#in katniss' eyes the odd thing about them was capitol fashion

[shimelyasmin]

thinking about that one tiktok where some guy went on about how the hunger games is conservative because, in his words, “the capitol citizens are coded to be queer and this redneck girl who lives in the woods leads a revolution against these queer people.” (found it) it’s a particularly interesting take because he noticed an aspect of the hunger games that is so interesting to me but then read it in the most surface-level way imaginable.

i do agree that many of the capitol citizens are queer coded but this is the end of where his reading of it was right. there is a deep contrast between how the capitol citizens express themselves compared to how the district citizens express themselves and it is not to push a conservative agenda. it’s about control. showing somebody that it is a possibility for them to express themselves beyond the box they were initially stuffed in is a liability in a country where the power the authoritarian government holds is already fragile. capitol citizens are afforded the right to test the bounds of gender because there is no risk of them realizing that maybe, there are other boundaries to push! a good majority of them are very comfortable with sitting complacently because the status they have benefits them. the hunger games, for one, does not do anything for them other than offer entertainment. but the reaping, the tributes, they’re all divided between strict categories of Boy and Girl Tribute. there is no crossing lines for people from the districts.

i may not know what suzanne collins was exactly thinking when writing this aspect of thg, but i know it doesn’t take a genius to realize that an authoritarian government would do all it can to prevent its citizens from discovering that there are options beside their current reality. 

[everlarkficexchange]

lying in the bed we made (if it wasn't us)

Written by: @archersandsunsets

Prompt 26: the night before the Quarter Quell, in the sleepless dark, Katniss and Peeta allow themselves to indulge in the bittersweet dream of a future they’ll never have together (“if it wasn’t us, what would you do?” “I’d want to marry you” “tell me”) [submitted by @rosegardeninwinter]

Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst

Word Count: 2,918

Rated T.

Author’s Note: Dedicated to the lovely Cate, who has become an invaluable friend over the last few weeks. This is for you, but don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Title from the song, Lying in the Bed We Made by Arrows to Athens. I’d highly recommend listening to it while reading, volume low—it’s very Everlark.

She refused to let go of his hand, insisting he could shower in her room. Convinced that if a door shut between them that night, it would lock and she’d have to spend the night without him.

In return for his obligation, she let him shower first, after he helped her out of her dress. Then, she sat on the bathroom counter in her slip, watching the steam curl towards the ceiling. While Peeta shampooed, they chatted idly about the reactions of the Capitol citizens to the baby bomb like it was a conversation mundanely brought up over breakfast.

“You really think they bought it?” 

“Of course,” Katniss replied, picking at the pins in her hair that were holding her elaborate updo in place, “I’m pretty sure you could convince Effie that a potato sack was fashionable if you really tried.”

Amidst the patter of the water, she heard him snort. “You give me too much credit. Effie would never wear brown, unless maybe it was mahogany.”

A smirk turned her mouth at his joke, and a thought slipped into her mind.

Is this what it would be like, if we got married?

Katniss’s hand stilled on the pin just above her ear she was toying with.

Where had that come from?

Distantly, the water cut off in the shower, but Katniss didn’t look up until she heard the curtain slide back. Peeta had fastened a towel around his waist, and, balancing on one foot, was reaching for his prosthetic. 

“Do you need help?” It felt like a stupid question the moment it left her, but it was either that or stare into space thinking… about her own thoughts. Or, stare at Peeta. None of which were her first choice.

Not that there wasn’t something to stare at regarding Peeta. And if they were actually getting married, she’d have an excuse to.

“Oh, no, I’ve got it.” He smiled sweetly at her, and she watched while he easily attached his prosthetic and stood. All without losing his towel.

She’d asked him countless questions about it before, the nights they’d spent on the train and the mornings after, but Katniss found one she hadn’t asked yet. “Do you miss it?”

His eyebrows crinkled, confused. “What? My leg?”

“Mmhmm.” Katniss’s hand found its way back into her hair. Back into the damned pins. 

“Sometimes.” He shrugged. “After the first Games, I… missed it a lot, I guess, because it hurt a lot. Phantom pain, they called it. Because my body wasn’t adjusted to losing a part of itself. But now… it’s just a leg, really. And losing it kind of saved my life.” He winked at her. “Someone decided they couldn’t live without me, I guess.”

For some odd reason, Katniss laughed at that. “Oh, that’s the reason, huh?” She’d missed this side of him. Even if he was technically making her laugh at his expense. Not that she blamed him for that, given the circumstances.

Peeta stepped over to stand in front of her. “That’s what I’ve been told. By our fans.” He was still joking, still lightening the mood from her dark question. From the darkness of the night ahead.

He adjusted his towel and then took her hand, entwining their fingers. He nodded towards the shower. “Your turn. Do you want me to stay?”

Katniss didn’t think about it. She nodded.

“I just have to get these out,” she complained, using her free hand to pull at one of the pins. “You’re lucky all they have to do to you is put some gel in.” She ruffled his wet hair, which was already beginning to dry in ringlets from the heat in the room.

Peeta chuckled. “Let me.” He reached into her hair, and with one tug a lock of her hair fell from its hold. Then another, and another, until the hairstyle had been reduced to a pile of pins on the counter, and her hair fell in a dark, wavy curtain down her shoulders.

When Katniss looked up, she found the expression on Peeta’s face to be unreadable. This time, he was the one staring, eyes wild in a way that no one had ever looked at her with before. But still, underneath it all, she saw the familiarity of his love for her.

It didn’t make her squirm this time. Instead, it felt right.

“There,” he said, voice low and soft. “Much better.” He allowed himself to twist a piece around his fingers before dropping it. He seemed to come back to himself, because he blinked and straightened. “Um.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry. I’m just going to… get dressed really fast. I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Okay,” Katniss replied.

“Okay,” Peeta echoed, then he disentangled their hands and left the bathroom, shutting the door softly behind him.

In the steam of the moment and the room, Katniss remembered what Haymitch said Peeta had done for her by confessing his love before their first Games. What felt like forever ago now.

“He made you look desirable!”

To the people of the Capitol, of course. But to Peeta…

She already had been.

…

Hands entwined, they laid in the darkness. Silent, in case the other was able to get even a little rest tonight, though that was impossible. 

Tomorrow was the first day of the rest of their lives—and if either of them had their way, it wouldn’t be both of them leaving that arena.

Just one. 

Once again, their greatest ally was also their greatest enemy: each other.

At first they lay on their backs, their hands in the space between, both lost in thought. Then Katniss rolled over to look at him. 

His eyes were closed, but he was clearly awake. The flare of his nostrils on an exhale was proof. Still, Katniss didn’t look away. The moonlight from the open window spilled grey across the room, the sky’s hue casting bluish shadows over everything. Over him, too.

She let her eyes trace the outlines of his face. The slope of his nose and the curve of his lips. His eyelashes. The freckle underneath his eye. The wrinkle in his brow. She knew without asking that he was deep in thought.

A small, nostalgic voice inside her whispered, “I wish we had more time.”

As if on cue, Peeta’s eyes blinked open. Then his attention was on her, and Katniss shifted to accommodate him while he turned onto his side, mirroring her. Without speaking, they switched hands, curling them up between them.

He dipped his head down to brush his nose against her forehead. Then she felt his lips there, and heard his sigh as he settled, eye level with her.

His voice was ragged and sad when he whispered, “I wish we had more time, too.”

Katniss blinked. Had she said that out loud? She must have. Somehow, it wasn’t as embarrassing, here in the dark. Here, so close to him, with no guilt to feel about Gale, no more goodbyes to say.

It was just… true. Because even if her heart wouldn’t allow her to admit it, she loved Peeta Mellark in her own way.  In whatever way she could. She always had. She always would. 

Until her last breath.

Even if the idea itself scared her to her core.

“If it wasn’t us, what would you do?" 

The question spilled out.

There was a beat of heavy silence between them before Peeta spoke.

“I’d want to marry you.”

Somehow, his answer didn’t surprise her. She had known he would have wanted to be with her, that he was someone who still believed in marriage and happily ever after and sunsets and hope. That much was obvious.

It was that fact that kept her sane, now, so close to the end. Something to cling to in her final moments, maybe. The idea that he would live out all of those wonderful things with someone else. With anyone at all. Because he would be alive.

Usually, the idea would bring an unwarranted frisson of sadness over Katniss at the thought of Peeta with another girl. Not for any particular reason than that she would be sad to… miss it. Then, the swift return of duty and obligation would follow, because she owed that to him, owed him a life and so much more, for his loving her and saving her. But not now.

Instead, Katniss felt something else at Peeta’s simple declaration.

Curiosity. For a life she would never get to see, would never admit she wanted to know about except for here in the darkness, lying in Peeta’s arms.

“Tell me.”

His hesitation spoke to his surprise. “Really?” His lips turned up slightly at her soft spoken request, the tone of his voice rising in disbelief. And teasing, she noticed, but regarded with the same familiarity as on the Tour; she was used to it by now. “You want to know a besotted school boy’s fantasies about marrying the love of his life? With you as the bride?”

“Mmhmm.” She nodded. “I do.”

“Wow, you’re serious.” The humor faded from his voice. And, because Peeta could never deny her, even if he didn’t understand her, he said, “Okay.”

Katniss waited for him to begin. Patient, she took her time watching him while he gathered his thoughts. He had the same wrinkle in his forehead as before, but the lines were softer. His ideas, surely were lighter than whatever he had been pondering before the start of their conversation.

“Well, for starters,” Peeta said, “You wouldn’t wear a thirty pound wedding dress made of pearls and feathers that catches on fire when you twirl.”

A laugh made its way out of Katniss’s throat. “How kind of you. What would I wear, then?”

“Anything you want.” A pause. “You’d look beautiful no matter what.”

It was the kind of comment that on any other night would have made her uncomfortable, or wish he’d take it back. Because it wasn’t true, and because by saying it out loud she was hurting him. But tonight, she allowed herself the absence of guilt that would usually accompany her blush.

Tonight, she let him see her in a way she’d never seen herself. Despite the ways she’d wronged him in the past.

Worthy of his love.

“Sorry,” Peeta’s apology brought her back. Probably because she didn’t say anything.

“Don’t apologize,” she told him. “It’s okay.” She squeezed his fingers. “Then what? Go on. Keep talking about our wedding.”

He rubbed his thumb over her hand. “Alright. If you say so.”

“I do.”

The words echoed in her head when she said them, their significance revealing itself. All this talk of weddings… 

I do, I do, I do.

A beat passed between them before Peeta picked up where he left off. “Of course, we’d go to the Justice Building and sign papers. Prim would be there, and your mother. My family… probably wouldn’t attend.” He sighed. “Except maybe Auric.” The middle Mellark brother. “Delly would be there, too.”

“Delly?” Katniss asked.

“Yeah,” Peeta replied, “I’ve known her a long time. We used to play together when we were kids. She used to tell people I was her brother. She’s one of the only close friends I still have.”

One of the only close friends I still have. Katniss thought for a moment about Gale, nostalgic. Wishing they would have been able to maintain what they had. Wishing it wasn’t so complicated. It wasn’t hard to imagine why Peeta would have lost friends. But she didn’t want to think about it. Peeta was so kind. For greed and self-righteousness to steal his friends, was cruel.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Peeta shook his head at her. “Don’t be. They weren’t real, anyway. Delly is. That’s why she stuck around. Now, where was I?”

“We just signed papers at the Justice Building,” she supplied.

“Right, right.”

“What happens next?” 

Peeta shot her a look, one that asked her if she was serious. “You know what happens next.”

Katniss resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “What?”

“A toasting.” Peeta’s voice went soft, dreamlike. “We have a toasting.”

And suddenly, Katniss wasn’t a seventeen year old girl being sent to her death tomorrow morning for the second time. She wasn’t an instigator, forced to torture the boy that was in love with her with Capitol engagements in the slim hopes it would appease the rioting districts. She wasn’t the girl who had volunteered for her sister in a fight to the death.

She was no one. She was eleven years old, watching Peeta Mellark take a beating to give her some bread. To save the life of a dying girl.

She was cold, soaked from the rain and the memory, remembering the loaves as they landed in front of her. Remembering the heat that scorched her underneath her coat when she picked them up. 

“A toasting,” she repeated in a whisper, voice hollow and haunted.

“Yeah,” Peeta said, and he must have noticed the change in her demeanor, her body language, because he pulled his hand from hers to run it down her arm. “Hey.” He tilted her chin up, and she let him.

A shiver passed over her body.

“We don’t have to talk about this,” he said, “if it makes you uncomfortable. I know…” He took a deep breath, “I know you never planned on getting married.”

“It doesn’t make me uncomfortable.” She didn’t even think before she spoke. “I just…” She felt incredibly stupid, because here he was comforting her when she was the one who made him talk about his dream wedding—which would never come true, now.

What kind of monster was she?

“I was thinking about the bread,” she whispered.

“Oh,” Peeta said, realizing. “Katniss, you know… we’re even. You don’t owe me a debt, or anything. I’m serious.”

“I know.” She wasn’t sure she agreed with him completely, she would always owe him in her mind, but she knew he was too kind to collect. Too in love with her to do anything about it. How could you repay someone for saving your life? But, it wasn’t about the debt. It was something else. And she didn’t know what. She didn’t have the time to figure it out, either.

Silence bridged the gap between them, while Katniss tried to wrap her mind around her emotions. No words between them. But she felt Peeta’s eyes on her. Soft, understanding. Waiting. He was always waiting, for her.

“Peeta…” she began. Barely audible.

“Hmm?” 

“Thank you.”

“What?”

“Thank you, for saving my life, with the bread. I have to say it, even if…” Even if we die tomorrow. Even if I die. Even if you live. Even if, even if, even if.

“Shh, hey, Katniss—” Confusion colored his tone, but still, he tried to reassure her. Like he always did.

“—And I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you don’t get to have your dream. That I can’t love you the way you deserve. That I’m—”

In a brush of movement, Peeta had moved, until his forehead pressed against hers. Katniss thought he might kiss her, but he didn’t. Instead, his lips moved an inch from her own, his voice came rough and trembling, he cradled her face.

“Please don’t say that,” he said, soft and pleading and pained. “It’s not your fault.”

“You deserve better.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do! You deserve everything, Peeta Mellark.” And I can’t give it to you. I wish I could. I wish… She couldn’t bear to look at him, but couldn’t bear to pull herself too far away from him, either. 

Because she needed him. In more ways than he would ever know. She pulled back, and closed her eyes.

His hands still held her tenderly, though their foreheads were no longer pressed together. “I have everything I’ll ever need right here.” He didn’t miss a beat.

Katniss couldn’t say she was surprised. Or that his sentiment didn’t flatter her—or didn’t sting, because he was talking about her. In a way no one else had ever talked about her. In a way no one else ever would.

Not after tomorrow.

“Katniss, look at me.”

She did.

“You…” For a moment, it seemed as if the eloquent, sweet, Peeta Mellark had gone speechless, until: “You are everything. I love you.”

Even if, even if, even if…

I do, I do, I do…

I wish, I wish, I wish…

I love you, I love you, I love you…

All the words she could never say. Could never mean. Could never…

“I know,” she told him. The fight went out of her, and she opened her eyes. Her voice was nothing but a whisper. “I know.”

When could she stop hurting him? When could she give him something other than phantom pain—pain for parts of himself, gone forever. Would it hurt less, when she was gone?

With the conversation over, they shifted into more comfortable positions to try and get some rest, to hold each other. As Katniss lay her head on Peeta’s chest and he wrapped his arms around her, as they clung to each other in the silent, deadly dark, Katniss allowed her mind to wander.

One last time. 

Would this have happened anyway? she wondered. An echo of everything Peeta ever wanted. An echo of desires she wasn’t allowed to have.

It was a strange thought, disconnected from reality, barely formed.

Would we have happened anyway?

She knew that now, she would never know.

[district7]

A Mockingjay Joniss AU - pt. 1: i’ve made up my mind (i’m never going back)

11.11.19 

A Mockingjay Joniss AU - pt. 1: i’ve made up my mind (i’m never going back) 

A Mockingjay AU WIP where Katniss reevaluates whether her best future is a path she had never considered. After Johanna fails the Block, it occurs to Katniss that her future is not pre-destined, that she’s done enough, and that she doesn’t owe any one, or any cause, a suicide mission. 

A/N: There are no promises of quality assurance. Also, I make no promises about updates. (If I add that sort of pressure on myself about it, I’ll end up loathe to work on it.) This will likely hold a lot of things in common with other Mockingjay Joniss AUs, namely a return to District 7 instead of District 12, and an emphasis on the pair helping each other recover set against a backdrop of quasi-homesteading. I make zero assertions POV and tense will stay consistent across updates. This is an adventure in pantsting with a general goal in mind, rather than something I’m pre-plotting.

Feel free to send me constructive witticisms, requests, asks, comments, trolling, whatever.

_______________________

District 13 - Medical

Johanna’s limbs twitched, body emitting a mix of grunts and whimpers. Katniss guessed she was fighting in her sleep.

Or maybe running. The morphling line in her IV was a rifle with vicious recoil. Awake, it tricked you into believing pain was farther away and anxiety quieter than they actually were. Helpful. Maybe. Asleep, it made it harder to wake from the nightmares.

“Jo...” 

Katniss nudged her shoulder with a knuckle, leaning forward out of her visitor’s chair only far enough to breach the edge of Johanna’s medical bed. Best to keep out of the way of swinging arms, if Johanna woke up fighting. “Johanna, wake up.”

In response, Johanna’s grunts and twitches ratcheted in intensity. 

Katniss guessed at what she was dreaming. Maybe fighting mutts while they tried to pull her under water. What kind of mutts might the Capitol design for that? Giant fish with fiery eyes, men’s arms, and children’s hands?  Eels with multiple tails which encapsulate you while the monsters drag you deeper into the pressing blackness, down until you finally have no choice but to gasp in water and drown yourself?

The Capitol and its mutts. 

Katniss tried again to wake Johanna, but she only rolled in her hospital bed, tangling herself and her IV line in her bleached, too-white sheets while letting out a sleep-garbled plea.

Maybe not Capitol mutts, Katniss thought. This happened in The Block, the Rebellion’s own customizable mini-Arena. So, Rebellion mutts. Coin and her well-oiled machine could squeeze and fracture a person every bit as well as Snow and the Games could a Tribute. Less horrific and premeditated, definitely. Better justified, absolutely. Without the evil intent, hopefully.  But they could still do it, all the same.

What was it Peeta had said in that interview? 

Once you’re in the arena, the rest of the world becomes very distant. All the people and things you loved or cared about almost cease to exist. As bad as it makes you feel, you’re going to have to do some killing, because in the arena, you only get one wish. And it’s very costly. It costs a lot more than your life. To murder innocent people? It costs everything you are. So you hold on to your wish.

His wish had been for Katniss to live. Katniss’ had been for him to. And here they were. Everyone, except for Cinna, who she’d gone into the Quarter Quell caring about was somehow, miraculously, still alive. Prim. Her mother. Gale. Haymitch. Effie. Peeta might still be mentally disordered, but at least with her staying away, he was progressing well enough to decorate a wedding cake. 

A wedding cake. That image made Katniss grunt. Finnick and Annie.

It wasn’t just those she cared about before the Quarter Quell who were still alive, it was also those she newly cared about. Those two. Beetee.

Johanna.

Johanna, for whom Katniss had experienced the impulse to volunteer as roommate. The one she’d sidled up to as a training partner. The one whose nightmares and traumas she’d been ready-fit acquaintances with. And also the one whose crass, doesn’t-give-a-fuck facade had gone from infuriating Katniss, when they’d first met, to actually making her laugh.

She sat on the edge of the bed and made one last, forceful attempt to stir Johanna, managing to cajole her onto her back and into wakefulness enough that she blinked with hazy recognition.

“Shit. Can’t a girl sleep without being molested?” Johanna was mumbling, voice rough.

“You were having a nightmare.”

“I can see your face, so clearly I must still be having it.”

“Funny.”

Johanna’s lids drifted shut.

“Have to be good for at least something, brainless, or else these wonderful District Thirteen people might decide it’s not worth the cost-benefit to feed me.”

“You’re good at lot of things,” Katniss joked. “Or at least that’s what you’re always going on to everyone about.”

Still with eyes closed, Johanna’s face pulled a smirk. “And wouldn’t you be lucky to experience every last one of those things, Everdeen.”

Katniss snorted and rolled her eyes. “You’re incredible.”

