rehearsed," says Hawkins standing in front of us before marching to the big piano at the corner of the stage where Madge is sitting, poised to start playing as beautifully as ever. 

I should tell her how fantastic she is playing music. 

And Hawkins gives the signal, the song starts! 

"Distant stars, at home up in the heavens.
Wonder what they see, are they watching me?
Yuletide Star, you spin your strands of silver.
What a sight to see, are you there to guide me?

Star light, shine bright.
See me through the dark night.
Light mine, pathway
Guide me home for Yuletide Day."

We sing with our hearts, they audience is quiet and elated, the little ones are cherubic in their brightly colored new garments lined up on their platform. Their voices, sweet and clear reach all the way into our chests, caressing our hearts tenderly.

"Midnight stars, they sail the sky in silence.
Hearing all they see, are they hearing me? 

Yuletide Star, you watch the world so wisely.
At my journey's end, will you be my true friend?"

Then, is my solo part, is only a couple of lines of the song, I find Peeta's blue eyes in the audience, as if he was the only there, and I sing to him, with all the feelings I can't fully understand, but I know are so real and intense.

"Yuletide Star, wise and bright.
A wish I make upon you, shine my path to my true love tonight."

Peeta stands unmoving, like a statue, the only sign he's a living person is his chest falling and rising as he breathes. His eyes have that far removed longing glaze to them.

"Star light, shine bright
See me through the dark night
Light mine, half way
Guide me home for Yuletide day."

When the song ends, the whole square erupts in a cacophony of applause and loud whistling, mothers dry their damp faces while fathers clap their hands loudly or each other's backs in congratulations for the evident musical talent of their children. 

The kids just stand there woodenly for a minute, shell-shocked by how momentous this time in their young lives is. And like that, they start cheering and chanting and jumping around each other, punching the air with tiny fists, screaming joyfully how great the whole thing was to one another.

Mr Mellark pushes a cart on wheels onto the stage, where the biggest, tallest cake I've ever seen, towers above the children. 

The little ones start noticing the cake, one by one, and they rambunctious celebration dies momentarily, while they take in the many starts, holly leaves with bright red berries, the white blossoms of a mistletoe bough cascading on the side of the pearly white frosting, and then, so many pastry children all around the base. 

I come closer to the cake. The sugar confection is gorgeous, delicate and flawless. Each child is modeled so painstakingly accurate to their real life counterpart I feel like I'm going to cry! 

"Aaaaa! That's ME!" Shrikes Hawkins at the other side of the cake, running in place as if he was skipping over hot coals barefooted. He is actually crying tears of joy. 

A softer, female voice gasps next to me, "I'm there too!" Says Madge reaching an arm to ghost her impeccably manicured index and middle fingers over the sugar Madge sitting at the dilapidated organ at the school auditorium. "It's perfect!" She breathes out in awe.

"Miss Everdeen, miss Everdeen! You're there too!" A few of the kids squeal excitedly, and it's true.

I'm sitting with my legs hanging over the edge of the second to top tier, brown let her jacket, dark trousers tucked into my hunting boots and long dark braid draped over one shoulder. A girl, suspiciously similar to Prim, next to me, and a boy with gray and blue hat and mittens, arms open in a grand gesture, seems to be chatting us up animatedly.

"Al!" I giggle, looking for him all over. "Al! Look is you!" I call up to him when I find him in the crowd of little heads bobbing to see if they can find their sugar effigies in the cake, but Al is not paying attention to me. 

He's struggling to lift Ster up above everyone else, his other sister helping on the other side, but the little girl is too squiggly, they can't support her weight long enough. 

I come to help, "Hey Al, I found you're little person over there. You wanna go take a look and I'll help your sisters find their own?" I say picking Ster up in my arms easily. 

"Oh, no ma'am, that won't be necessary. See?" He points a hand to the top tier of the cake. "We already found Ster," he explains, "problem is, we can't get her up there to see." 

Surely so, the topper is a glittery silver star, but at the center, stands a little girl with a red dress and twin dark braids.

The memory of seeing a girl like staring back me from a mirror crashes full force with my brain, and I'm left breathless and mute. In reality, the little girl on the cake can't be me.

Logic dictates, that since I've already been recreated as an grown up, with Prim to further confirm the identity of my sweet sculpture, I can't also have a second rendition in the same dessert. Yet, I'm speechless, because that could very well be me as well as it could be Ster or any other Seam little girl. 