“Most wait ‘till after to tell me that.”

“You know what I meant,” Katniss corrected, refusing to fall prey to the attempt at embarrassing her. She started untangling the sheet from around the IV as something else to focus on.

Johanna peeked open one eye to watch, then wiggled the rest of her arm free from the bedding as soon as Katniss was done, purposefully floundering it through the air until she thwacked her palm against Katniss’ cheek. She pushed her face away with token force, punctuated by a complaining groan.

“Go a-way. Your sickening goodness makes my ass itch. How’s a mentally disordered person supposed to sleep?"

Katniss managed to huff like she was offended, but when Johanna’s hand didn’t move away from her face, she pulled it down to her lap and held onto it, frowning.

“They’re re-classifying you as that again?”

Johanna’s hand twitched in Katniss’.

“What? No. It’s nothing.”

“Johanna...”

“I’m fine, leave it.”  She yanked her hand free. “Aren’t you supposed to be prepping for an assassination mission right now anyway? Why are you here?”

Katniss frowned again at the abruptly acerbic tone, but she’d built up some resistance to it over time, and was tired herself, so she chose not walk into the trap. She was about to lay her own, anyway, after a fashion.

“You mean the suicide mission?” Her voice was a whisper, and she said it only after looking away from Johanna and picking her cuticles for a few long moments.

“What?” Johanna shimmied up into a sitting position, eyes wide and body instantly tense. “What are you talking about?”

Boggs’ words from a group meeting with Coin weeks before had been revolving through Katniss’ mind for the previous twenty-four hours.

Even if we’re careful, we can’t guarantee her safety. She’ll be a target for every-

He hadn’t gotten to finish, because Katniss herself had interrupted him. But she could definitely fill in the blank herself.

“Think about, Johanna. Because since the Block, I’ve certainly been thinking about it. At best, it’s a mission doomed to fail. At worst, it’s a death sentence. I think I’ve slept less than you in the last forty-eight hours.”

“You promised.” Johanna and pulled her arms tightly around her shoulders to make herself smaller. Triggered into a minor episode, she shook her head non-stop, as if doing so could change the reality of what Katniss had said. “You promised you’d kill him for me. I need him to be dead!”

Katniss sighed loudly and stared up at ceiling, fighting her own frustration as well as Johanna’s. Fighting to keep her voice calm.

“I know. I know I did, Johanna. And he will.“ She put a hand on Johanna’s knee to calm her, only to have Johanna swipe it away. But she went on. “We’ve breached the Capitol. We have forces there. Everyone wants Snow’s head. The Rebellion has come too far to stop, and Coin is going to make sure he ends up dead one way or another. But think about it. I’m not a trained assassin, I’m barely a solider. I don’t have an anonymous face. What chance do I really have? I’m a girl with a rifle and a bow. In the middle of a city decked out with Gamemakers’ traps, thousands of peacekeeper who know my face, and tens of thousands of Capitol citizens ready to raise an alert.” She gave Johanna a grim smile. “Those odds are way higher against than we faced in all of our games combined. And my target? One man on the far side of a war zone, almost certainly sealed away in a well-guarded bomb shelter.”

Katniss gave a weak shrug. “Boggs is right. He didn’t call it a suicide mission out loud, but he knows it is. I’ve been seeing it in his eyes, the hoping that I'd see it for myself.”

“Fuck,” Johanna hissed. “I’m so fucking tired of all this SHIT!”

The sudden screaming brought in the medical staff. Johanna shouted wild curses at them, alarming them all the more, but Katniss eventually talked them into leaving. It took long minutes, but Johanna’s shaking slowly evolved to despondent rocking. And then her chin sank to her chest, followed a moment later by a sniff, and then her dragging an arm across her face to wipe at it. Finally, she gripped her skull and let herself fall back flat onto the bed.

“Jo, I don’t know what kind of a life you want to have when this is over, but I’ve made up my mind. I’m not going back. I’ve done enough. We’ve both done enough. We don’t owe anyone. It’s not selfish: We’ve reached the point where we’re no longer necessary. Coin and the other District Leaders can duke it out; it doesn’t need to be Mockingay business. The only thing I want is to live a quiet life where I know Prim is safe and I can shrink out from under the spotlight. That’s what started this for me. That’s the promise I need to keep. The one I made to her on Reaping Day. That I’d live and come back to her.” She added, “You can’t tell me that at least part of you isn’t interested.”

There was more sniffling, and more face wiping. And a few ragged breaths before there was an exhausted response.

“Do you really believe that’s possible?”

“I think Coin will give it to us. She needs popular Victors around after the Capitol falls like a bear needs bees stinging at its nose when it wants honey. At this stage, my quiet exit might be as tempting for her as it is for me. And face it, from her perspective- If I’m right- if I do go, at best my death makes a good propo, except that it comes at the cost of the Capitol claiming credit for killing me. But if I actually succeeded, she risks me having an even bigger voice in Panem’s future. Considering how we’ve butted heads already, that’s not something she’s likely to want. And that puts not just me, but everyone I care about right back in danger.” Katniss had risked sneaking that train of thought into a whispered conversation with Boggs over that morning’s breakfast.

The look he’d given her had been answer enough.

“For once, I’d like the chance to choose my own fate instead of being manipulated into one.”

Johanna continued to stare up at the ceiling.

“You’re serious about this.”

“I have the bone-chilling feeling I need to be.”

“And so what,” Johanna struggled for the energy to push herself up on her elbows, glaring, “this is you asking my blessing to beg Coin to send you, your family, and lover boy back to Twelve so you can have a guilt-free happily ever after?”

Katniss gave herself time to cycle through a slow breath. Being about to say it aloud made it feel more like killing someone than letting them go. But Johanna was impatient.

“I’m sick of this visit, Katniss. Just say whatever it is and get it over with.”

“Fine.” Katniss sucked in a breath. “Peeta’s a long way from being able to go anywhere without a counselor. Maybe things could be different. In the future, after time passes and he’s better and I don’t feel constantly conflicted over what I should be feeling and how much of that is me over what people keep telling me I feel. And-”

“There goes your self-righteous we-really-love-each-other act, princess.”

“Shut up, Johanna! It’s complicated and you know it. And like I said, maybe things could be different. None of us knows that, though. But what I do know is that neither he or I need that sort of pressure right now, and right now is when I need to make a decision for the people who are still within my reach.”

Johanna relented, begrudgingly.

“If you go back to Twelve, you realize he’ll just end up back there at some point. If you go home, he follows. He won’t be able to help it.”

Katniss hesitated, but then nodded sadly. “I know.”

“Is that what you want?”

Katniss didn’t respond. Instead, after some quiet, she reached over to the nightstand for Johanna’s pine bundle, laying it on the bed. Her fingers lingered on it briefly before withdrawing.

“This was on the floor when I came in. Decided you didn’t like it after all?”

“Probably fell out while I was sleeping.” Johanna picked it up and took a sniff, then kept it at her nose to breathe the scent.

“Had you wanted to go back to Seven when this was all done?”

“I...” Johanna’s shoulders slowly sagged. “I don’t know,” she said simply, expression carefully neutral. “I don’t have anything there. Haven’t for a long time. And I haven’t even been able to picture a world that’s that normal enough to even try thinking about it.”

“Well, do. At this point, the three us of would rather go to Seven with you than back to Twelve.” Johanna narrowed her eyes, surprised. Perhaps suspicious. It didn’t phase Katniss. “Haymitch and Finnick have both agreed to help me make the argument to Coin for us.” And when Johanna only continued to study Katniss, without voicing an objection, Katniss hazarded some levity, "And anyway, you’re practically required to say yes: Prim insists she wants to adopt you into the family.”

“I’m not a fucking pet,” Johanna responded, eventually, but without real heat.

“Whatever you say, lumber-woman.” Katniss chuckled at the dirty face Johanna made at that, before standing to leave. “I think we both know Prim's pretty good at getting what she wants.”

“It should be illegal to be that fucking adorable.”

“Yeah,” Katniss agreed, to be polite. “Okay, well, I’m going to go talk to Haymitch. You aren’t laying a string of profanity down on me, so I’m going to run with it.”

Johanna pulled her knees to her chest, making herself small again.

“What is it?”

Johanna shook her head.

“Come on, Johanna.”

“I... don’t want to get dragged there and then dumped, if you guys don’t like it.” A tear raced down her cheek, then another, which Johanna cursed even as she wiped them away. “I... Fuck, I can’t believe I’m saying this. If you tell anyone, especially that stupid head doctor, that I'm saying this, I’ll rip your spine out.”  The tears were still coming. “But I don’t think I can handle having people and then losing them again.”

Again. The weight of that word settled on Katniss’ shoulders.

She struggled with how to respond, in the end climbing onto the bed and letting Johanna curl into her side.

[saltpepperbeard]

Not Her ~An Everlark One-Shot~

A/N: Hello everyone! *hUNGER GAMES INTENSIFIES* am I right? I’m so happy for the Re-Read that’s taking place, because not only is it getting me furiously posting about THG again, but it brought back my quite dead writing motivation! I was reading chapter two, had a, “Okay but what must have this person been experiencing” kind of thought, followed by the instant urge to write it. So here we thankfully are lol!

I’m probably a tad rusty, but I really did want to write a different take on the Reaping Day. I’ve always wondered what things would be like from a certain someone’s point of view after all! So with that being said, I hope you all like it!

And with further adoooooooo...

Not Her

It’s the day everyone in this District dreads again.

The one where families are torn apart for a sick spectator sport. The one where children are torn crying from their mothers, knowing what horrible fate awaits them. The one where loved ones are officially lost to the Capitol.

Reaping Day.

I clench and unclench my jaw, silently filing in after all the other boys my age. The tension in the air is high, as usual. We’re not a District to valiantly offer volunteers, or boast our Tributes’ strengths. We’re a group of reluctant individuals, with many being fearful, silently praying that their name, or their loved one’s name, isn’t the one to be called.

I’m in the latter half of that group. My name being plucked from the large, glass bowl wouldn’t trigger any tears, from me or my family for that matter. There’s a slight sinking in my stomach as I imagine it, yes, but ultimately it wouldn’t hurt as much as others. My family would get on. The District would get on. And maybe it’d be a sick way to spare me from my current way of life.

I’m more concerned about my brother, concerned about Rye. I wouldn’t want to see him on that stage, awaiting pain, awaiting death. I wouldn’t want to see anyone I love subjected to that. Having to helplessly watch as someone close to me suffers has to be one of my worst fears.

A heavy breath rolls out of my mouth, my attention zoning out as the typical string of events unfolds. The mayor talks about the past of Panem, the history of the Games, and the reasons we should be thankful for them. It makes me sick to my stomach, the notion of being appreciative of murder, appreciative of suffering, appreciative of torture. So naturally, my attention goes elsewhere.

It doesn’t really come back until our District’s sole-surviving Victor, or our District’s Infamous Drunk rather, makes his grand entrance on stage. I let out a sigh as he leaves a path of chaos in his wake, but I cannot deny the slight ache in my chest. That insanity could be someone’s fate today. Or worse, far worse.

Another interesting character, Effie Trinket, attempts to hurry things along, continuing to try and make this some kind of grand spectacle. It’s ladies first as usual, and despite not really having anyone close to me per say, I find that I’m holding my breath.

When the name is uttered, I’m relieved for a split second, and then utterly devastated in the next.

“Primrose Everdeen.”

My throat locks up, with my entire body to follow. I almost feel a bit woozy, my head spinning at the image of a small, frail, blonde girl reluctantly emerging from the crowd.

I know her. Almost too well for never really formally meeting her. I can see her passing by our Bakery in the morning, completely carefree and casting light as she goes. I can see the way her gaze sparkles as she eyes the displays in the window, eagerly running up to get a better look. And I can see her turning around, excitedly pointing at the various cookies and cakes to the person who’s always with her...

“Prim!”

As unfortunate as it is to say, I should be familiar with that shrill, desperate cry. The sound of a person getting their family member torn away from them at the Reaping, a haunting, eerie noise that’s something of normalcy every year.

But it’s from her. She’s in pain. Her sister is going to the Arena. And I can’t protect them, can’t comfort her.

I can feel myself shaking, small beads of sweat forming atop my skin. I don’t even know her. I don’t know either of them. But at the same time, I feel like I do. I’ve seen them both for so long. My heart has followed the one for as long as I know, which means I’m naturally protective of the other as well.

It’s almost like I can feel her anguish, like my little sister is up there.

Mentally, I wrap my arms around her, holding her as tightly and warmly as I can manage. Even if I really could, I know there wouldn’t be enough love in the world to comfort her in this. But God, would I try. I’d want nothing more than to try and keep her lifted out of the darkness the Capitol tries so desperately to inflict upon us.

“Prim!”

Tears spring into my eyes, my heart clenching something terrible. I watch as she emerges from the crowd as well, darting after her sister. I wish I could be there alongside of her too, offering all the support and help I could possibly muster. But I can’t. I’m always doomed to watch from the sidelines, doomed to watch as things unfold.

And unfold they do.

“I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!”

Everything stops. My world completely stops. 

My heart stutters to a grinding halt. A noise of anguish poised on my tongue gets jammed in my throat. The tears I had been fighting against have no choice but to fall.

No. Not her.

It’s my nightmare. My absolute worst nightmare come to life. I always knew there was a very small possibility of this happening, a very grim chance of this unfurling before my very eyes. But nothing could have actually prepared me for it happening. No matter how many times I see them per night, the bad dreams are nothing compared to reality.

The light goes dark, and sounds go muffled. I can see some slight, desperate movement near the stage, and hear a scuffle of activity, but I can hardly pay attention. I can hardly focus on anything other than trying not to collapse right here and now, to collapse completely in on myself.

I don’t know her. I never got to know her. I didn’t get to tell her how beautiful I think she is, how her eyes remind me of a strong, captivating summer storm. I didn’t get to tell her how I want to protect her and her family for the rest of my days, to ensure they never have to go hungry ever again.

I never got to tell her how much I utterly adore her, how much I love her to the ends of the Earth.

And when she goes on stage, when she utters her name, the reminder makes a shaky, sobbing-like breath croak from my lungs.

Katniss Everdeen.

Not her. Not her. Not her.

Somewhere in the middle of my woes, I can faintly hear Effie Trinket trying to get our solemn District excited, trying to get our District to roar with thunderous applause.

But in true fashion, much to my utmost relief and yet utter dread, they don’t. Everyone remains ghostly silent, before kissing three fingers and raising them high into the sky. It’s a gesture of complete admiration, but also a way of saying goodbye.

I can’t bring myself to do it. Because no matter how much I utterly adore her, I cannot bring myself to say goodbye. Especially without giving the slightest “hello.”

I simply hang my head, fiercely wiping the tears away, clenching both my eyes and jaw. I wish I could reveal my gaze and be free from this, be in a completely different world where I’m waking up to light, waking up to her.

But I’m not. The awful world I’m in continues on.

I can hear the loud clicking of Effie’s heels as she walks from one side of the stage to the other. I wipe the last of my tears away, sighing harshly and attempting to get myself under some semblance of control. I just hope whoever gets reaped can work together with Katniss, and protect her with his life.

The odds must be somewhat in my favor, albeit in a messed up, twisted kind of way.

Because the name that’s called, the paper that’s raised into the air, sends me through a torrent of feeling.

My first emotion, by complete instinct, is shock, my head jolting upwards and my mouth hanging agape. I can feel everyone who’s in close proximity staring at me, their faces either wearing sorrow or some kind of weird relief. And after I’ve recovered from the initial blow, the initial realization that I’m going to the Hunger Games, the thoughts that follow are what give me the strength to walk towards the stage.

Katniss.

I’m going to be with Katniss in the arena.

Not getting to know her doesn’t seem as devastating anymore. Because now I’ll get to die knowing I protected her, knowing I gave absolutely everything to keep her alive. And that’s all I could possibly want. To make sure I gave my all in ensuring her safety.

Maybe she doesn’t need me. Maybe she can get by just fine on her own. I’ve heard about the way she shoots, heard her way of fighting is silent and elegant. It’d be just one other person who wouldn’t be affected by my presence or lack of thereof; my family certainly isn’t.

But that won’t stop me from trying. That won’t stop me from giving myself to her like I’ve tried to all these years. I am hers and no one else’s. My life is insignificant next to hers.

I finally mount the stage, and in seeing her so close, in getting to properly look at her, it locks my sole purpose in these Games completely into place.

I move to stand parallel to her. Before I do though, I give myself a brief opportunity to look at her. To really look at her. To look at her how I would every day if I was blessed enough to actually be with her.

Her beauty absolutely takes my breath away. It always has. Though her face is hard, completely taut with emotion, she’s gorgeous. Her hair looks softer than the dandelion puffs dotting the District. Her eyes look shinier than the sun dancing off the lake’s surface. Her lips look plumper than the strawberries growing in the forest.

I don’t think I could ever capture such beauty in one of my paintings, or ever truly put it into words. She’s utterly exquisite.

I don’t stare, being quick to tear my gaze away and look straight ahead, out into the crowd. Now really is not the time to dote on her anyway. I can’t afford to get anymore attached than I am now. Now is the time to start planning how I’m going to keep her alive.

As the mayor talks more about the Games, my mind is aflame with possibilities, with different scenarios. I think of how I can keep others away from her, how I can potentially side with her, how I can guard her from anyone who might come near...

My thoughts are cut short by Effie yet again, though this time she actually says something significant to me for once.

“Alright you two, shake hands!”

My head turns towards Katniss as hers turns towards mine, our eyes meeting and locking for the first time in...years. Her gaze is just as mesmerizing as it was the first time I held it, just as captivating. And just like last time, I silently tell her I’m going to protect her. I silently tell her that I will take a beating for her. I silently tell her that I love her.

And to prove it, to seal the deal, I put all the warmth I can manage into our handshake, squeezing her hand tenderly with the figurative promise of never letting go.

The odds may not be fully in my favor during the Games, but hopefully now the opposite can be said for her.

And once we turn to be beckoned into the building behind us, away from our District, my life is hers.

[porchwood]

Fic Bits 2018: The One That Got Away

Modern AU; Madge POV. Jude/Madge, Gale/Madge. 

They say you can never go home again, and yet here I am, packing to do just that.

The second autumn after you graduate from college is when the niggling feeling starts, like you left town without returning your library books or forgot to put the new insurance card in your glove compartment. When the first one comes around, you’re elated that you don’t have to think – let alone worry – about registering for classes, mapping your daily routes across campus, or buying school supplies of any kind, but by the second you’re starting to feel like something’s wrong. It’s easy to understand why so many people fall into teaching. Your body gets set on that routine, so that going back to school in fall is as instinctual to humans as seasonal migrations are to birds.

Ironically, it was the school year that determined this move – or rather, the school year that necessitated it, though the fall semester is already several weeks underway. Beginning in January, Dad will be teaching again for the first time since I was in elementary school – and, doubt it not, loving every minute of it.

At twenty-three my life could and probably should be independent of my parents’, but no matter which way I turned the situation around in my mind, there was no truly good reason not to move back with them. As badly as I don’t want to go back to the small town where I grew up, there’s nothing substantial enough to keep me here if my parents are gone.

We’ve always been thick as thieves and, oddly, moreso since moving to the capital city. The fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue that kept my mother to a quiet routine in our hometown made her a veritable recluse amidst the constant bustle of squealing brakes and blaring horns, and everything was so blindingly expensive, we rarely partook of the concerts and boutiques and exotic restaurants that had sounded so exciting from our living room back home.

Moving here as a family had been the result of two somewhat predictable stars aligning perfectly: after twelve years as mayor, Dad was elected to the state legislature and I was accepted into the music program at a small private college, a short bus ride from the capitol building. My parents rented a spacious loft halfway in-between the two, which enabled me to keep tabs on my mother while enjoying the independence of living off-campus all through school, while our place back home was loaned out to visiting professors and the like – short-term rentals to keep the utilities running and keep an eye out for any maintenance issues that might arise. I’m told I missed out on the “full college experience” by not living in a dorm, but from all accounts, it’s a party I’m glad to have skipped.

For all intents and purposes, home has been 37 Ash Terrace for the past five years. Four-and-a-half hours isn’t the longest drive, but there was always one reason or another to stay here through the holidays – which is not to say we’ve never gone back, of course. Our family revisits can be counted on two hands, but I’ve made a few extra trips on my own for special occasions, the last of which – the baptism of Katniss’s son Janni – was more than two years ago now.

I look up at my bulletin board, now stripped of everything but the central photo, and have just tugged out the tack when my phone rings. It’s a local cell number – local to our hometown, not to here – but doesn’t pull up a contact, and I cross the first two fingers of my free hand, hoping one of my cover letters has snared an interview as I answer, “Hello?”

“Is this Madeline Undersee?” asks a young male voice.

That was one of the best things about moving away, and one that I’m particularly loath to leave behind: finally getting to be Madeline, not Madge. That a young professional back home is addressing me as such, however, gives me hope.

“It is,” I affirm, and there’s a brief, quickly stifled sound from the other end before the caller goes on, “I was wondering if you might be available to play a wedding in November.”

The pieces snap together in my mind. It’s probably a local boy who went to college in the capitol like myself – it’s a common enough path – and found himself a fiancée, though it is a trifle odd for the groom to call ‘round for an accompanist.

“I’m sorry; I’m actually moving out of the area this weekend,” I reply, “but I can refer you to several other musicians who would be excellent choices.”

“I’m afraid it really has to be you,” he says with what sounds far more like mischief than regret. “What about a wedding in your hometown? Would that be a little easier to manage?”

“In –?” I break off, mind whipping through the possibilities. It’s hardly a secret that the Undersees are moving back after five years in the big city, but we’ve kept radio silence on my own return except where potential employers are concerned, so there’s no way some random local groom could even know about me, let alone want to hire me for his wedding. “Who is this?” I demand more than ask, a shy fifteen-year-old bookworm all over again, bristling in anticipation of the prank.

“You really don't know?” the young man responds, sounding genuinely surprised, and for a half-second my heart skips in hope, never mind that his voice bears no resemblance whatsoever to Gale’s rough, smoky timbre. “I’m wounded, mädchen,” he laments, and my heart trips halfway through its skip and somersaults clumsily forward to faceplant onto the concrete below.  

“Jude?” I squeak.

“You haven’t forgotten me entirely, then?” he teases.

“Don’t be daft,” I retort, my stunned heart now flailing in shock. “So…you’re getting married?” I almost ask if it’s Columbine but that crush is surely ancient history now, never mind that last I heard, she was headed to some fashion design or modeling program out east.

“Don’t be daft,” he throws back with characteristic self-deprecation, but the affection beneath it wraps about me like a blanket – or one of Jude’s incredible lingering hugs. “But I do need a wedding accompanist,” he goes on, “which as I said, really has to be you, but I want to tell you about it in person. When are you back?”

“Well – tomorrow,” I reply, and the whole thing suddenly feels surreal. “Well, the day after, really,” I clarify. “Tomorrow’s the drive up and the U-Haul unload. Mom and Dad hired movers but you still want to go through everything, you know?”

“Of course,” he assures me. “Want to meet at Primavera for Saturday lunch – say, 11:30? My treat.”

“Primavera?” I puzzle. There’s never been an Italian restaurant in our hometown – it’s too small and rural to sustain any such – but the nearby city has a few shopping malls and a much wider selection of eateries; it makes sense that Jude would want to go to one of them. “What – where is that?” I ask.

He gives a little choke of laughter in reply. “Have you really been away so long, mädchen?” he wonders, but something about my ignorance seems to amuse – even delight – him. “It’s Italian – awesome Italian – right next to Mellarks’.”

“There’s nothing next to Mellarks’,” I counter, because our tiny historic downtown has never been able to keep shops for long, not with countless department stores and discount stores not twenty miles off. “Unless…are we having a sidewalk picnic, Judah?” I venture, almost hopefully, and he laughs.

“If the first date goes well, we can do whatever you want on the second,” he replies, and I miss him so much that I snatch up a pillow with my free hand and hug it to my chest as hard as I can. “But I promise: there is a legit Italian restaurant next to Mellarks’,” he says. “I’m going to buy you lunch there on Saturday, and you’re going to love it so much that you’ll refuse to live out of takeout range ever again.”

“Color me intrigued,” I tease. “As much about your mysterious wedding as this new eatery.”

“They’re both worth the wait,” he promises, and I can hear the grin in his voice.

“I missed you,” I blurt and Jude falls suddenly, uncharacteristically silent. There are any number of well-deserved retorts he could hand me, ranging from You didn’t have to to I didn’t go anywhere, but Jude is the sweetest boy I’ve ever known – on a level with Peeta, really – and even in our most frustrated moments, he never addressed me half as harshly as Gale would on a good day.

I think I hurt him a long time ago, though he’s never said as much.

“I missed you too,” he murmurs, and the corners of my eyes prickle hotly.

I don’t want to go home – you can never go home again, everyone says as much – don’t want to explain why I have a music degree from a respectable college and am looking for any old day job in my hometown and living with my parents. I don’t want to see Gale Hawthorne – never mind how wildly I do want to see him – to face all the inevitable jibes about how I “couldn’t make it in the real world.”

But if Jude – sweet, funny, precious Jude – is coming back into my life, it just might be bearable. He’ll have a job and new friends now – a girlfriend, to be sure – and he may not even live in town any longer. But we can grab lunches together here and there and laugh about stuff that happened in high school. Maybe we’ll find new things to laugh about.

“See you Saturday?” I say.

“I’ll be the one with the red ribbon,” he replies.

As always, I’m the one who hangs up.

Jude always let me end our calls, always hanging on in case of one last thought or lament, one more drawn-out Night-night or See you tomorrow.

Looking down at the phone in my hand, I remember the incredibly idiotic reason Jude isn’t saved as a contact anymore and sit on my stripped mattress, both arms curled around the pillow and my chin resting on its edge. It was stupid and childish – and ultimately pointless, because he didn’t try to get in touch at all after that. Oh, he did the usual friendly Facebook stuff – comments on my posts and the like – because Jude is that kind of sweet, but he’d never do anything to make me uncomfortable.

And also, maybe, he was hurt.

It’s not as if I shut him out – there were no calls or texts or emails to ignore – and you could hardly call my across-the-state move for college “avoidance,” but it certainly aided me to that end, especially five summers ago.

I bite my lips together for a long moment, silently call myself an idiot, and save the number as a new contact: Judah Tolliver. Neat, professional, and objective, like a grown-up. After all, if he’s hiring me for a wedding we’ll be exchanging calls and texts over the next few months; there’s no reason not to add him to my phone.

Returning to my call history, I dial Rue, the high school friend I’ve stayed closest to by virtue of us attending the same college. Our courses of study and career veered apart over the past few years as Rue set aside music to pursue dance full-bore and is currently spending her days with a traveling company that does famous ballets in a pared-down, intimate contemporary style, with dreamlike costumes that I suspect her father has a hand in, but we’ve stubbornly kept in touch all this while, meeting for a meal and a chat whenever her schedule allows.

She’s halfway across the country dancing Swanilda in Coppélia this season, so our farewell supper took place about two weeks ago. I don’t expect her to answer and am beyond surprised when she does.

“Hey chickie-babe!” she cries. “Are you home? I’ve only got a minute but I want to hear all about it. How did your house hold up?”

“We haven’t left yet,” I tell her. “We’re loading the U-Haul tonight and driving back tomorrow.”

“So where’s the fire?” she teases. “Don’t get me wrong, I love you to bits, but why call now? Are you getting sad about leaving – or going back?”

Rue understands my misgivings, even if she doesn’t share them. After I told my parents I’d move back with them, I curled up on Rue’s couch and cried myself into a stupor while she nestled her tiny fairy-form around me in a supportive hug. Going home is not failure, she told me over and over again, her husky voice sounding so like her mother’s as she rubbed my back in soothing circles. You and your parents have always supported each other; it makes sense you’d go back with them, at least for a little – and it’s not forever, not if you don’t want it to be.

Rue’s parents – a costumer and a choreographer – left the capitol when they started having kids and heartily embraced small town life in the heartland, but they both had vibrant careers behind them and were ready for quiet inexpensive living, for Piggly Wiggly and the county fair and a fixer-upper farmhouse, and they quickly found avenues to exercise their talents on a smaller scale.

I’m a year and a half out of college with eleven wedding gigs, five funerals, and a teaching slot at the local conservatory to show for twenty years at the piano and a B.A. with high distinction.

“Jude just called,” I reply by way of explanation. “He wants to hire me for a wedding –”

“His?” she interjects impishly.

“No,” I quell, “but he wouldn’t tell me who it is over the phone either. We’re meeting for lunch on Saturday to discuss it.”

“Meeting for lunch to discuss a mysterious wedding right after you move back to town?” she presses slyly. “Maybe it’s yours!”

Rue knows there’s nothing of that sort between Jude and me and never has been, but she’s equally convinced that there must be, or should’ve been. He adores you, you know, she’s told me time and again. Like, Peeta-and-Katniss level devotion. Couldn’t you just kiss him once and see what happens?

“Be serious,” I snort.

“I am,” she insists. “I never understood why the pair of you never got together, or why you fell out of touch after graduation. Jude was crazy about you –”

“He was like that with everyone,” I counter. “The sweet, funny thing – that’s just his natural demeanor.”

“And did he ask everyone to marry him if their respective crushes married other people?” she wonders.

“He said we should go on a date, not get married,” I remind her, the edge of a snap creeping into my voice. “It was a low moment and a long time ago. We were both feeling angsty.”

I don’t mention the other thing, the thing I’ve never told anyone – not even myself when I can help it.

“Well…maybe it’s time, sweetie,” she posits quietly. “Maybe Columbine finally found a husband and Jude wants to give the pair of you a chance.”

“I really don’t think that’s it,” I tell her, oddly wearied by the subject, but judging by the increasing volume of background noise, Rue’s about to be pulled away anyway.

“Sorry, I have to go,” she admits at the selfsame moment. “I’ll be back in a few weeks myself, but call me ASAP after your lunch with Jude, okay?”

“You got it,” I promise, and we hang up. I set the phone on my mattress, next to the photo of Gale Hawthorne from the state hockey finals seven years ago, and sigh.

I haven’t seen him since the reception after Ashpet’s baptism, and it wasn’t the most auspicious encounter.

I’d never struck a man before – or since – and certainly never in a church basement.

“Magpie?”

My father pokes his head through the open doorway. “Movers just got here,” he says. “Is your room ready to go?”

I tuck the picture of Gale inside my battered paperback of Jane Eyre, just behind the Candygram with the red ribbon threaded across the top and tied in a perfect, pressed, bow. “This is it,” I affirm, and slip the book into my purse before following my father downstairs.

As a tween I was enamored of the 1995 remake of Sabrina and resolved to head off to school with a photo of Gale – obligingly supplied by Jude, who worked on the yearbook – to pin on my bulletin board and systematically cover with playbills, flyers, ticket stubs, and the like. But I could never quite bring myself to obscure him completely, and when I went to London for my semester abroad I brought him there too, to try and forget in a foreign land.

The book is a Gale token too, also obtained for me by Jude.

I finagled to take Senior Lit in spring of my junior year in order to free up an elective senior year and as a result took the class with Jude. The first book on the slate was Jane Eyre – which I loved, somewhat to my surprise – and in true high school fashion, each copy had a log card inside the cover for the present user to write their name on, beneath the names of the book’s previous readers. Of course, neither Jude nor I got Gale’s but we knew someone had it, and at Jude’s graduation party – months after all the books had been checked back in – he stole me away to his room to press the prized copy into my hands.

I think you were looking for this, he said as I opened the cover, frantically scanned the names inscribed therein and threw my arms around him with a shriek.

But Jude, I realized, pulling back with a start, you swiped this; what if they won’t let you graduate-?

I just did, he reminded me gleefully, and the diploma is signed, sealed, and securely secreted in Mom’s wall safe as we speak. Anyway, it wasn’t my copy, so even if they do notice it’s missing, it’s not me they’d come after.

I looked back at the last name on the card – Annie Cresta – and shook my head at him. If she gets in trouble for this, I warned.

She won’t, he promised. They don’t care that much about one of twenty-three beat-up paperbacks, and it means a whole lot more to you than to the school.

I hugged him again, fiercely this time, and he curled his arms around me with a little sigh. I’m so glad you like your present, mädchen, he murmured. I know it’s not you graduating, but I wanted to beat the rush.

I spent most of Senior Lit associating Gale with Mr. Rochester, to Jude’s clear chagrin, which was curious as he didn’t seem to like the character any more than he did my sullen, dark-haired crush. I’ll grant you similarities, he agreed, but can you imagine Gale delivering that beautiful string speech in any universe?

We took our Jane Eyre final on Valentine’s Day, and in the class directly following I received an anonymous Candygram with a strawberry lollipop affixed, a red ribbon painstaking woven through neat holes punched across the top and tied in a small bow, and the handwritten message:

“I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you – especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land some broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.”

I wished so badly for it to be from Gale – never mind he wasn’t even in school anymore, let alone inclined to quote Charlotte Brontë – or maybe that I had some other mysterious tall-dark-and-handsome admirer, but I knew exactly who it was from and let my head fall against his shoulder as we sat next to each other in the choir room, his literary Valentine cupped in my hands.

Jude’s breath caught a little at the gesture, then leveled out in a long slow sigh.

Thanks, Jude, I whispered.

We both knew it wasn’t a real love note but I treasured it as one just the same, pressed between the pages of my student planner until finding a worthier setting inside Gale’s copy of Jane Eyre. The book and Candygram went everywhere with me – every summer camp and weekend trip during my senior year and in college, on every choir tour, every visit back home, all across Europe on my backpacking trip with Rue and then on to my bedside table in England. If I couldn’t lay hands on it at a moment’s notice I’m not sure I’d be able to breathe.

The movers are quiet and efficient and the truck is loaded in a fraction of the time we anticipated, prompting Dad and me to hash out the pros and cons of setting out tonight instead, but there are plenty of last-minute little things to wrap up and we’d all prefer to make the drive on a good night’s sleep – which unfortunately, is not to be had for me. Dad booked us a hotel room in the suburbs for convenience, so we could check out of the loft as soon as the truck was loaded and leave in the morning without having to wait for one last walk-through with the landlord, but while he and Mom drift off quickly in their queen bed, I frown up at the ceiling from the sofa sleeper, contemplating Jude and Jane Eyre.

The capitol is a long way off, mädchen…

My junior year – Jude’s senior year – was like high school is in the movies: a charmed, wonderful dream that feels like it’ll never end. In October Peeta finally plucked up the nerve to ask Katniss out, and their relationship brought both her and I – and to a lesser extent, Rue – firmly into the Mellark circle. Jude and I had been friendly before that, but he’s both cousin and close friend to the Mellark brothers, and as a result he and I were thrown together almost constantly at meals, school events, even youth group outings. We jokingly called these “triple dates” or “quad dates” sometimes, since the rest of our group consisted of fast-and-firm couples – Peeta and Katniss, Luka and Johanna, and often Finnick and Annie as well – but no one ever seemed to take the idea of Jude and me as a couple seriously.

We were madrigal seat partners that December, which necessitated all kinds of marriage banter throughout the dinners, then after Christmas came Senior Lit and Jane Eyre and auditions for school’s production of Fiddler on the Roof. Determined not to miss out on a role when my best friends were undeniable shoo-ins, I dyed my hair a deep chestnut-brown the night before my tryout – solidly shocking everyone in my acquaintance, but it served its purpose when I was cast as Tzeitel. I’d had my hopes set on playing any one of the sisters and forgot until the read-through that I was playing the one whose wedding is a major showpiece of the play – and that I would be marrying Jude, made even more endearing in little round glasses.

I’d never had so much fun, before or since.

I left most of my high school mementos at home when we moved to the capitol but the Fiddler album has stayed with me, and from time to time I page through the photos, the notes that came with flowers from my parents and teachers, the programs that we all signed – and the subsequent ridiculous everyday notes from Jude addressed to “Wifey” and “Mrs. Kamzoil.”

Prom came around in April and our school required everyone to attend in pairs, so it was effectively decided over youth group pizza after a highway trash cleanup that I would be going with Jude. I’d nourished a pipe dream that Gale might magically materialize and ask me to go with him – you could attend with someone who had graduated and it happened now and again, with college freshmen coming back to escort their girlfriends – but when he actually did appear at the dance it was with Leevy, his flavor-of-the-month girlfriend, if the rumors were to be believed.

I still had my brown hair at prom-time, which Jude lamented to no end while alternately telling me that I was “gorgeous just the same” and making me laugh at the silliest things. The dance was a blast for the first two hours, and then Katniss and Peeta quietly revealed to our group that they were engaged, with plans to marry the following spring after graduation.

Their courtship had been rapid and intense – emotionally, not physically – and no one was surprised that marriage was forthcoming, but the timetable was shocking to say the least. None of us believed that Katniss was pregnant or anything of the sort but they were both barely seventeen, and neither had any interest in going on to college. Peeta had a career waiting at the bakery he loved and Katniss was supremely adaptable to almost any kind of work – and neither was closing the door on trade schools or vocational degrees, if a good fit should present itself. They had decided – rather practically – to spend their senior year planning the wedding and finding a home rather than fretting over the ACT and college applications, and they would get married at the end of May, before the weather got too hot and everyone headed off to college.

It was a preposterous and entirely sound plan.

Peeta and Katniss skipped the school-sponsored after-prom party, unsurprisingly, while the rest of us splintered off into contemplative pairs. Finnick and Annie and Luka and Johanna both seemed as good as engaged to me, but the announcement had rattled them as well, and Jude and I wound up watching the smarmy stage hypnotist by ourselves in a subdued sort of silence.

It wasn’t that either of us was unhappy at the news, exactly. While I considered Katniss my best friend, we had never been chatty in typical girlfriend-fashion, and yet her impending marriage struck my stomach like an icy stone. You’ll be going to college anyway, I reminded myself, and you’ll stay in touch, but none of this served to soothe.

Jude absently wrapped his tux jacket around my shoulders and then his arm, resting his cheek on the top of my head. He’d barely spoken since the engagement reveal and I couldn’t begin to guess what his uncharacteristic silence meant.

It sounds really nice, he said suddenly, softly. Staying right here, getting married, coming home to a wife and babies.

I wanted to retort something dry and mildly caustic but couldn’t find the words for any reply at all because it was nice, this future Peeta and Katniss were setting up for themselves. I wanted to continue with music as long as I could; to study abroad, to live in the capitol and maybe other cities in due course,, but that wasn’t the future either Katniss or Peeta wanted, and why should they force themselves through the college mold, going eyes-deep in debt for degrees they had no interest in and possibly jeopardizing their relationship with the distance and other, inevitable, obstacles when the future they both craved was easily within their grasp?

Madeline, Jude continued in that same soft tone – I was always Madeline or, affectionately, mädchen to him – if Columbine and Gale marry other people, will you go on a date with me?

Almost as long as Jude and I have been friends, we’ve been aware of each other’s hopeless longing for an oblivious sweetheart and openly commiserated about it, with no fear – or even thought – of annoying each other or hurting feelings. Butcher’s son Jude was in love with Columbine Wilhearn, all black curls and lovely voice, whose mother was a small-scale – if highly in-demand – clothing designer and I was in love with broody, breathtaking Gale, whose mother managed the local laundromat and who despised my very existence because, as the mayor’s daughter, I had surely been born to privilege – never mind that my father had been a music teacher before his election and that as mayor he served a rural town of some 8000 people and dealt with weighty matters like dog waste ordinances and ribbon cuttings for tiny antique shops.

We’d both made periodic, futile attempts to elicit our respective crush’s attentions, but somehow for the course of that year – the year of madrigal seat partners and Jane Eyre and getting married on-stage in Fiddler – the longing had felt a little less pressing. Jude still ordered flowers for Columbine on opening night – she was playing the female lead, after all – but in other circumstances he would’ve done so for every performance, not just the first, and he brought me flowers too – a vaseful of red tulips from his mother’s garden to brighten my corner of the greenroom. And while I knew he’d asked Columbine to prom their junior year – and been turned down, of course – I don’t think he even tried the next time around, just cheerfully stepped up to escort me when the opportunity arose.

In fact, to the outside observer, Jude and I probably appeared to be dating for the past year.

The realization left me cross, embarrassed and oddly weary. Jude and I were just friends, everybody knew it, but could we have inadvertently sabotaged each other’s crushes by spending so much time together? Would Gale have emerged to ask me out if I hadn’t been so immersed in the Mellark circle this year – and in Jude’s company in particular?

We’re at prom, I reminded him, my tone shorter than he deserved. I’m wearing an evening gown and your tux jacket. How much more of a date do you want?