Ster gasps, "Is that me, miss Evdeen?" She wonders in a breathless whisper. All I can do is nod and pass her off to her mother, who's now on the stage after Al called for her to join them.

The little boy is shutting words at her a mile a second, explaining how this is Ster's cake from Mister  baker, and how he's allowing him to marry me instead, since now miss Undersee is his sweetheart. The woman seems to be at the brink of tears. She hugs mister Mellark and thanks him profusely, and the old baker blushes shaking his head trying in vain to shrug the attention. 

Peeta makes his way to me, a sheepish half smile curling the corner of his lips. 

"You did wonderfully--" he starts as ways of congratulations, but I can't hold in my own emotions, so interrupt.

"Ask me again," I say loudly, above the noise of the kids and the impatient adults trying to see what's so darn enthralling about this new treat that's keeping their children stuck up here. 

"Ask you what?" He asks confusedly.

Prim and Mother have joined us too, and although I'm aware of their presence- which is not particularly ideal to where I want this to go- I press on, because want the moment to be real as much for him as for anyone watching. It's time I showed him I'm serious about us.

"Ask me," I try to keep my voice from cracking, "to marry you." It's just loud enough for him and my family to hear, "Ask me again, Peeta."I beseech.

He stares at me, trying to figure out what is really going on.

"You want me to propose in front of everyone?" He arches a curious eyebrow, his eyes trained on mine.

"Come on," I cajole, "Ask me. I'm not that scare anymore." I prompt.

He smiles softly, some kind of understanding passing over his bright blue eyes. "That's good," he grins widely, "makes one of us to not be scared, because I'm terrified!"

We both laugh, and he takes a hold of my hands, massaging the tops of mine with soothing circles of his thumbs on my chilled skin.

"I always knew you were the brave one in this relationship," he quips with a wink, then kneels in front of everyone, catching the attention of even the cameras, but there are so many bodies, tiny and big pressing against us, I doubt they'll ever get a good shot of us at the center. 

With a twinkle in his eyes, and love in his deep voice, he pours out his heart: "Katniss Everdeen, the first time I ever heard you sing, I was a goner. I swear you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, you are brave, and sweet, and selfless. I... I love you," The children are peering at us curiously, while the adults are trying to make the shush so they can hear, soon there's an almost electric silence that Peeta seems oblivious to, "Katniss, I don't know what does the future of Panem will be, I'm not sure what my future will be, but I promise to honor you, and protect you, and proudly support your hunting and respect the woods if I'm ever invited out there again..." He pauses his smile turning bitter sweet, "I'll never let you go hungry even if I have to feed you day-old-bread, I'll be brave for you because you're worth it." My mother is crying, I dare not look at her or I'll cry too. "Will you please, make me the luckiest man alive, by marrying me?"

"You had my Yes the day you gave burnt bread!" The answer slips down the tip of my tongue like honey and milk, sweet and smooth. I fall on my knees and return the fervor of his touch holding his hands in mine. "I also promise that some day, when things in Panem are more stable, I will give you children, maybe not right away, but five... ten, even fifteen years, or whatever it tak--"

He doesn't let me finish. He kisses me like there's no tomorrow, and it doesn't matter who sees it, Seam, Merchant, Capitolites or the whole country for that matter, this is our story, and no matter how, or who is writing the retelling, the end will always be the same.

"So... children, huh?" He smirks.

"I'll give you bushel!" I rush blushing, but thinking better if it, I scowl and backtrack. "Well, maybe not quite a bushel. One. Two maybe if conditions are extremely well. Three tops, but only if--"

"No! Three, three... I heard you say three. Three it is!"

"Is not! Two and that's that!"

"Yeah, but... a third kid is always good to have around just in case... I mean, look at me, I'm a third child and I've done pretty well so far!"

"This isn't a negotiation, Peeta. Two is pushing it, so take it or leave it, Mellark!" 

He responds with a belly laugh so loud, it floats above everyone else's chattering picking back up, now that we're not the center of attention anymore. 

He kisses me again. Softly, lovingly. 

"You love me, real or not real?" he whispers contently, his forehead resting against mine.

We ignore the buzz of the people around us, the sighs and gasps, and the "ooh's", "Yuck, he's kissing a girl"s and even Al's little screech "Hey! mister baker, sir, you haven' cleared up that kissin' business with my girl, but it's okay, I'll be cool 'bout it for a dozen cupcakes!" 

I smile at the man I love and sincerely answer, "Real!"