I want to pick you up at your house, he replied without hesitation, a brush of lips against my lilac-threaded crown braid. Just you and me and maybe your dad on the porch, to shake hands and talk about the weather and remind me to have you back by 10:00, and I’ll tell you how beautiful you look as I slide an orchid on your wrist. We’ll go to a fancy restaurant and trade bites of our entrees and steal a pepper shaker when we leave, just to see if we can get away with it. We’ll hold hands under the table and slow-dance like it means something, not just because we came together and it’s obligatory, and when I drop you at home, you might let me kiss you under the porchlight.

I pulled away to look up at him, at those gentle smoky eyes – gray like Gale’s and yet absolutely, utterly, nothing like Gale’s – and tried to decide whether to throttle him or burst into tears, because I knew he didn’t mean any of this the way it sounded but it was still the sweetest thing I’d ever heard – and remains so to this day. But I didn’t want Jude – I didn’t, I was sure of it – and he didn’t want me, he was just getting broody – in the hen fashion, not the Gale fashion – because of Peeta’s engagement and Columbine had remained stubbornly indifferent to him, even in a tux or stage makeup or a doublet and tights.

Please, can I go home? I whispered. I’ll call my parents so you don’t have to leave.

Don’t be daft, he said lightly, but his eyes were sad. There’s nothing left to stay here for anyway.

Out of the corner of my eye I spotted Columbine at the soda table laughing at something Gale had just said and was inclined to agree.

I didn’t go home, though Jude was more than willing to make the detour: I went to Rooba’s, because she had a spacious house and had invited our whole group to stay over after the after-prom party, to sleep till noon and enjoy a lazy brunch before going home. We were a remarkably well-behaved group of teens so it felt more like a church lock-in than anything else, except for the fact that I changed into my pajamas from an evening gown and slept in Lettie Wilhearn’s bedroom – sans Lettie, of course, Rooba having given her older kids the weekend off work and banished them to the lake cabin.

Jude didn’t say a word on the drive. When we got to his house he asked if I wanted anything to eat or drink, then obligingly disappeared after retrieving my overnight bag and directing me to the nearest bathroom.

I belatedly recalled that I was still wearing his tux jacket and intended to hang it on the back of Lettie’s desk chair when I turned in, but somehow I ended up taking it to bed with me as an additional makeshift cover, my nose burrowed in the comforting scent of his collar.

I dreamt about orchid corsages and hand-kisses and sneaking a pepper shaker into my purse and woke with sore, slightly puffy eyes, as though I’d cried myself to sleep. Lettie’s alarm clock read 11:18am in the blaring midday sun and in the papasan opposite me was Jude, curled up like a child with a pile of throw pillows under his tousled head. His eyes were open and contemplative and very carefully focused on the pillow adjacent to me.

Hey, I greeted him in a sleepy croak.

Hey, he replied softly, eyes flickering to mine. Do…do you hate me, mädchen?

I blinked rapidly, trying to think what he might have done to make me hate him or if he was just referring to the fact that we’d ended up sleeping in the same room, which didn’t bother me two pins. We’d fallen asleep on each other on the bus back from Knowledge Bowl tourneys and music competitions more times than I could count.

Why on earth would I hate you? I puzzled.

Because I…asked you out, he reminded me with a wince while still firmly maintaining eye contact, as though determined to stay strong for his sentencing.

At prom, I confirmed, a smile creeping irrepressibly across my mouth. It’s a bit like being in love with one’s own wife, Sir Percy. Demmed unfashionable.

The Scarlet Pimpernel was second on the Senior Lit slate and Jude had loved it just as much as I loved Jane Eyre.

Consequently, my remark won a grateful, crooked smile and I patted the bed beside me: an invitation Jude accepted without hesitation, stretching out his lanky frame with a groan and a breathless oof! as I flung my arms around his waist and pillowed my head on his chest.

I liked the smell and feel of Jude beneath my cheek. It felt like home – or going back there – and I think in that moment I finally realized those moments were numbered and swiftly counting down.

I’ve never been asked out before, you know, I reminded him. It was sweet; the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me. And anyway, you potentially asked me out, under a very specific set of circumstances.

True, he agreed, and that seemed to set everything to rights. Want go find some breakfast? he wondered, tracing my braid with a fingertip.

No, I replied firmly and nuzzled deeper into his t-shirt, hiding my face from the sun.

Me neither, he agreed, and curled his arms around me, hugging me snugly to him.

Jude had clearly passed a rougher night than me because he drifted off almost immediately and was still sleeping hard at 12:30, when the savory smells of Rooba’s thick-cut bacon and handmade sausages roused my belly and brain respectively. (I learned later that Luka and Johanna had commandeered Jude’s bed, not for anything sketchy, but that they were curled together and sound asleep by the time he finally made it there, hence being relegated to Lettie’s papasan – a fine place for reading and cat-naps but miserable for a night’s worth of sleep.) On my way to the bathroom I practically collided with Jenny, Jude’s fourteen-year-old sister, noshing on a bacon sandwich and voracious for gossip.

So are you and Jude together now? she demanded with all the cheerful frankness of their mother. I saw you cuddling in Lettie’s bed.

I had always adored Jenny Tolliver more than I would ever let on. She and Jude were the only full siblings among Rooba’s five children and the similarities were endearingly obvious, despite the fact that Jenny inherited their father’s stunning black hair where Jude was a tow-headed, gray-eyed hybrid.

That was snuggling, I corrected her. Small but crucial difference.

You should think about leveling up, she advised gravely. He adores you, you know, and I hear teenage weddings are coming back en vogue.

Go away, imp, I teased, unbothered by her implication. She’d wanted me and Jude to get together since our first season of Knowledge Bowl and stubbornly refused to acknowledge that we didn’t like each other that way. I need to find some coffee and then we can argue this further.

I’ll be waiting, she said gleefully, stepping aside to let me into the bathroom.

But Jenny and I never reconvened for that argument, because that afternoon was the start of the slow crumble of the perfect high school year. Not because of anything to do with Jude or prom or Katniss’s engagement: because of something I overheard on my way to the kitchen that ended up being far more significant than I could’ve imagined.

Rooba and Marek – the Mellarks’ bachelor uncle – were preparing all the cooked food for the sleepy teenage brunch binge but Peeta’s father had stopped by with an assortment of pastries from the bakery and was on his way out again, talking to Rooba on the back porch, when I passed by en route to the kitchen.

So they’re young, she was saying. They’re hard workers with good heads on their shoulders, and they both went through the wringer at a young age. They know how to provide for a family and will do whatever it takes to put food on the table. They’ll do fine – better than fine, if we help them out a bit.

Janek Mellark’s response to this wasn’t clear – something about waiting – and Rooba replied in a strange, edged tone: Would you wait if Alys was willing?

I moved away before I could hear his reply, if indeed he made one, and enthusiastically engaged burly, cheerful Marek in a debate as to which of his offerings – stuffed French toast, chocolate chip pancakes, or Belgian waffles – would be the best to start off with, but there was a hot thudding in my ears and my eyes couldn’t seem to focus.

Alys, of course, was Katniss’s mother Alyssum – my mother’s best friend and confidante from childhood to the present – and I knew through my mother that Alys and Janek Mellark had been high school sweethearts on the very cusp of getting engaged when she unexpectedly broke up with him to get together with Jack Everdeen. Janek married Raisa Brognar – Rooba’s younger sister – on the rebound and everyone had gone on to produce their respective children and find varying degrees of contentment in their lives, but by all accounts, the Mellarks had rarely if ever been happy together, and of course, Katniss’s father died six years ago, leaving Alys bereft and in a stupor of grief, not unlike my own mother when her twin sister died at sixteen.

According to my mother, Alys Everdeen and Janek Mellark had carefully avoided each other since their breakup in high school, but when Peeta and Katniss began dating, they were thrown together to a certain extent and forced to interact socially. Further, in an unguarded moment that winter, Janek had admitted to Alys that he was still in love with her – feelings, Alys confessed to my mother afterward, that she was troubled to find she returned.

Of course, I discussed this with no one but my mother, though many a time I’d ached to confide in Jude, since we were similarly on the fringes of this relationship – not directly involved but connected through our mothers and their own relationships with the couple in question.

Something about Rooba’s remark that morning after prom implied that things were changing or had done, maybe irrevocably, and when I asked my mother about it that afternoon she gave a long sigh and kissed my forehead as though I were still a little girl. Do you really want to know, petal? she wondered. It might be easier to be ignorant till it all comes out.

Of course, I wouldn’t be me if I hadn’t wanted to know, and that’s how I learned what happened after the newly engaged Peeta and Katniss left for prom. About the argument that ensued when Alys furiously confronted Janek about his son’s proposal – and what happened after the argument.

I suppose it shouldn’t have come as that great a shock, but when you hear about a classmate’s parents getting divorced, you don’t think about his father sleeping with another classmate’s mother – or getting her pregnant. But it was some months before all of that came out, months when I could almost forget the secret burning in the back of my mind as the perfect year wound down to its inevitable, poignant end.

[everlarkstoastbabies]

Cursed: an Everlark fan fiction

It’s been so long since I’ve written any Hunger Games fan fiction, but after literally blowing the dust off my copies of the books I’ve been inspired by the series re-read here on tumblr. This is an idea that’s been on my mind for quite some time. I’m so happy to finally be posting it!

Summary: Katniss and Peeta end their Victory Tour with an encounter from a mysterious fortuneteller. When they wake the next morning, they’re not quite... themselves. This is Everlark: freaky Friday style. Canon divergent AU. 

Chapter 1

The Presidential mansion sat alone atop the hill in the middle of the Capitol, perfectly positioned so that every resident in the city could see its imposing form from all angles. The surrounding night would have been still and silent if not for the raucous party in full swing in the mansion’s vast courtyard, and in the center of it all, the star- crossed lovers of District Twelve.

The glittering lights and the loud music were headache- inducing by this point in the evening, and Katniss wanted nothing more than to go home. Peeta stood faithfully by her side, his hand wrapped around hers as it had been all night, but the wear was starting to show on him, too. It was long past midnight, their bellies were full, and their eyes were beginning to droop, but Effie had promised them only thirty more minutes at this final party and then they’d be on the train home. The Victory Tour was at an end at last, and Katniss and Peeta were nothing but grateful to be headed back to District Twelve.

A loud laugh from the partygoers echoed behind them. Katniss looked past the tables laden with food and the dance floor filled with people to see Venia and Flavius exiting a tent on the edge of the party. The pair of Katniss’s prep team members tottered towards them on wobbly legs, clearly intoxicated out of their minds.

“Have you two gone to see Madame Alcina yet?” Venia slurred when she stumbled over to Katniss and Peeta.

“No, we don’t really-“ Katniss said.

“Oh you must go have your palms read! She’s simply divine,” Flavius trilled, pushing the pair towards the tent at the edge of the yard. Katniss looked to Peeta, who merely shrugged.

“Why not?” He murmured to her. “It’ll kill some time, won’t it?” Katniss couldn’t argue with that, especially because she could spot a few more Capitol citizens making their way towards them. The hordes of party guests had hardly left the pair of them alone all night and Katniss wasn’t in the mood to deal with any more of the colorful, self-possessed people than she already had. So Peeta hooked her arm through his and led her to the tent draped from top to bottom with glittering red shawls. On the outside, a sign: Fortunes by Alcina- Discover what your future holds.

Katniss had to resist rolling her eyes. It was exactly the kind of superfluous thing that would exist in the Capitol and nowhere else in Panem, where people had no better way to spend their time or money. Besides, President Snow’s cold eyes had already told her what her future was going to look like, and she doubted very much that the truth of it lay in this tent. She followed Peeta inside anyway because the alternative was no more desirable than having her future predicted by someone who couldn’t have the faintest idea of what her future as a victor could possibly mean. Upon entering, they laid their eyes upon the most eccentric women they’d seen anywhere in Panem.

Katniss and Peeta were no strangers to the bizarre fashions here in the Capitol, but this woman was something else entirely. What little they could see of her natural skin was ghostly pale and the remainder of it was covered entirely in spindly, black tattoos. They curved and twisted, creating a cacophony of indistinguishable shapes and patterns upon her skin. Her hair was a fiery, unnatural shade of red. Here in the glowing candlelight it seemed to flicker like a real fire. Her eyes were dark, the pupils so enlarged in the dim lighting that it was impossible to determine their true color. There was something peculiar about the eyes, too. Something in them that was steady and solid and perceptive. The vapid self- absorption that possessed so many people in the Capitol was entirely lacking here. This woman had eyes that could see right through your very soul. “Ahh,” the woman purred. “I was hoping the star- crossed lovers would find their way to my tent.” Katniss and Peeta shared a raised eyebrow glance, and then turned back to the fortuneteller.

“Well, we were told that you’re the best,” Peeta piped up on instinct. Katniss was grateful that he chose to fill the silence. Something about this woman and this place made her mouth go dry, her tongue thick and heavy in her mouth. An uncomfortable tingle slithered up her spine.

“Have a seat,” the woman said, gesturing to the two armchairs across from her spindle- legged table. The pair did as instructed, and the woman turned to Katniss first. She extended a withered hand, palm up to Katniss. “Your hand, please, dear.” Katniss placed her olive- skinned hand into the woman’s heavily tattooed one. Madame Alcina ran a long finger down the center, eliciting a cool shiver that zipped up Katniss’s arm.

She spent a long time tracing the lines of Katniss’s hand before she spoke. “There’s conflict,” the strange woman whispered finally. “Oohh yes, and determination, defiance. But beneath your stubborn air, your heart has always known the answer you’re seeking now. Find the place where your heart and your mind come together.” Katniss blinked at the woman in confusion, her trademark scowl settling into place. What on earth could that mean?

Madame Alcina turned next to Peeta. Again, she studied his palm for several minutes, running a finger down every single line and crease of his hand. “You, young man, are at war with yourself. At odds with your love and your desires. The only way to fix it is to confront it.” She grabbed a shocked Katniss’s hand, entangled her fingers with Peeta’s, and then began gesticulating wildly in the air between the pair of them. “Your destinies are intertwined so very closely together, you may not even realize it at this moment! You need to become one! Take the path that leads to each other and never look back. Your fates are sealed within each other! Realize that potential and all will be well.”

Silence hung heavy in the air when the woman finished her impassioned fortune, her pupils blown and chest heaving with excitement. Katniss and Peeta gaped at her, their hands still laced together, and at a complete loss for how to respond. Luckily for them, time was on their side, for Effie chose that moment to poke her head through the front flap of the tent.

“Katniss! Peeta! Venia said you’d gone this way; the train leaves in twenty minutes and the there are some important goodbyes you must make!” Their escort placed a stern hand on both their shoulders and promptly ushered them from the tent, but not before Peeta could glance back at the mysterious woman, whose jet black lips were quirked into a smug smirk on her tattooed face. He couldn’t explain the reason for it, but her expression gave him an ominous feeling in the pit of his stomach, as though the feast he’d eaten earlier had come alive and was attempting to make an escape from his belly.

The feeling stayed with Peeta as he led Katniss through the crowd of socialites and gamemakers and politicians. By the time they bid farewell to the highest-ranking officials in Panem and boarded the train, he couldn’t keep it in any longer. “Do you think she was right?” he asked Katniss as soon as the door to their shared bedroom slid closed behind them.

“Do I think who was right?” Katniss asked, distracted as she went to work tugging the pins out of her elaborate braided hairstyle.

“That Madame Alcina woman. Do you think she was right about our… well, our destinies being so closely wrapped around each other and all that?”

Katniss gave a derisive snort and massaged her scalp, now freed of its updo. “Of course she was. We’re engaged now, Peeta. The whole country knows that, so yes I guess you could say our destinies are entwined.” She held up her fingers and made air quotes at the last word, rolling her eyes. “It’s all mindless drivel, anyway, just like everything else in the Capitol. I wouldn’t waste your time worrying too much on it.”

“Yeah, but didn’t you notice something… I don’t know, something different about her? She seemed real, Katniss. Not like the preps, or even like Effie. I think she knew we’ve putting on an act.” This gave Katniss pause as she thought it over. Yes, the woman’s black eyes had given the impression that she was more intuitive than most in the Capitol, almost like President Snow in a way. Not quite in the same cold and calculating manner as he, but in a more discerningly subtle way. Then there was the fact that something about the woman had sent unusual shivers tingling down her spine from the moment they entered her tent, but Katniss had attributed that to the lateness of the hour and the awkwardness of the situation.

“I think our fates were pretty much sealed the moment I held out those berries in the arena. She probably realized that and took advantage of it to try and scare us.” Katniss reasoned.

“Maybe you’re right,” Peeta said, though uncertainty clouded his voice.

“I am.” She nodded her head as though the matter was settled. “Don’t let it bother you. We have so many other things to worry about right now, as it is.”

She has a point, Peeta thought, as they climbed into bed together. It was silly to worry about the fleeting words of a woman they didn’t even know. Not when real dangers from real enemies lurked so clearly in the periphery of their lives. Katniss nestled herself into Peeta’s side and he wrapped his arms around her, just has he had almost every night they’d spent aboard this train. Despite his troubled thoughts, his exhaustion- combined with Katniss’s body heat and soothing rhythm of the train as it slipped through the night- lulled him into a dreamless sleep almost instantly.

It was Katniss who woke first the next morning, the sun a mere sliver of brightest orange on the horizon. The train compartment was still mostly blanketed in darkness, and the scenery was whipping by much too quickly to determine where in Panem they could possibly be. With a measure of sweeping relief, her first thought was that wherever they happened to be, it was certainly far from the Capitol. Also that sometime today, they would be home. Her second thought was that she needed extract herself from Peeta so she could use the bathroom. She made to gently disentangle herself from Peeta’s still sleeping form, dragging back the blankets and attempting to exit the bed as quietly as possible. Then she lost her balance the second she tried to step down onto the carpet, landing on the floor with an almighty crash and an even louder yelp of shock.

The reason for her fall was explained at once when Katniss tried to pull her feet underneath her into a standing position, and she found that the left leg of her pajama pants hung flaccid and empty. The right was presently splayed out in front of her, but the left leg appeared to be missing entirely.

She only had one leg.

Her arms flailed as she felt around wildly for her missing leg, her hands landing on her upper thigh and following it to the end where it tapered into nothing but smooth skin and bone just below the knee. Katniss froze, the rising panic in her chest overwhelming her as the light from the bedside lamp flicked on and Peeta leaned over the side of the bed to investigate the commotion.

“Katniss, are you alright?” Only it wasn’t Peeta’s concerned voice that called out to her. And it certainly wasn’t Peeta’s face, either.

It was her voice. Her face. Her body.

As he peered down at the fallen body on the floor, Peeta realized at the same time Katniss did that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong. For he was looking down at himself, sprawled out on the floor wearing only pajama pants and noticeably missing his prosthetic leg. His eyes flew down to inspect himself still in the bed, noting the tanned, slender hands that could not possibly be his own and the raven hair fanned out across his torso. He brushed the long strands away from his chest and his hands froze on his body. Were those… breasts? He ventured a squeeze, and sure enough, under his palms were two plump mounds of flesh. Small, but most definitely present. He gaped at his chest in horror, his newly silver eyes meeting the blue irises of the body on the ground that- by every law of common sense and plain reason- should have belonged to him. Yet inexplicably, it didn’t.

They held the gaze for a long time, chests heaving with panting breaths and minds racing for an explanation. This wasn’t possible. It simply wasn’t, and yet…

“Katniss,” Peeta whispered, “I think we’ve been cursed.”

As absurd as it sounded, as absolutely, utterly impossible as it was, instinct told Katniss that Peeta was right. What other explanation could there possibly be? Still in a state of shock, Peeta climbed out of bed and grabbed the prosthetic leg propped against his nightstand. It was subsequently the weirdest sensation in the world to help Katniss put the leg onto his body from the outside. He fastened it around the stump below the knee and watched as the Capitol grade alloy melded itself seamlessly with the flesh of her (his?) leg. He pulled her to her feet and she wobbled, unused to the indescribable feeling of solid floor beneath an extremity that did not exist.

“It takes some getting used to,” said Peeta.

“I don’t want to get used to it. I want to fix it!” Katniss snapped. But upon seeing the look on his (her?) face, she backpedaled at once. “Peeta, I’m sorry. I just- I don't get it. How did this happen?”

“I don’t know," he replied, wracking his brain for a reason, any reason that would explain why he woke up in Katniss Everdeen's body this morning, and she woke up in his. If he was correct, and they were in fact cursed, someone had to have done this to them. But who? President Snow seemed the most likely candidate, but how on earth could he have managed something of this scale? And better yet without their knowledge? He was a cold, calculating, monster of a human, but still he was just a human.

"What if... what if whatever did this to us isn't… human?" Peeta supplied. Katniss merely raised her blond eyebrows. "What if the Capitol created some kind of mutt or virus and we came into contact with it unknowingly at the party last night?"

"It's possible," Katniss said, though doubt filled her voice.

“Maybe Haymitch knows something about it. He’s been around the Capitol for a long time. He might be able to help us,” said Peeta.

“No! We can’t let anyone else know about this.” There was an unmistakable ferocity in her voice that belonged to Katniss alone, regardless of the body she happened to inhabit at the time. “We have to hide this until we can find a way to reverse it!”

Peeta had opened his mouth to respond just as a sharp rapping on the door made them both nearly jump out of their skins. “Up up up!” Effie’s voice trilled though the door. “We have our last big day in front us! You two will be back to District Twelve in just a few short hours!” With a mutual flood of relief, they heard the click- clacking of her heels marching away from the door.

“Look, we won’t tell anyone,” said, Peeta, his tone low and conspiratory. “Not yet, anyway. But for now if we don’t want anyone to find out, I think the best course of action is for each of us to act as much as possible like the other. Do you think you can manage that, Katniss?”

Katniss wondered- could she pretend to be Peeta Mellark? He was so much better than her already, not only at putting on the act, but also at making it believable. Between the two of them, he carried most (okay, practically all) of the weight of the star-crossed lover’s ruse. His were some awfully big shoes to fill, but at the moment she couldn’t see any other choice in front of her.

She had a feeling her face showed as much doubt as she felt when she gave him an affirming nod, but if it did, Peeta did not say. Instead, they gathered the clothes Cinna and Portia had chosen for the day’s closing ceremonies and headed their separate ways to change. Peeta into the bathroom while Katniss remained in the bedroom.

When the bathroom door had closed behind him, Peeta hunched over the sink, locked in a staring contest with his reflection in the mirror. His long hair hung in a wild tangle around his shoulders, his grey eyes over bright with shock in the sunken purple rings surrounding them. The strange thing was, he didn’t feel any different in this body, save for the fact that he had two intact feet standing on solid ground. If he closed his eyes, Peeta could have sworn up and down that he was in his own body and this was nothing more than an elegantly crafted nightmare, courtesy of the Capitol. He switched on the tap and began furiously scrubbing his face with the icy water flowing from the jet, as though he could scour away the olive skin and return it to its normal pale and freckled state. When he looked up at last, Katniss’s reflection stared back at him, entirely unchanged.

With a grunt of frustration, he turned defiantly away from the mirror and grabbed the pile of clothes he was meant to wear. I can do this, he thought. After all, how hard could it be to impersonate Katniss Everdeen?

Back in the bedroom, Katniss sat gingerly on the edge of the bed to remove Peeta’s pajama pants, still unsteady on his prosthetic leg. How on earth had he learned to walk with this thing as smoothly as he did? Some days she forgot he even had it at all, as sure and steady was his gait. That was, until he’d take it off at bedtime with a groan of relief and her eyes would flit away from the remaining stump of his leg. The stump itself wasn’t what bothered her so much as the reminder of how it had come to exist in the first place.

She wasn’t brave enough to remove the underwear despite the fact that Peeta had been wearing them since yesterday; she knew they’d both worn underwear for much longer periods of time in the Games. One more day would do no harm. His jeans, however, did turn out to present a bit of a problem. Once she managed to finagle the left pant leg up the metal leg without tripping and falling flat on her face again, she found that the seam of the pants, centered as it was, rested uncomfortably against her crotch. Having had no idea this was how it felt to wear pants as a man, Katniss decided she wasn’t terribly fond of the sensation.

Katniss took a couple of precarious steps around the room to test the waters before coming to the conclusion that this simply wasn’t going to work. Given that she had no intention of asking Peeta how he always managed this situation, she did the only thing that made sense. She dove her hand valiantly into the pants and shifted his package away from the seam and to the right. It did feel better off to the side, though it still felt strange to have something dangling there at all.

She startled when Peeta exited the bathroom and tried to look as though she hadn’t just had her hand down his pants. He was fully dressed with the exception of one article of clothing clutched in his first. “I don’t need this thing.” He thrust the bra at Katniss and she flinched away from it as though he’d tried to hand her a venomous snake.

Interpreting his reluctance to mean that he couldn’t figure out how to put it on, Katniss fought to keep the corners of her mouth from turning upwards into a smile. “Oh yes you do,” she said.

“Why? It’s not like… well, I mean- it’s not like there’s all that much there to support.”

She folded her arms across her new masculine chest and glared at him with narrowed eyes, but she had to admit privately that Peeta did have a point. Her breasts weren’t particularly prominent, which is why all of the bras Cinna designed for her had a little additional padding in them. The extra boost was usually necessary to fill out all the pretty dresses he’d made for the Victory Tour, but she certainly wasn’t going to tell Peeta that. “Because... because if you don’t Haymitch and Effie and Cinna will definitely notice and they’ll suspect that something is off,” she said, which was true enough anyway. “Here, I’ll help you. Take off the dress.”

Without stopping to think of the ramifications of doing so, Peeta followed her instructions and slipped the dress over his head. Suddenly Katniss was face to face with her own bare chest; the small but proud breasts peaked with the cool air of the train compartment. “Turn around,” she gulped, her mouth sapped of moisture while her face flooded with color. In the back of her mind, she wondered why the extra parts in her pants twitched at the sight.

Equally as beet red as Katniss, Peeta turned away from her to face the wall. He felt her arms encircle his waist and her hands at his back, fastening the garment. He was eternally grateful that he wasn’t currently in possession of his penis when her fingers brushed his nipples as she adjusted the cups of his bra, but there was still an unfamiliar surge of electricity that jolted in the hollow valley between his legs.

The blush had not faded from either of their cheeks when they left their room to join the others for breakfast. For once they were grateful for Effie’s incessant prattle about schedules and timetables, for all they had to do in response was nod and smile. Katniss thought she caught Haymitch giving the pair of them the occasional sideways glance from behind his flask. She looked away each time it happened, convinced that their mentor would see her behind Peeta’s eyes if she allowed herself to make eye contact with him.

They stumbled through the rest of the day (for Katniss this was literal- damn leg) pretending to be each other.

While Katniss was prepped and ready for the cameras hours before they were to arrive in the district, Peeta gained an immediate understanding of why she always bemoaned the prep process when he was forced to sit through her beauty routine for the first time. He’d thought he had it bad, but the hours Venia, Octavia, and Flavius spent slathering him in pungent goo and curling his hair and powdering every inch of exposed skin was mind-numbing to the point of torture. It went on and on and on all morning long. Luckily the preps chatted amongst themselves about the party last night as they worked on him, with Octavia notably disgruntled about the fact that she’d not had her fortune read by the Great Madame Alcina.

“I’m going to be famous in the Capitol one day,” Flavius said with a wistful sigh. “Madame promised that I’d soon have my very own tribute to style.”

“Oh, that’s just wonderful!” Venia gushed. “She told me I’m about to find the love of my life! What about you Katniss? Katniss?”

Peeta was only startled out of his reverie when Venia’s hand landed on his shoulder, momentarily having forgotten that to the prep team, he was Katniss. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” He put on his most Katniss-like expression and tried to recover from the fumble.

“What did Madame Alcina tell you about your future?” Venia hedged.

And then it hit him. Madame Alcina. The fortuneteller. Of course. He could have slapped himself for not realizing it sooner. He tried to cover the moment of hesitation. “Oh! She… she said Kat-Peeta and I are going to have a long and prosperous life together.”

“Did she say anything about children?” Octavia pressed eagerly.

“She... hinted at that.” Peeta said evasively.

“Oh can you imagine!” Octavia gushed. “Any little baby of theirs would be absolutely adorable! With his hair and her eyes…” Peeta let them carry on about the nonexistent Everlark (really, how stupid) baby that would never be, but his mind was racing. What had the mysterious fortuneteller said to them last night? The hour had been so late and he had been so tired, but he squeezed his eyes shut, picturing the scene and willing his brain to remember.

Then his eyes flew open. He had to find Katniss.

Also on AO3 and FF.net

[ellanainthetardis]

Sorry for the delay, ff wasn’t working yesterday so I had to wait until they fixed it to post. I hope you enjoy this chapter! We have a guest star today! Let me know!

[ff] or [ao3]

52. 5 Months & 11 Weeks

“Haymitch!” Effie snapped as she crammed April’s rag doll in the diaper bag. She looked around the living-room to spot anything useful she might have forgotten. There was no answer from upstairs and her irritation increased. “Haymitch, we are going to be late!”

She rubbed her now slightly round stomach over her loose woolen sweatshirt. She always wore loose clothes nowadays because she was starting to show. The children were puzzled by that because she had always favored curve-hugging outfits but she had passed it off by claiming it was fashionable. Eileen was less fooled by her excuses and deflections, she believed, but her friend was good enough not to bring up the obvious symptoms.

She grabbed a plastic toy as an afterthought and tossed it in the bag, running a hand in her disheveled hair. The living-room was a mess and she felt the urge to give it a good scrubbing but she pushed it down. There was no time for this. They were in a hurry.

Snowball must have sensed her temper wasn’t at its best because he was hiding behind the armchair, almost out of sight, and was munching on his purple monkey while tracking her every move.

“Haymitch!” she shouted, not bothering to keep the irritation out of her voice.

“Yeah, I’m here. Hold your horses.” he grumbled, finally coming back downstairs with April bundled in a weather-appropriate outfit and her darling red coat. He was also waving a few diapers in his free hand. “Here.”

She snatched them from him and forced them into the diaper bag, so annoyed tears were burning her eyes. She blamed the hormones and the last few nights of not enough sleep.

“We already had to push it back once.” she muttered under her breath. “And now we will be late.”

“We’re still in time.” he sighed in a pacifying tone that did nothing for her ill mood. She didn’t like being patronized. “And it ain’t my fault, sweetheart, don’t go blaming it on me.”

She pursed her lips. He was right, of course. It wasn’t his fault. They had been forced to reschedule the ultrasound appointment because April’s teeth were starting to come out and the girl was in so much pain it had given her a light fever. Their attention had been on the baby and there had been no time to go trudging around the District – barely enough to catch a blink of sleep here and there. April had cried all night for four days straight, leaving them ragged and herself exhausted. It had been hell.

And now, when she was supposed to babysit for them so they could go to the clinic – not that she knew that, to be fair – Katniss had just cancelled on them because there had been sighting of a wild boar coming a little too close to the habitation area and the mayor needed her help to track it before it hurt someone or, more likely, because she was still somehow at odds with Haymitch. Peeta was swamped at the bakery and Eileen had her arms full with the coffee shop and her own daughters.

“I wanted this to be just us.” she sulked. She wasn’t thrilled about going to the clinic to begin with. She didn’t like bringing April there if she didn’t have to. And she had really wanted the first ultrasound to be something between Haymitch and her, without the baby to distract them.

“I know.” he offered, rubbing her shoulder. “Come on. Open the door, I’m gonna get the pram.”

The pram her mother had bought was difficult to get out of the house and for good reasons: it was the size of a small yacht. She relieved him from their daughter so he could have free hands to get the pram out and went to open the door…

… only to find her father on the other side of it, hand raised as if about to knock and luggage at his feet.

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Is this inconvenient?”

“Father!” she exclaimed in astonishment. “What are you doing here?”

Haymitch quitted trying to maneuver the pram to join her, automatically placing a hand on her hip before utering a greeting. “Tadius.”

“I hope you will forgive me for not calling first.” her father winced. “I was in Ten and I thought I would come and see how things are progressing here. It was all last minute. I was hoping you would not mind hosting me for a night. The study will do just fine.”

Effie was torn between pleasure at the unexpected visit and annoyance at not having been warned. Her house so wasn’t in any state to receive anyone – never mind someone from her family. It would go back to her mother who would insist on sending her a housekeeper…

“Come in.” Haymitch said when she remained mute. “It’s cold outside.” It wasn’t that cold, she wanted to protest. It was only October and it would get colder before long. “You can stay, of course, but we’ve got to go right now.”

“Oh.” Tadius frowned, a bit uncertain. “I would not want to impose. I could stay at the inn and…”

“Do not be ridiculous, Father, you are welcomed.” she cut in.

He searched her eyes for a moment before giving her a tentative smile and finally reaching for the baby in her arms. He stroke April’s cheek, his face softening. “She is so big now. She grew up a lot since the last time I saw her.”

“How about you two get some catch up time?” Haymitch suddenly suggested. “We could use a babysitter.” He plucked April from her arms before she could protest. “How about that, sweetheart? You want some grandpa time? Yeah? Awesome.”

Before either Effie or Tadius could protest, April was in her grandfather’s arms and Haymitch was giving him a short but to the point summary of what to do, not to do and how to calm her down if she started crying.

“I am not sure…” Effie panicked, right at the same time as her father protested with a “I cannot be left alone with a baby.”

Haymitch wrinkled his nose. “Look. She’s been fed, she shouldn’t need changing for a while yet and the house’s been baby-proofed. Just put her on the playing mat and make sure she doesn’t swallow anything she’s not supposed to. And she crawls away faster than you think if you don’t pay attention so keep your eyes on her all the time. We’ll be back in an hour or so.”

“Haymitch.” Effie insisted, not at all reassured by the terror on Tadius’ face. Clearly it hadn’t been the welcome the man had hoped for.

“It’s gonna be fine.” Haymitch promised, dropping a kiss on April’s head before snatching the pink coat from the rack and wrapping it around Effie’s shoulders. “Come on, Princess. Now we’re gonna be late.”

She wanted to protest some more, to grab her daughter and hold her close, but before she could tell what had happened, she was out the door and Haymitch was steering her down the street to the Village’s gates. She put her coat on properly, stealing glances behind her every two seconds.

“My father has never taken care of a baby, you realize.” she hissed. “It is one thing to leave her with one of the children where she will be safe but my father…”

“I trust him.” Haymitch shrugged. “April will be fine. And it’s like fate anyway. We needed a babysitter and there he was.”

“Which, of course, brings up the question: what is he doing here?” she sighed, looping her arm around his. She wasn’t quite reassured to know her father was alone with her daughter but she supposed an hour wasn’t enough time for disaster to occur. With any luck, April would fall asleep.

“He said he was checking on the building progress, yeah?” he frowned. “You think there’s more than that?”

He had people for that and Effie was well aware of it. Certainly, Tadius had seemed very keen on traveling since the end of the war. The company was expanding to the Districts and she supposed, for someone who had never left the Capitol before, seeing Panem was an opportunity that was hard to resist. However, she highly doubted he would check on construction sites himself. He never had in the past.

Although to be fair, she had stopped helping him out with contracts deliveries and in person negotiation. She hadn’t been out of the house much since the incident with the Peacekeeper and she had stayed well away from the work crew and its foreman. The man seemed to judge her for what had happened, as if it was somehow her fault that he had lost an employee, as if she had made a fuss over nothing.

The story had gone all the way up to the hierarchical top, naturally. And her father had been incensed when he had learned what had happened. But… Effie wasn’t sure how she felt about the whole thing. She didn’t blame him naturally but she had been a bit reluctant to call home ever since.

The fact that she was hiding something and that her mother had a gift to smell secrets wasn’t exactly helping.  

“With my parents, there is always more than that.” she countered grimly.

Now Haymitch didn’t look that happy with his quick decision making. By the time they reached the Village’s gates, they had looked back so many times Effie was sure one of them would suggest going back to fetch their daughter.

“We’re being stupid.” Haymitch mumbled. “She’s fine.”

She wasn’t that confident. In her opinion, her daughter would only be fine with either of them there.

Still, she let him convince her to move along. She spent the whole trip to the clinic thinking up scenarios of what could go awry and then convincing herself she was being ridiculous. They were late in the end and, even though she apologized profusely, the nurse didn’t look entirely happy.

Effie felt mortified. She had always been a punctual person but having a baby had taught her that it was difficult to be on time with an almost six months old child.

They were ushered into the examination room and she was asked to lie down. Haymitch had barely helped her on the table when Larcher showed up, waving away all her apologies. The doctor asked about April and her teeth and he looked so genuinely interested that Effie gradually relaxed. She would never be comfortable in the clinic but Larcher was making it easier to be there.

“Any problems?” the doctor asked as he got everything ready.

Effie shook her head. “I am still a bit dizzy and nauseous at odd times of days. And I am still starving the rest of the time. It wasn’t like this with April.”

“Every pregnancy is different.” Larcher explained, smearing gel all over her stomach.

Haymitch grabbed her hand, perching himself on a nearby stool with obvious excitement. She grinned at him and he smirked right back, eyes sparkling in pure happiness. It wasn’t something she had ever thought she would see and she felt a pang for a second, because this, right then, was perfect.

Sometimes, she wished she could talk to the woman who had been cowering in a corner of a cell for months. She wished she could tell her to hold on because this was coming, because she would be happy, so happy she would think it would make her burst.

They exchanged a long stare and she knew he felt the exact same way. They didn’t need words to understand each other. She didn’t need to tell him she loved him and he didn’t need to hear it. Just like she didn’t need him to tell her. She knew.

“Here we go.” Larcher murmured for himself, placing the probe on her stomach and moving it around.

She listened to the familiar whooshing sounds with some anxiety, desperate to hear that the baby was right as rain but dreading a little that he wouldn’t be. She wanted to hope. She hoped. She didn’t let herself think about possible miscarriages or how difficult it would be to jungle two babies. She had carried April, her daughter had survived, and so would this one. She couldn’t let herself think differently.

“Sweetheart.” Haymitch breathed in just as the sound of small hooves started echoing in the room. The heartbeat was strong and steady and she laughed in relief, wiping the tears that ran down her cheeks. Haymitch’s jaw was clenched, he looked so emotional she squeezed his hand but he didn’t seem to be able to glance away from the screen. “Look.” he chided her a little.

So, she did.

Ten weeks ultrasounds were always difficult to make out but once Larcher helpfully pointed the baby out, she couldn’t tear her gaze away either.

“Hello, jellyfish.” she whispered.

“You have very aquatic nicknames.” the doctor teased, tapping on a few keys. To print pictures, probably. “Everything looks perfectly normal, Effie.”

“You’re sure?” Haymitch worried. “They’re both alright?”

“Perfectly so.” Larcher smiled, placing the probe back on its cradle and handing her some paper towel to clean the gel out. “We will have to run some tests, the same as last time. It is just routine so there is no need to be alarmed.”

“I remember.” she nodded, still smiling. As soon as she had gotten as much of the gel off as she could, she placed her hands on her stomach, simply feeling it. It wasn’t long before Haymitch’s hand joined her there. She looked up at him, beaming. “We are having a baby.”

The first ultrasound was always magical in her opinion. That was when it became… real.

“I noticed.” he smirked, his thumb rubbing soothing circle on her skin. “We’re starting to have quite the collection of them, you know.”

She laughed again, feeling a little high on happiness.

“I will print you a picture.” Larcher offered, tactfully retreating to the other room to give them some privacy.

Haymitch helped her straighten her clothes and stole a kiss once it was done. He rested his forehead against hers as he brushed his hand over her stomach again. “We’re having a baby.”

“I noticed.” she echoed, still grinning so hard it was starting to hurt.

The doctor made enough noise coming back that they moved apart but not quite enough that they weren’t still touching. Larcher gave them the picture that Haymitch immediately stashed in the inside pocket of his coat where hopefully nobody would come snooping.

“As far as term goes, I think we are looking at another April baby.” the doctor told them.

They were redefining the concept of April showers, Effie decided.

She was walking on a cloud by the time they were on their way back to the house. She almost forgot to worry about April. At least, until she spotted the Village’s gates. At that point she stopped prattling about how they should sort out April’s old clothes to see what they could reuse and what they should box to put in the attic to start asking Haymitch without pause if he thought their daughter was alright. Haymitch, who had humored her all the way back by nodding and humming at appropriate points without listening to a single word, seemed torn between prompting her to quicken the pace and making sure she didn’t overtax herself.

They had been wrong to worry.

While Tadius looked in over his head, obviously terrified of doing the wrong thing, April seemed just as happy as she had been lately – which was not a lot because her gums hurt. The first thing Effie did was scoop her daughter up from the playing mat to cuddle her close to her chest. She wanted to tell her about her little sibling but with her father there, she kept silent.

Haymitch outright laughed at Tadius’ exhausted face. “Need some coffee?”

“Coffee would not be amiss.” her father answered, a little stiff. “Thank you.”

Effie hid her smile in her daughter’s hair and took a seat on the couch, covering April’s face with kisses to make up for her short absence. Haymitch’s fingers combed her own hair, ending on her nape. The possessive but gentle squeeze made her look up in question.

“Tea for you?” he asked. “And something to eat, yeah? You’re a bit pale.”

She checked the clock on the wall and made a small face. If habits were to be trusted, morning sickness – that weren’t just in the morning – would hit in a half hour or so and she really didn’t want to throw up. “Crackers perhaps. And lemon in the tea, please.”

“Sure.” he smiled and dropped a kiss on her forehead, stroking April’s hand once before disappearing in the kitchen, followed by Snowball. The dog would want to be let out, she supposed.  

She blushed when she realized her father was staring.

“Thank you for watching April.” she offered after clearing her throat. “And, please, accept my apologies for the hectic welcome. If I had known you were coming…”

She let her voice trail off. If she had known he was coming she would have made sure the house was spotless and she would have cleared her schedule.

“No apologies needed. It was rude of me to come unannounced.” Tadius dismissed, studying her. “Is everything alright with you, Euphemia? You have not been… Well, you have not called as often. Your mother is worried you are somehow crossed with her.”

“Not at all.” she denied, fishing the stuffed elephant abandoned further down the couch to hold it in front of April to keep her occupied. Of course, as soon as her daughter spotted it, she tried to put it in her mouth. “I have been busy lately. April hasn’t been well and I had some work with… I told Mother about my professional projects.”

“Yes, she mentioned them.” her father hummed, not sounding very impressed. Elindra hadn’t been either. “I could help you with that if you so wished.”

“Thank you, no.” she replied quickly. “I do not need your money.” She would never accept money from her parents. Never. It always came with strings attached and more complications than she cared to deal with. Tadius looked hurt though so she hurried in clarifying. “It is something I want to do by myself. You do understand, don’t you?”

Her father was proud of the family company so he could certainly understand wanting to make one’s own way. At least, she hoped so.

“I wish you the best.” Tadius smiled and even though it was tense it also seemed genuine. “Effie…”

Haymitch came back with a tray and her father fell silent which he couldn’t help but notice. There was some awkwardness for a few seconds. Haymitch studied Tadius, Tadius avoided his eyes, then he looked at Effie who shrugged her ignorance… In the end, he shrugged back and lifted April up.

“Guess someone needs to be changed.” he mumbled, giving Effie a long stare. “You shout if you need anything, yeah?”

She rolled her eyes at his overprotective act. “I am not an invalid, you know.”

“You had a big day, you need to take it easy.” he countered firmly.

She pursed her lips, narrowing her eyes at him. “You are walking a very thin line telling me what I should or should not do.”

“Doctor’s orders.” he reminded her with an innocent shrug that made her roll her eyes again. He grabbed the mug he had obviously prepared for himself and disappeared upstairs. She could hear him talking to April all the way up and she smiled despite her annoyance.

“Is everything alright with you?” Tadius asked as soon as he was out of earshot. “You do seem a little pale, Effie. And what is this about a doctor? Have you been ill?”

That was a lot of questions and she made a small face, grabbing her mug and a couple of crackers, hoping that it would be enough to quell her sure to come nausea. “Not at all, do not concern yourself. Haymitch is simply… overprotective. I am fine. More than fine, really.”

She toyed with the idea of telling her father. After all… She was in the middle of the third month and everything was fine. They should start telling people…

“Are you quite certain?” Tadius frowned, taking a sip of his cup of coffee. “I doubt the medical technology is up to par in this part of the country. Perhaps you should go somewhere else to get checked if you are feeling out of sort. Perhaps not to the Capitol if you are still avert to the thought but I heard Four has excellent hospitals.”

She forced a smile. “I am fine. Truly.”

Her father studied her for a moment and then looked down at the cup of coffee in his hands. “Does it have to do with… the incident? I read a lot about your condition, Effie. All experts agree that such an event could trigger a setback and…”

“What condition is this exactly?” she cut him off, a little cold.

She knew what he was talking about naturally – or avoided talking about rather. The Peacekeeper he had unknowingly sent to Twelve to build himself another portion to his empire.

It was unfair to think like that, she knew, but…

“Post traumatic stress disorder.” Tadius said plainly. “It is completely natural for you to experience…”

“I know what it is natural for me to experience.” she interrupted again before he could launch himself into a recitation of various symptoms. Her father had always been a researcher. He could spend hours reading about something. She took a deep calming breath because Tadius looked uneasy and she didn’t think his aim was to cause her pain. He was just worried. “Father, I am… touched you are taking such an interest in me and what happened to me but…”

“Of course I take an interest.” he scoffed. “You are my daughter, Effie. And what was done to you was wrong. The fact that the Districts are refusing to acknowledge that Capitols were tortured too is…”

“But.” she insisted, clenching her teeth at the torture word. “I do not like being forced to talk about it or think about it just to satisfy your curiosity. You took it upon yourself to ask Haymitch about it… Unless I directly address the subject, I would thank you not to mention it. I would rather you didn’t but ask Haymitch if you must.”

She gulped down a few mouthfuls of tea, placing her free hand over her stomach as if to better protect her jellyfish from such conversations. She was glad April wasn’t in the room anymore. She didn’t want that sort of things discussed in front of her babies.

She felt a bit light-headed but that could have been the topic just as much as her pregnancy and she allowed herself to be proud that she had managed to talk about it without working herself into a panic.

“My apologies.” Tadius sighed sadly. “It is just… I do not want you to think for one second I knowingly sent that man here. The Peacekeepers were pardoned, as you know, and it is within their rights not to mention their past job on their resume. We have put more screening processes in place now.” He shook his head. “I like to believe we… mended our relationship. Your recent distance… Your Mother and I are concerned you are angry with us because…”

“I am not.” she denied. “Honestly, Father, I am not. There simply has been a lot going on and…” She rubbed small circles on her stomach, coming to a decision. Perhaps it was the wrong one but… She was so happy about it anyway. When she thought back to earlier, to the strong sound of the baby’s heartbeat… She could have burst with joy. “I will tell you what is going on but you have to swear to me you won’t tell Mother yet. Or anyone. I would like to wait a couple of weeks more before it becomes public knowledge.”

Tadius frowned in concern, clutching his cup of coffee hard between his fingers. “You are not ill, are you? You just said…”

“I am expecting.” she smiled.

She watched as a myriad of emotions washed over her father’s face and she was glad she had chosen to tell him right there and then just for this. Telling her parents on the phone wouldn’t have been the same at all. Perhaps she needed to invest in one of those phones with a screen that Elindra assured her were the latest rage and that would allow them to see April more often. Haymitch was reluctant but he might be convinced. And it would be worth it just to see that sort of things.

“Congratulations.” he offered at last, soberly but with enough suppressed emotions in his voice that she decided he was genuine. “That is marvelous news.” His face softened. “I am glad it is not something direr, we have been so worried, Euphemia… Your mother…”

“You cannot tell her yet.” she insisted. “We haven’t told anyone and I want to do it myself this time. Properly.”

Not because the newspapers had gotten a hint of the gossip but on her terms. With the drama between the children occupying the press, they had that luxury.

“My lips are sealed.” he promised, placing his cup of coffee back on the table to stand up. She stood up too, not quite knowing why or what was going on, and remained frozen in surprise for a moment when she was treated to a rare hug. The war had brought its lot of surprises but the deep changes in her parents’ behavior were the more astonishing to her. “I am happy for you, my dear. I am happy to see you so happy and I am happy you found a good man.” It was more than she had ever expected and she was grinning hard when he drew back from the hug. “Of course, now we can pretend what I brought you is a congratulation gift rather than a forgive me for my company’s shortcomings present.”

Her face lit up. “You brought me a present?”

She felt like a little girl suddenly. Her father had always bowed to Elindra’s wishes and had often granted his daughters’ requests but it had been rare for him to go and buy them something they hadn’t asked for first. Spontaneous gifts were special and they were the best.

“Of sort.” he smiled smugly with the apparent certainty that she would be delighted. “Actually, it is what decided me to visit you. I went to an auction while I was in Ten and… Well, it is easier to show you.”

She sat back down while he went to the hallway to rummage in his luggage. She nibbled on a few crackers, wondering how long Haymitch would hide upstairs and if he would be mad that she had told her father without him there.

Any thought of that flew out of her head when her father came back in the living-room with a violin case.

“You bought me a violin?” she asked, her mouth suddenly parched.

She finished her tea in a long mouthful, pretending she didn’t notice how shaky the mug was in her hand. She didn’t know how she felt about that. It was a thoughtful gift certainly but violins weren’t something she had contemplated in a long time. Her grandfather had taught her when she was still a little girl and she had kept up the practice after his death up to the Quell. After that… Well, her apartment had been ransacked so many times… She hadn’t been surprised to be unable to find her grandfather’s violin in the mess. It was expensive, probably the most expensive thing he had owned. A luxury for a man of his means. A precious one to be treasured and taken care of. Thinking about it was enough to make a lump appear in her throat. There were very few things she had truly been attached to: the violin, a music box full of mementos, some pieces of jewelries… The loss of them… She had always regretted having lost them to the war.

“Not just a violin, dear.” he protested, lying it out on the couch next to her. “The case is new but the instrument… I recognized it as soon as I saw it.”

She gasped when she saw it. So familiar… “Impossible.”

“And yet…” Tadius chuckled gently. “It had been sold quite a few times since the war, not always to its true value. Why, I had it for half its price. It hasn’t always been well cared for but I had it tuned. Cords are new and it has been polished… The bow is new too. I am afraid the original was lost.”

She laid a tentative hand on the gleaming wood, feeling her eyes well up with tears she didn’t try to blink away. There were so many memories attached to that violin… So many hours spent with her grandfather… So many carefree afternoons… So many lonely nights after she had become an escort and the music had seemed like a worthy escape for a while…

The violin hadn’t indeed been well-cared for. She cradled it on her lap, ran her fingers along the deep scratches…

“They could not erase them.” her father winced. “I am sorry. I would buy you another but I know how much this one means to you. When I saw it… Well, truth be told, I am not one to believe in such nonsense but it felt like destiny.”

“No.” she whispered, her sight getting blurry. A few tears fell on the wood and she hastily wiped her cheek. “It is perfect. So perfect… Thank you.”

And then she was sobbing. Openly grossly sobbing. She clutched the violin to her chest and gasped for air, not even looking up when she heard Haymitch’s hurrying down the stairs or her father’s panicked clumsy attempts at comforting her. She was vaguely aware Tadius was explaining the situation to a bemused Haymitch and ended up with his arms full of his granddaughter for his trouble. April was wailing too, that much she knew, but she still couldn’t stop crying.

“You need to calm down, sweetheart.” Haymitch chided her firmly, wrapping his arms around her until she relaxed against him. He pressed a kiss against her temple and another against her forehead. “It’s no good for the baby to get that upset.” He looked up hastily at her father, clearly realizing his blunder. “I mean… The shrimp.”

“I told him.” she stuttered between two sobs.

“Oh.” he frowned. “Good then. Alright. Still need to calm down, Princess.”

“I can’t help it.” she gasped. “Hormones.”

She distinctly heard him roll his eyes.

It took a few minutes before she finally managed to stop crying. Time enough for her father to offer congratulations and for Haymitch to accept them. Time enough also for April to calm down and start munching on her cat rag doll.

She laid her violin back on her lap when Haymitch let her go to fetch her a glass of water. She stroke the wood lovingly under her father’s watchful eyes. She took a few sips of water and muttered an apology, a bit embarrassed by her behavior. Being so emotional wasn’t something about being pregnant she had missed.

Haymitch shrugged it off and handed the cold plastic ring he had fetched from the freezer to April. The baby was much happier with that in her mouth. It soothed the pain in her gums. It was left to Tadius to pick it up every time she tossed it on the couch. One of her favorite games. She liked to do that with all her toys, Effie suspected that had a lot to do with Snowball always carrying them back to her.

“Well, let’s hear it then.” Haymitch demanded, dropping in the corner of the L shaped couch, between her and her father – close enough that he could reach April if need be. “Never knew you played.”

“Oh, no!” she protested, shaking her head. “I haven’t practiced in years and…” She looked at her hands and winced. “I broke a few fingers since then. I wouldn’t remember.”

They had broken a few fingers, she meant. Perhaps they had known her hobbies included music, perhaps it had been another form of torture. Or perhaps they hadn’t known and it had just been a lucky guess for them.

“Muscle memories, sweetheart.” Haymitch insisted. “Try it out. Nobody said you have to play like Mozart.”

She placed the violin under her chin all the same, the position so familiar it hurt. The pain wasn’t all emotional though. The shoulder that had been so badly injured it had needed surgery ached and she wasn’t sure she would be able to keep playing long. The angle was too awkward for it.

The moment the bow hit the cords, she closed her eyes and let her memories guide her.

It was odd at first. Clumsy. Out of practice. It took almost two whole minutes before she managed to get something smoother out of the instrument, before she managed to make it sing like she wanted it to.

It left her exhausted and she gently placed it back in its new case, rolling her shoulder a few times, blushing under the praises she didn’t deserve. Still, watching her father make April clap was a cute sight – not one she would ever have thought she would see – and it made up for her lack of skills.

She let herself be persuaded to play again after dinner that night, because the children could be convincing – and because she was desperate to put an end to the bickering between Katniss and Haymitch.

She played something light and quick that didn’t sound as good as it was supposed to. Yet everyone was laughing and clapping and she let herself forget about imperfections.

The violin was scratched beyond repairs.

So was she.

But they could still produce music all the same. 

[katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Stuck on Repeat - Part 3

In case you missed them, here are Part 1 and Part 2 for bar fight! Everlark. Before you ask, there will be one final chapter because there is a smut scene that I feel is a must have before I leave this universe. It’s a dirty job, but for the sake of loose ends, it must be done. ;-)

WARNINGS: RATED E for some filthy smut. Also, Mrs. Mellark is true to form in this one. You’ve been warned. I am not responsible for casualties caused by dining utensils, either real or imagined.

Precise laughter floats on the air in a frighteningly hushed dining room. No clanking of fine porcelain dishes or scraping of silver forks here. No boisterous comments or smashing of empty glass beer bottles as they land in 15 gallon recycle bins. Maybe the odd ring of crystal as someone calls for or finishes a toast. No loud rock and roll or Tom Jones stuck on repeat, just the grating softness of some classic piano concerto that makes her want to scratch out her ear drums right now.

Capitol Country Club is so different from what she’s used to that Katniss keeps shifting in her seat and can’t stop thinking about the sweat stains that are probably now marring the armpits of her bargain rack dress that must be at least five seasons old and came from a one-off designer brand store. Thankfully, Johanna has a secret passion for fashion and was able to magically work the dress into something that looked custom rather than clearance. Then she called in her girlfriend, Madge, to work miracles with Katniss’ hair and even some minor makeup. By the time they were done, Katniss felt confident and gorgeous.

Until she met the discerning, glacial blue eyes of Peeta’s mother, that is…

“Give that back,” Katniss laughs as she spears the fried green tomato Peeta just stole from her plate. In the tussle, the poor thing is ripped in half and Peeta clucks his tongue at her.

“Now you’ve committed tomato murder,” he says and she gasps in mock outrage.

“You’re an accessory. Besides, I’m pretty sure the cook murdered it when he sliced it and smothered it in lard,” she retorts as Peeta gathers up half the pilfered fruit on his fork and with a grin, offers it to her. Not to feed her like a baby, but actually hands her the fork.

“Truce?” She eyes his extended hand for a moment before nodding and taking the fork from him and eating the morsel. She can’t remember the last time she had this much fun with anyone. Even without the influence of alcohol and the bar, Peeta’s easy to talk to. She feels like she’s spilled her entire life story already and it’s still only their first date.

As she swallows, she hands the fork back to him with a smile, but they both fumble and the utensil clatters noisily to the floor.

“Five second rule?” she asks guilty as he retrieves it and holds it between two fingers while glancing around at the lively, hole in the wall restaurant he picked, swearing that the food was worth the questionable sanitary conditions.

“Not here,” he says and sets the fork aside. Katniss shrugs and with lightning speed, snatches the other half of the tomato with her own still clean fork and eats it with relish while Peeta gapes comically at her. “Why you common tomato thief. I’ll have to punish you for that.”

“What did you have in mind?” she asks and Peeta’s eyes darken for a moment but then he picks up the laminated menu and skims the options before nodding and smiling.

“Fried okra,” he decides and she groans.

“No more fried produce! How have you not died of a heart attack yet?”

“Well there have been a few close calls, but…”

Katniss giggles and looks away from the teasing smile on his face, but she lets him order another appetizer and another, drawing their date out as long as she can, because while there’s a part of her that wants to drag him right back to bed, she’s enjoying herself a little too much to end it just yet.

“Now darling, how did you say you and Peeta started dating?” Mrs. Mellark asks and Katniss tucks back a strand of hair behind her ear that’s already there and behaving just fine, if only to have something to do with her hands.

“Peeta already told us this story on the phone, my dear,” Mr. Mellark interjects without looking up from the phone in his lap.

“Yes, and now I want to hear it from Katniss.” Peeta’s hand slides up her knee beneath the table and untangles her fingers from strangling each other, lacing their fingers together instead. He gives her a reassuring squeeze and she gives one back as his mother continues. “How a couple meets and begins their romance says a lot about their chances of survival. This world is filled with temptations and is cruel to matrimony unless you have a solid foundation on which to build.”

Like how you and your husband met? Katniss wants to ask. Instead of destroying whatever shred of decent relations Peeta has left with his parents, though, Katniss plasters a smile on her face and repeats the story, deliberately leaving out the better parts of it.

“We met through my work,” at a total dive bar where you and your string of pearls would never be caught dead. “Peeta was a regular, and well he was always just so sweet and charming, I couldn’t help but notice him.” And want to fuck his brains out. “Of course, he was a perfect gentleman, even helping deal with a few disgruntled customers.” By punching them repeatedly and throwing them on the floor. “And when he asked me out, I just knew I couldn’t let him get away.” So I dragged him to my apartment and sucked his dick, then rode him until neither of us could move.

Mentally adding the truth helps her smile sweetly at Mrs. Mellark, who still doesn’t look convinced. Her nose wrinkles slightly before she speaks. “And where did you say you work, again?”

“Mom,” Peeta tries to intervene, but his mother glares him into silence. Resisting the urge to stab her with the dinner knife, Katniss smiles until her cheeks hurt with the fakeness of it.

“I work in hospitality,” she says.

“Doesn’t that usually mean that she works for a hotel or a spa?” Mr. Mellark asks, still looking at his phone, working, Peeta had told her. Always working. Mrs. Mellark makes a face as though she has something distasteful in her mouth.

“Something like that, yes,” Katniss says, justifying it in her mind with the fact that most swanky hotels like the ones Mr. Mellark is probably thinking of usually have bars and restaurants in them. Classy bars, but still bars. She’s grateful when the waiter arrives with the first course because at least she can’t talk with her mouth full. It would be rude. As she picks up her salad fork, Peeta leans over to whisper in her ear.

“You look a bit uncomfortable. Only four more courses and then I can take you home and peel you out of that awful dress.” The way he stresses the word awful sounds more like he thinks it’s sexy. She shivers as the faint tingling of arousal teases her. She refuses to be alone in discomfort, so she ducks her head enough to whisper back.

“Eat fast,” she says and he chuckles.

“You know I like to savor my meals.”

Then he presses a soft kiss to her ear, with just the smallest flick of his tongue on her skin, and sits up to dig into his salad. Her fingers are clenched tightly on her fork and as she stabs at one of the grape tomatoes, it flies across the room and rolls beneath the neighboring table. Her face burns and Peeta stifles his laugh. His parents remain oblivious as they seem to be bickering in whispers over something.

“The classic tale of Romeo and Juliet, this afternoon at two o’clock in the park!” a man dressed in renaissance fashion declares in a stout voice, passing out flyers. Peeta takes one as they walk past and Katniss shuffles her feet. She’s still not ready to go home yet, but given Peeta’s declaration that he plans on taking her out for three dates before they can have sex again, she’s not quite sure how else to prolong their time together. She’s never been good at this whole dating thing. And he keeps walking as though he doesn’t mind taking her home already. Maybe the date didn’t go as well as she thought.

At her door, she fiddles with her keys, hoping maybe he’ll change his mind about the three dates. He did tell her at breakfast that he planned on eating her out by the end of the day. But he lifts her hands in his, kissing one and then the other before running his thumbs over her knuckles.

“I had a really great time, Katniss. Can I see you again?” he asks.

“I’m working tonight,” she reminds him and he smiles.

“When’s your shift?”

“Six to ten at the Fish Market,” she says and tugs on her hands in an attempt to free them as disappointment creeps through her.

“Maybe I’ll see you then?” he asks hopefully, and she nods reluctantly. She’d rather see him away from her jobs. Now that she knows what that’s like, she’s not ready to let go of it.

He seems to have no trouble with letting go, unfortunately. So she unlocks her door and he waits until she shuts it. With her head leaning against the door, she listens to his retreating footsteps and berates herself. What did she expect? A first date has to end at some point, doesn’t it? Otherwise there’d never be a second date.

She kicks off her shoes and calls her sister, hoping that maybe chatting with Prim will help cheer her up and not get all worked up over some boy. She has three jobs, her sister’s tuition and her mother’s medical bills to pay. She doesn’t have time to worry about kissing boys or dates and things like that.

“Hey, sis!” Prim greets cheerfully and within minutes, Katniss feels better. Only more so when her phone pings, notifying her of another call. Peeta’s name on her screen makes her heart skip a few beats, but she ignores him, telling herself to play it cool and finish her conversation with Prim. When they hang up, she calls Peeta.

“Hi there,” he says.

“Hey. Sorry, I was on the phone with my sister,” she says.

“Don’t apologize for that,” he says and asks how Prim’s doing. A little flutter brushes her insides when he not only remembers Prim’s name but all the important details Katniss told him today. Of course he remembers, she chides herself. It was an hour ago.

“So I was wondering,” he says when there’s a lull in the conversation. “How do you feel about theater in the park?”

She flashes back to the man in hose and puffy pants with flyers and smiles foolishly, even as she starts tearing through her closet looking for her favorite sundress. The green one with spaghetti straps and swishy skirt. “I love it.”

“Could you please put that thing down for one minute? We are meeting your son’s fiancée,” Mrs. Mellark hisses at her husband, patting her hair as he does so and she turns back to her inquisition of Katniss. Soup…not very helpful in avoiding conversation, she thinks as she swirls her spoon through the creamy confection dotted with rose petals. Only two more courses. “Now then, you were saying lunch and then a theater date. What play?”

“Romeo and Juliet,” Katniss and Peeta answer at the same time and Mrs. Mellark tilts her head.

“How sweet. A pair of fools who followed their lust and caused the deaths of five people, if you ask me.”

Anger flares in Katniss’ chest, uncertain if Mrs. Mellark is talking about Romeo and Juliet or her and Peeta. She feels a ridiculous protectiveness over the fictional pairing, even though she would normally agree with Mrs. Mellark on this one.

She’s grateful that she had the foresight to pack a bag with her work clothes and sneakers because she’s not ready to head in to work just yet or waste time going home to change and miss out on spending it with Peeta. The clock’s ticking against her and eventually, she’ll have to walk to the Fish Market from the park. Around them, the crowd filters from the amphitheater, but Katniss is entranced, listening to Peeta talk about his life in ways he hasn’t before now. Usually he sticks to stories about his students or something else fairly neutral.

“I wanted to make my own way, you know? Not rely on my parents, be my own person,” he tells her.

“What are they, rich or something?” she jokes, sobering slightly when he blushes and can’t quite meet her eyes. “Wait…Mellark.”

“Knew you were smart,” he says and she wants to smack herself for not making the connection sooner between his last name and the multi-million dollar company that started as a family bakery in the early 1900’s and now includes not only worldwide branches but also a bevy of five star restaurants and culinary schools. She might be addicted to their cheese buns, although she can rarely afford to splurge on them.

“So you joined the army?” she asks incredulously and he shrugs.

“Paycheck, promise of tuition money eventually, got me away from home. Drove my mother ape shit crazy that I wasn’t doing something with a real future like my brothers did. I mean, I didn’t even have the decency to become an officer and make it less embarrassing for her,” he says. “But mostly, I knew I wasn’t…smart enough to hold onto a scholarship to Dad’s alma mater like they expected me to do, not for the degrees they wanted me to get. I would’ve been coasting on his name. And I wasn’t about to risk the fight and the disappointment that would’ve come if I’d asked them to fund a much less expensive education to a smaller school for a degree that I wanted. Anyways. Afterwards, the army paid to send me to school and being a teacher seemed like something I could enjoy and maybe even be good at, as long as it involved books and stories rather than math. So I applied for their Troops to Teachers program.”

Afterwards…he means after he lost the leg, she thinks. She already knows his parents disapproved of his choice to make a living teaching, but still doesn’t know how he lost the leg.

“Tell me a funny story,” she asks, unsure that she’s ready to hear it, or that he’s ready to tell it. “You have to have some. Aren’t soldiers just like guys in bars? Always getting into trouble?”

He smiles, bringing relief that she hasn’t destroyed his good mood with the talk about his parents. Peeta looks around them at the now empty amphitheater. “I’ll talk while we walk. I don’t want to make you late for work.”

Their hands brush as they make their way out of the park and he shares one story and then another until her sides hurt with laughter and she can’t remember when their fingers laced together, but she doesn’t want him to let go of her hand.

“When do I get to meet these guys?” she asks when she can control her voice again. A dark shadow passes over his eyes and his fingers clench around hers. She’s suddenly back in her bed, staring at the ceiling with Peeta frightened and lashing out against a threat that isn’t there, and regret hits her that she might never meet his friends. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” he says. But then he points out that they’re close to the Fish Market and changes the topic. When they reach the restaurant hanging off the edge of a dock on the river, they stall for a minute longer until she tells him that she needs to get inside and change for her shift.

He leans in and then pauses, his nose and his breath caressing over her cheek. She’s thinking about turning her head to kiss him and end her torment when he finally presses his lips to her skin. He lingers there in a chaste kiss that feels more like a promise as warmth fills her to the tips of her fingers and toes.

“Have a good night, Katniss,” he says and smiles as he walks away, leaving her wanting more than the lingering heat on her cheek. So much more.

“I did try my best, but Peeta was always stubborn about the oddest things. Of course, the fact that he hasn’t contributed to the family business means that he won’t be getting anything out of it either,” Mrs. Mellark says as though it’s the most normal thing in the world to inform her son’s fiancée that he’s already been removed from the will.

“Mom,” Peeta tries again, a sharp edge to his voice. “What’s that rule about it being rude to discuss money at the dinner table?”

“Who said anything about money?” Mrs. Mellark gasps and Katniss stabs at her beef burgundy with a vengeance. One more course, unless they skip out before dessert. As much as she wants to try a $30 slice of cake, she’s not sure it’s worth it if it means putting up with his mother for one second more than she has to. The army’s a fucking welcome committee compared to this witch, she thinks. No wonder Peeta ran as fast and far away as he could get.

“I was talking about hard work. You can’t get something from nothing,” Mrs. Mellark continues while Katniss stifles a snort. She married into money. Where’s the hard work in that?

“Katniss worked three jobs to put her sister through medical school and support her mother,” Peeta announces with clear pride in his voice. “I think she’s familiar with the concept of hard work.”

For a moment, Mrs. Mellark’s eyes widen slightly in surprise, but then narrow back down to slits. “Do you still hold these three jobs?”

Peeta curses under his breath and Katniss doesn’t understand why. “I’m at a point now where I can let one of them go.”

Before she can explain her plans to put herself through school now that Prim’s almost done, Mrs. Mellark nods and elbows her husband. “I had my suspicions. Katniss, dear. The only precious metal Peeta comes with is his right leg and that scrap of bronze the army gave him for some foolish incident that cost him his real leg. If you’re planning on living the life of the rich and famous, you won’t find it here. I suggest you find some other sap to bamboozle.”

Rage practically blinds her as Peeta seems to shrink away from her. His Bronze Star, Katniss realizes. The one that makes him crack poorly timed jokes and change the conversation on a good day. And on a bad day, that scrap of metal makes him grip the back of the nearest chair and hold on until the flashbacks stop. The scrap of metal that’s shoved in the back of his closet and gathering dust because he never wanted it and yet can’t bring himself to throw it away. The last piece he has of his friends. Two that he saved and three that he couldn’t. He’d rather have them back than have that scrap of bronze.

“Left leg,” Katniss corrects through her teeth.

“Whatever,” Mrs. Mellark dismisses.

Manners and family relations be damned. Katniss just might start a bar brawl in the middle of the country club if this bitch doesn’t shut up soon.

“Someone here to see you,” Finnick says as he saunters by. “I told him that the kitchen is closed, but he insists he’s not here for the food. I gotta know, Kat…how’d he wander into your clutches?”

Finnick waggles his brows and Katniss lashes out with the black leather folio holding her last customer’s check. “Go wash the dishes so we can get out of here.”

Even though she’s pretty sure who it is, Katniss still peeks around the corner before she heads back into the dining room. Sure enough, Peeta sits at a table with a soda in front of him and a smile on his face as he chats with Jackie. She flips her red ponytail over her shoulder and Katniss sees red for a moment. Until Peeta spots her and his smile changes, becomes nearly blinding in its brightness.

She deals with her customer and then walks over to his table where Jackie still lingers for some reason. Peeta stands, a greeting on his lips that’s cut short when Katniss wraps her arms around his waist and brings their bodies close together. Jackie gets the hint and excuses herself.

“Hey. How was your shift?” he asks when she finally releases him.

“Not bad,” she says and toys with a curl that’s decided to go rogue on his forehead.

“Have you eaten dinner?” His voice is practically brimming with hope and she hates to destroy it.

“I scarfed something down part way through my shift,” she admits. To her surprise, his smile widens.

“Then let me buy you dessert.” Yes please with cherries on top, she thinks but shrugs as though she couldn’t care one way or another.

“Okay. I’ll allow it.” He waits for her to finish clean up, and even though Finnick teases her mercilessly for finally digging up a social life, he works just as fast as her, cutting the time they usually spend on this in half.

For the next hour, she can’t stop touching Peeta. They link arms as they walk to an ice cream place just up the river walk. They hold hands while they stroll through the night and lick at their cones. They don’t let go while he walks her home, not even when they reach her door and he leans down to press a gentle kiss to her lips. Not until she realizes that this should count as date number three, even if they were all in one day, and she lets go of his hand to shove hers in his hair and curve her body into his, opening her mouth in an unmistakable invitation.

Peeta’s hand smacks into her door behind her as they sway and get lost in the kiss, drown in the feelings that haven’t faded one bit since last night, only gotten stronger. All she wants is to invite him in and let him keep his promise from breakfast, to see where else this will lead them.

But that’s when she pulls back slightly. They stand there, panting and waiting for something to break. His hand on her door still keeps them from crashing back into it while the other hand is hot on her back, his thumb swiping back and forth. A smile curves over her lips as she steps out of his embrace and Peeta makes a sound of protest, but he doesn’t pull her back to him.

“I’ve been thinking about those rules we’re both a little rusty on,” she murmurs and digs her keys from her bag. It’ll be torture, but she’s already decided this isn’t something she wants to ruin. Like a fine wine or a well-aged Scotch, whatever this is brewing between them should be given time to sweeten and space to intensify in flavor. “Since we did take advantage of each other twice in one night, I’m thinking you owe me three more dates before I invite you in.”

Peeta licks his lips and they turn up into a slow, seductive smile.

“If you think you can wait,” he murmurs and she wavers for a second at the dark promise in his voice.

“Can you?” she asks instead.

“When’s your next free night? I’ll cook dinner for you, at my place.”

“Wednesday,” she tells him and unlocks her door.

“It’s a date?” he asks uncertainly as she steps through, prompting her to turn back and kiss him one last time.

“It’s a date, Peeta,” she promises.

The pull on her hand as Peeta tries to disentangle their fingers snaps her from her rage. She clings tighter to him and brings their joined hands up on top of the table in plain view. For good measure, she twists in her chair and smashes her mouth to his. He jerks back slightly, although not enough to separate their lips. She cups her palm over the back of his head and holds him to her, caressing her thumbs through his hair and over the hand joined to hers. When she ends the kiss with a soft smack of their lips, the stunned silence at the table is perfect.

“Wanna skip dessert?” she asks him and he nods. “Then let’s get out of here.”

She only makes it to date number five, although she insists as he teases her about it while she tears at his clothes that it’s his fault for claiming that the two dozen or so nights that they’ve spent together don’t count as real dates. They’ve spent hours, weeks, what feels like an eternity and yet not long enough to her, relaxing on their couches, sleeping in one another’s beds, without going any further than some groping, heated kisses, and that one time she dry humped him over his jeans.

“So impatient,” he says with a grin, even while he tugs her hips into place and kisses over her body, down between her legs. “So wet.”

His words turn to moans as he drapes her leg over the back of the couch, leaving her completely open to him and his tongue as he licks and sucks. Gentle then not. Gentle again until she’s arched over the arm of the couch with her hands shoving his mouth roughly over her clit and her folds, her mouth open in a silent scream. All the pent up pressure of the past few weeks released in a torrent of ecstasy, seizing her entire body in its depths.

She waits in the car, angrily bouncing her knee while Peeta removes his jacket and tie, lays them across the back seat and rolls up the sleeves of his dress shirt before he gets in the driver’s seat. All he needs is one glance to see that she’s furious, but she can’t even tell him yet that it’s not him she’s angry with, too afraid that she’ll do nothing but spew forth disparaging and unhelpful complaints about his parents.

He tries to apologize for his parents on the drive back to his place, dredging up all the reasons they agreed to this dinner in the first place. When she can’t stand another second of hearing him doubt himself or them because of the things his witch of a mother said, Katniss leans across the seat and cups her hand over his crotch. Peeta jumps in the driver seat and jerks the steering wheel for a second before regaining control.

“Drive, Peeta,” she orders. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about your parents or what they say about you or what they think about me. They’re wrong anyways and we both know it. Drive and don’t get pulled over.”  

He nods and she unbuckles his belt, slowly drags down his zipper and pulls his still soft cock through the opening in front of his boxer briefs. She strokes him for just a moment, feels the blood pulsing beneath his skin and listens to his harsh breaths. Unclipping her seatbelt, she shifts and Peeta protests but the words die on a moan as she licks around his head, focusing just beneath the ridge and then licking up his precum, teasing the small opening to bring forth more.

“Katniss,” he whispers and then curses when she skips gentle and goes straight for hard sucks on him, using her fist to get what she can’t swallow.

She sits up, abruptly releasing him with a loud pop, to fix him with an intense stare. “Don’t come yet.”

“Fuck,” he says as she goes back to sucking him.

She tries to get away from his insistent mouth, crawling back over the couch arm and whimpering, but he grabs her ankles and yanks her towards him, pinning her thighs open and latching his mouth to her clit while she writhes and begs him. For what, she has no idea, incapable of thought as she convulses and cramps as pleasure overloads her nerves. She’s inebriated with it as Peeta wrings one release from her then another until she’s sure he’s wrung her dry. Tapped her out.

Only then does he give her any kind of reprieve, in the form of slow kisses up her body, deep sucks of fevered skin until he reaches her breasts and she begs him again as she hears the tearing of foil and feels his cock brushing against her folds. She might go insane if he keeps going.

“Gonna come if you keep doing that,” Peeta gasps when she hollows her cheeks and sucks him deep in her throat. He reaches across the car and yanks her dress up, revealing the lace thong she’s wearing. Peeta groans but his fingers blaze a path straight to her folds.

“You’re fucking soaked, Katniss,” he whispers in awe. “You like sucking my cock this much?”

She moans and his fingers plunge inside her, distracting her from what she’s doing. Katniss tries to focus on him, on teasing him to the brink and getting him to fill her mouth, but his fingers and his filthy words take precedence, making her blow job turn sloppy and uncoordinated until she has to stop.

“Ah fuck, yeah,” Peeta groans as he slides into her, his head falling back for a moment, his abs contracting with effort. His leg falters and she waits for him to get his foot situated on the floor. Then he wraps an arm around her, lifting her into an arch again, her head still languishing on the couch arm as he starts rocking his hips into her.

“Talk to me, Peeta,” she whispers, gripping his arms for some kind of support.

He whispers in short bursts, heady shots of liquor that shock and please at the same time. They come faster and louder with the pace of his hips until he stops talking in favor of biting down on her nipple and groaning around his teeth. She begs him to come and smiles as his hips lose their rhythm and his groans turn desperate, his fingers digging into her side where he holds her hips suspended over the couch. When he’s finished and she lays there savoring the last shudders of his orgasm, his lips soothe the bite marks on her body.

“So do I owe you three more dates now?” he asks and she laughs through her gasping breaths. And she knows that somehow, they would’ve wound up here anyways.

Her release drips down her thighs as they stumble from the garage into their house, not even bothering to put themselves back together for the walk. No one can see with the garage door already shut, anyways. Katniss isn’t sure she’d care if they could. She works on shirt buttons, he pulls the zipper down her back. She tries to do something about his pants but he tears her dress up over her head, and cupping his hands just below her ass, lifts her into the air. Their mouths crash together as he walks and she loses track of where they are until he sinks down onto the couch with Katniss straddling him. Gripping his wrists, she tears his hands off her and shoves them into the cushions, growling a warning to keep them there.

She strokes his cock, thrilled with the feel of him, throbbing in her hand. His pulse hard against her palm. His head falls back as he moans and she knows he’s on the brink of exploding. A few kisses to his neck and then his parted lips. Peeta whimpers when she stands, his cock lurching as her touch leaves him. Again while she strips off her bra, her stockings, and the panties she soaked with her release while he fingered her in the car and she failed at blowing his mind.

He reaches for her, and she swats his hands away with a smirk. Slowly pulls his pants down his legs and tosses them aside. She leaves his dress shirt as it is, unbuttoned with the sleeves rolled up, the deep blue matching his eyes when he’s aroused. Turning her back to him, she wriggles her hips and stands between his knees. Smiles when he gets the hint and grips himself to hold his cock straight so she can lower herself onto him.

“So eager,” she teases and has to bite her lip to contain her moan as he fills her. “Oh god, so thick, Peeta.”

“Fuck I love watching your pussy take my cock,” he groans. His hands skim over her hips as she starts to move, her motions restricted cradled like this between his outstretched knees. Then his fingers glide over her clit and she bends back, needing to feel more of him. Her arm wraps around his neck. Peeta turns to kiss hers and groan into it.

“I want it, Katniss. I want your hot juices covering my cock, dripping down my balls. I want you screaming and begging me to stop because you can’t stand the pleasure then begging me to keep going because you can’t stand not to have it.”

Eventually, the small motions of their hips aren’t enough and she spreads her knees, resting her legs right on top of his as she whimpers and his hips bounce beneath hers, his finger still stroking. She rests her hand on top of his to guide him and he kisses her neck.

“Yeah, like that, Katniss. Show me how you want me to touch you. Show me how to make you come.”

“Peeta, you already know,” she moans. She feels his lips curling into a smile on the back of her neck before he presses another hot kiss there.

“Open your legs wider,” he growls. She does and her toes brush the floor as he slides down the couch, planting his feet firmly before he thrusts up into her. Now she’s the one cursing and screaming as his fingers burn her clit. He holds her in place with one hand flat on her ribs, his thumb between her breasts. She tries to clamp her legs shut as she gets closer, but Peeta bites her shoulder and she forces herself to stay open.

It takes a few more thrusts to get her back to where she was. Lost momentum regained, Katniss closes her eyes to focus on the feel of him moving inside her, beneath her, around her. A spark then another and she’s powerless to stop it this time, her entire body shaking with the force of it. Light refracts behind her eyelids like it does when filtered through a rich, dark drink. She gets a little lost in the colors as she rides out her release.

When she’s aware once more of her surroundings, her knees and forehead drag across the carpet. Uncertain when they moved to the floor, or when he managed to remove his prosthetic and cast it aside, she calls out Peeta’s name, only then noticing his hands caressing down her back and over her ass. She reaches back and finds his chest, covered in a light sheen of sweat, as he pushes down on her hips. He groans and she’s glad he can feel something because she’s all out of sensations right now.

She kneels there and listens to the erotic noises he makes while his hips smack into her ass. God, she loves his sex noises. They’re intoxicating, mesmerizing. It isn’t long before she hears the hitch in his voice and feels the bite of his fingers clenching her ass that means he’s about to come. Katniss pushes her palms on the floor and stretches her back. His pace breaks as he groans her name and his hips slow to a last few deep thrusts before he stops and lays his chest on top of her, his hand sliding up her body to grasp her breast, his lips covering her ear in warmth as he tries to catch his breath.

They sprawl on the floor, and when their bodies finally cool enough, Peeta pulls her on top of him. They adjust limbs and hair and end up with her ear right over his heart, listening to the steady drumming, and his hands skimming lightly over her back and arms, sending shivers of delight through her.

“I’m sorry about tonight. I’d hoped that…well I guess I was hoping for something different after I’d been away from them for so long. Not that they’d be different per se, but that maybe they’d see me different.” Katniss blinks her eyes open and stares at his wall, waiting for him to continue. She wants to tell him that his parents are idiots for not seeing him for what he really is, but the words get tangled on her tongue. “Nothing’s changed, though.”

“No offense, Peeta, but your parents are dumb.” Katniss combs back her hair as she lifts herself up to stare down at him. Peeta laughs, although the sound isn’t one of real humor.

She thinks about all the times he’s bolstered her confidence when she didn’t think she could do something. When Haymitch made her bar manager. When Prim brought home a bunch of brochures for online colleges and dumped them in Katniss’ lap declaring, “Your turn!” All the times he’s been there for her, to help deal with her Mom. To hold her or give her space – whichever she needed – every year on the day her dad died. To listen when she sobbed over Prim growing up and graduating and no longer needing her and helping her work through the confusing blend of sorrow and relief Katniss felt that entire month. With those memories at the front of her mind, the words begin to untangle.

“I mean it, Peeta. Your dad is…”

“Oblivious?”

“And distant. And your mom is…”

“Overbearing?”

“I was going to say a witch. Now I know why you were trying to get away from them.” He’s still not looking convinced, though, so she shifts her body to drop kisses over his chest and up his neck.

“You’re kind.” Kiss. “And generous.” Kiss. “Charming.” Kiss. “And you kiss like the devil.” Two kisses, one for each cheek. “And even though I think you’re crazy for it, I know you love me as much as I love you.”

“Well look at you,” he teases with a real smile. “Being engaged has made you a poet.”

“Can I put cayenne pepper in her wine at the wedding?” Katniss asks and now Peeta does laugh for real. He pulls her down for a sweet kiss. One on her lips and one on her nose. “Is that a yes?”

“We’re eloping,” he says and even though she knows he’s half joking, she smiles and stretches contentedly at that idea. More time and money for honeymoon that way. Also less chance of the reception turning into fisticuffs.

[naughtyfandomfreakwriter]

Chapter One - The Red Reaping

Word Count: 8,932

I remember wearing the braids in my hair. I remember watching her on every screen around. I remember the nightshade berries, and the quarter quell, and the rebellion.

I remember it all, even as everyone tries to forget.

When she lost… when the districts were forced back in line, I remember… I never forgot Katniss Everdeen.

I was only a child when the rebellion failed. The Mocking Jay was made quiet and the Capitol ruled supreme. President Snow had vanquished another uprising.

However, the people still remembered, and that needed to be changed. The Capitol had never seen a Hunger Game with more drama and although they couldn’t be happier to be safe and spoiled once more, they still adored the romance of Peeta and Katniss.

You could trust President Snow to use this to his advantage. As the districts needed to be punished, he left it to his game makers to formulate a new challenge. While the Summer months were used to continue the hunger games, the Winter would set a new game that would still cost lives. Each rebellion had to pay a price, after all.

The Red Games were instituted. A game that would give the capital the love and drama they so craved, while acting as a punishment to the districts. A twisted bloodbath for the next generation.

It was the morning of the Red Reaping. It was easy to tell, what with all the noise outside. With a groan, I turned onto my stomach, face in my pillow.

“Quiet please,” I couldn’t help but groan as I reached for my remote. I knew well enough already which button to press to hush the outside world and block out the light. One tap and my favourite starry night sky played on the window screen.

I should be lucky to live in the Capital, but some days it was damn near intolerable.

On a day like today, I knew my family would want me up and dressed as early as possible but they knew not to come wake me themselves. I never liked this day, and only my father understood.

I never enjoyed any of the capital events. Not since my family and I returned from District 7.

My father, Damiin Silver, was a peace keeper assigned to the Lumber district. I only spent three years there before dad got a promotion and moved back to the Capital. Still, the memories remain the same. The hunger, the weight on their shoulders, it made an impression that no amount of wealth could fix. My Mom, Letta, always said I was too young and impressionable when we lived there. She blames that time on why I’m so hard to handle. She’s not wrong.

Finally dragging myself out of bed, I move to the mirror to braid my hair.

Mom also blames my fascination with Katniss on my time in the district. She’s not wrong.

I’ve been a fan of braids for so long most people don’t even relate it to the Mocking Jay anymore. It’s just an out of date style I refuse to give up. Though that seems to make sense from the way I wear my clothes as simple as possible. I remember a time when I dressed like everyone else. Now the idea of such ostentatious clothing seems uncomfortable.

I looked in the mirror when I finished. Brown hair that faded into gold swept into a side braid, my curvy figure made obvious in a simple peach dress and gold belt. The silk flowers in a pale pink peach sewn to the dress would be about the only thing that seemed ‘capital’ about my outfit outside of its colour. Painting my face might be the only thing I actually enjoyed about getting ready. Glueing gold lashes to my own, adding a peach colour to my lids, applying another gold bar of colour down the center of two delicate pink lips, it was like crafting a mask, one I hid behind as much as I could.

I tried to live between words. Just colourful enough not to draw attention but never enough for the standards of fashion applied to the Capital. A sense of invisibility was always the aim.

“Alright, Gemma. Let’s get this over with.”

With a heavy breath, I walked out of the room. Downstairs, Mom and Dad were already eating and celebrating. Havvery, the Avox assigned to my family, served as Mom twitted on about her plans for the day. There was a time I’d have to endure those plans but for this year, I’ll be graciously separated, just as I was last year and the year before that.

“Oh Darling, you couldn’t have… tried a little?” Mom asked.

Of course, my style is never more critiqued than on days like today. At 20 years old you’d think she’d get tired of judging my looks. They’d been the same for quite some time.

“Leave her be,” my Dad chimed in, eyes on his screen working already. Busy days like today demanded a lot from a peacekeeper as high in rank as he.

“Just, a bit of glitter, or maybe a necklace or two,” she continued to complain.

“I’m fine,” I brushed off, heading for the food set out in a bright spread. A sweet orange would be enough while getting me out of the house quickly. I was only just starting to peel the skin when I felt a snap on my ear.

“Ouch!” I cried out, reaching to feel cold metal on my ear and turning to see my mother. She’d clipped on a gold dangling earring and waited with the other.

“Please,” she begged.

I turned around to my food, which she took as an invitation to add the other. I flinched again.

It was such a talent that my mother could so easily reach my limit of her shallow vanity. Of all the people I knew, she was the most like the capitol. No wonder the Districts revolted.

Standing from the table I moved with my fruit in hand.

“I’m meeting Belba before everything starts,” I didn’t want to spend anymore time with my mother than I had to. Not today.

“Darling, I thought we could head down together-”

I didn’t let her finish. I was out the door and into the loud chaotic streets before she could stop me.

The Red Reaping was one of the big parties of the year. It was the first party of the Red Games and although it was a brisk fall day, everyone dressed up for the event. I slipped on my knitted coat with the thinnest of fur trims and continued to eat my orange. Around me everyone was shouting and laughing. Parts of the city played music and there was literal dancing in the streets.

Absolute luxury paired with excited gossiping. It was so different from District 7.

I could easily imagine the trepidation and fear as each citizen from age 18 to 29 dressed for the reaping. It was a more conservative fear, cloaked by the brave faces the older citizens wore. The Hunger Reapings, with their younger children, laid their terror quite plainly on their faces. It had always been so strange to watch a child my age make for the town square knowing I was safe and they weren’t.

‘Trig…’ I thought, the name scarcely on my lips when a familiar voice stopped me.

“Gemma! Over here,” Belba called over. She was a tree amongst most people, that was only worsened by the tall heels she always wore. I rushed through the crowd to her side, accepting the hug she had to bend over to give.

“You made it out of the house, I see.”

“Not unscathed,” I added, showing off the earrings that had turned my earlobes red from their sudden addition. They were fake and so they pinched to stay in place.

“Here,” Belba smiled. She took them off of me gently and turned me around. I could feel her moving a bit at my hair and soon the clips framed by braid instead of tormenting my ears.

“Thank you,” I genuinely spoke, my hands feeling behind my head to where they now sat.

Belba was always so wonderful at fashion. She had dreams of becoming a fashion icon in the city and was well on her way with an internship under Tigress’ guiding hand. I trusted her as Belba was my best friend and understood my minimalist wishes. She always took my odd desires and found ways to merge them with the excessive expectations of the city. In a way, she hid me in the crowd, misdirecting others from my near rebellious tendencies.

“I’m at your service,” Belba giggled. She gave an elaborate bow and it was then I noticed the ring on her left hand. It wasn’t hard to see, sparkling silver against dark ebony skin. Not to mention the ring was huge.

“Is… Is that…” I stammered.

Belba nodded. “It is!” She excitedly exclaimed. “Fredrick proposed!”

I took her hand and examined the ring. I couldn’t have been more excited for Belba! She and Fredrick deserved happiness. They were wonderful but…. “You’re not in the Reaping then.”

The smiles on both of our faces fell. Belba shook her head.

“I’m sorry. I really didn’t want to leave you alone in this but—”

“It’s fine,” I interrupted.

“We could wait to register out until next year.”

I shook my head at Belba’s offer. “No point in putting your name in for my sake. Capitol forbid you’re picked and married off to some district boy,” I joked.

She laughed out of kindness at my joke but the pity never left her eyes.

“I know you hate today,” she added quietly.

“I hate all days like today. No need to make this one special,” I forced a smile which Belba understood. I was done talking about it. She was so supportive in ways I could never fully thank. Of everyone in my life, Belba was the only one I could really stand. She let me be me.

“Let’s go,” she sighed and looped her arm with mine. She’d walk with me to the city circle, where she wouldn’t be able to stay with me.

It was odd the first years of the Red Games. Capitol citizens had never done their own reaping and so they looked unorganized and almost comical as those eligible stood in the centre of the circle. There were many of varying ages, a colourful pageantry of dull witted singles. It took a few years before age restrictions were put on the capitol entrants. When a 73 year old woman was picked as the Capitol’s 4th Red Games Rose, they limited the ages to match the districts.

Any single capitol citizen between the ages of 18 to 29 must participate. The gender required switches ever year. Of course this isn’t forced in the capitol. Everyone is beyond excited to play the Rose in the games. Well, apart from myself… but to refuse to be part of the reaping is to show rebellion and the last rebellion was too recent to risk pointing yourself out like that.

The districts were different, of course. Two tributes between the ages of 18 and 29 of each district are chosen, their gender is picked by the Rose after our reaping. In the districts, this day is just like the Hunger Reapings. It’s the same forced participation that few survive, as deadly a game as the Hunger games themselves. So, just as you survive your time in the Hunger reaping pools, you’re entered into the Red reapings and no one is safe until they turn 30.

This year will technically be my first year. When I was 18 I was registered out by a betrothal. The next year the Rose was a male pick and so now…. Now my name rests with all the others. My mom couldn’t stop talking about it, watching previous years competitions and thrilling at the idea that I might be picked. I had to bite my tongue to keep my mouth shut, and by now I had a very sore tongue.

It was easy to be the Rose. A capitol citizen to be an object of desire for others to fight over. The arena was the Capitol, events and parties, but there was a small arena. One in the city that pitted the tributes against each other. The Rose had all the control. Who would be spared, who would be thrown in ‘The Pit’ as it was affectionately called by everyone, who would survive to continue playing. And after all the torment and blood. The Victor and the Rose would be married and live in the capitol as celebrities for the rest of their lives. It was easy to see how a normal Capitol citizen would be thrilled to play the Rose.

But not me.

Belba finally released my arm as we arrived at the check in.

“Try to have fun,” she offered but the stern look on my face told her I’d do otherwise. She rolled her eyes in response. “Just twenty minutes of your time and then you can find me. Fredrick’s got a great spot to watch the fireworks. We’ll have a blast! Just twenty minutes.”

I sighed and offered a soft smile. She was right. A short twenty minutes and I could pretend all this celebration was for something other than death. It was little asked of me in comparison to the  citizens outside the city.

“I’ll see you after,” I confirmed and turned to line up.

The line was jittery and nervous, it reminded me of District 7, though the energy there came from dread, not excitement. The line moved quickly as eager women and men rushed into the centre of the circle. Soon, chariots of doomed tributes would be standing there instead.

Cameras lined the area and broadcasted over large screens. Everyone was dressed rather extravagantly. After so many years, everyone wanted to look their best if chosen. Your future partner was watching after all.

Now the citizens have learned to line up properly. They stand in rows based on age. I couldn’t wait until I grew old enough to stand in the very back rows, covered by high collars and even higher hair. For now, I was nearer the front in spectacular view of the cameras and without many people to hid behind. Still, I managed to find a particularly tall wig to stand behind in the hopes of remaining anonymous and unseen.

Twenty minutes, twenty minutes, just twenty minutes.

I looked down at where they pricked my finger to admit me. A small prick that many whined and moaned about even if it was such a quick and easy prick. Some faced much worst pain in their beauty procedures, this was only worth complaining about because of its lack of immediate reward.

The space will get tighter, more claustrophobic as people arrive. We all tightly press amongst each other as more eligible citizens clamour for their chance at fame and love. In the stands on all sides the older and younger generations sat with just as much anticipation. And beyond the city circle, others would be at venues and private parties watching the broadcast.

The people around me jabbered on, pointing out cameras with waving hands and discussing their chances. In front of us all was a stage with a bowl of names. One single bowl. My name rested in their twice, unless my mother purchased more entries for me. I was never sure if the same option was offered to the districts but really, who would pay money to have their name in there more often. Here it was an option heavily used, which was why the bowl in the center of the stage held far more little papers than their were people standing. It was five times the size of the capitol bowls.

The likelihood of my name being in there more than twice would have been high were it not for my father. Ever since my engagement ended, my mother had placed all her attention on finding me another match. No one was surprised at her enthusiasm and obsession with the Red Games this year. It was her chance to force me into a match. The only thing that stopped her at every turn was my father. Thank the Capitol for him.

The excited chatter only got worse and I knew why before I saw him. President Snow had taken his place in his large golden seat. Game makers filed out to stand on the stage with last years winners. Married now, Dawn and Tennitt stood hand in hand. Tennitt was what you might expect from the Capitol. He was tall and thin with bright orange hair and a sparkling blue suite. His white gloved hands held that of Dawn’s. Her slanted almond eyes looked about the crowd. Long black hair swept down her back, much longer than they’d been in the games last year. Her pale complexion looked odd against her orange dress, puffy and made to match her new husband. She was quiet, as she’d been in the games. There was something… empty in her eyes. It contrasted with the pleasant smile she kept plastered on her lips. She belonged to the Capitol now. There seemed to be no trace left of her District 2.

Everyone roared with sound until the President stood.

“Welcome to the 8th Annual Red Games,” he began.

The president’s speech was a blathering of self satisfaction, boasting commentary and fluff to fill the spaces. It was the same warning to districts not to rebel. The first year he’d had the thought to mention Katniss by name, which created unrest and anger through the districts. The next he only called her the rebel but still that only caused unrest. Now he was smart enough to pretend the girl on fire had never existed. It was a far firmer point to the districts who fell in line now.

With his words done the crowd was in a roar of applause again, this time for the Victor and Rose as they stood together for their chance to speak. Tennitt spoke of finding his love, his words eloquent and flowery. In reality they meant nothing. Dawn had her own chance to speak but it was much shorter. The way she spoke, it all sounded rehearsed and not of her own.

Finally the Capital’s representative stood. He’ll spend his time ushering the new Rose around, a job the district representatives would have killed for. His was a position hard fought as his Rose is a winner every. single. year. No matter what.

Garth Havensbee a short man dressed in emerald green with a pocket square of orange to match his last Rose. He looked pompous, and far too pleased with himself to be where he was, a celebrity in his own right. His voice was nasally as he offered a “Happy Red Games and may the rose bloom.” It was the newest version of ‘May the odds be every in your favour’. A constantly repeated mantra through these games that caused a wave of cheers.

Garth motioned for the crowds to calm and I looked about. There was no chance of me finding Belba and Fredrick, or any of my family. There were just too many people in the stands. Still, I couldn’t help but look just in case. It was better than listening to yet another speech about finding love and fighting for its prize. It was laughable to think Love could be found anywhere in these games.

The way a tribute won, was through violence and lies. Each district would offer up two tributes of the chosen gender. Some years that’s girls, others its boys, most of the time it’s one of each. Then the tributes are brought to the capital where they must woe the rose. It’s their only chance of survival. Each week, a set of tributes will be thrown in the pit to fight to the death. The winner continues to court the Rose. This all continues until there is only one. So a tribute is expected to romance a Capitol citizen, spoiled and naive, so that they might live as a prisoner. At least the victor of the hunger games would be sent home to live their lives in peace. The Victor of the Red Games would never be free. The most they could hope for would be a gilded cage.

The crowd suddenly picked up in volume, jumping and screaming in excitement. I looked back to the front to see Garth dramatically waved his hand over the bowl. Oh, it was selection time.

“Alright ladies, are you ready?” He asked and the crowds around me screamed. I had to cover my ears to block out the screeching.

Garth dipped his hand into the bowl, stirring the names around and I held my breath as I was jostled around by the ensuing mosh pit. Trust to Capitol to show such undignified behaviour during a reaping.

‘Not me, not me, not me,’ I chanted in my head. I didn’t really think it could be my name pulled. There were hundreds of thousands of slips in that bowl. My two slips had very little chance of being pulled amongst the incredible number. Still, I held my breath while the anticipation grew and grew.

Garth lifted his hand into the air, a slip of paper in his stubby fingers. He made a great show of opening the paper and the accompanying roar was near deafening. He opened his mouth and the audience never ceased their cheering so that he had to yell the name into the microphone to even be heard.

“Gemma Silver.”

One time, when I was young, I was playing by the waters edge with some friends. We always liked the way the current felt against our legs. The nearer you got to the dams the stronger the current. I had been fooling around when I slipped on a rock and found myself submerged under the current, being pulled away towards the dam. I remember the way the water encased me, how muted everything else became around me as I was swept away without any ability to resist.

That’s how I felt now, stunned as the world slowed and went silent around me. Of course the screaming was still rampant as people turned to look for Gemma. A few who knew me began pointing and the whole crowd excitedly pushed me towards the front. I was swept away in such a daze that sound didn’t seem to return until Garth was staring right at me. He was pausing for something. It took a moment to realize he’d asked me a question.

“What?” I asked, my own voice a foreign whisper to my own ears.

“What’s your choice for Tributes?” He asked again with a nasally laugh. The crowds joined, enjoying my speechlessness.

“I….” I couldn’t speak. I wanted to scream, to tell them to redraw, to tell them I choose no gender, that I wanted no part in this. But the world watched, every set of eyes trained on my face, every voice paused in one silent moment as they waited on my choice.

“Come on darling, we haven’t got all day,” Garth prompted away from the mic for only me to hear. He was becoming impatient with my silence. The crowds itched with anticipation as well.

“Male,” I squeaked out.

“She’s chosen male!” Garth declared and the whole stadium erupted into more cheers. Garth took my hand and raised it into the air to which the audience grew impossibly louder.

I could only stand and watch as the Capitol celebrated. I… I had given in, just like that. I had become a part of what I hated most about this place. For all my desire to rebel and change the world…. I gave in. I was a coward.

It was a blur after that. The Panam anthem played and a few more words were said before I was swept away yet again, this time by peacekeeper staff, gently guiding me out of the city circle and into a tall tower nearby where what seemed to be a private party for the game makers and other important people was taking place. So many came up to me, congratulating me and complimenting me. I could only whisper hushed thank you’s and nothing more. I managed to find a window which overlooked the city streets. People filled the area so it was a messy moving river of colours. I stared down as I processed what had just happened to me.

I was reaped. I was the Rose now. I’d be married off to someone from the districts after I cause the murder of 23 men. I was everything I hated about this place.

No, this wasn’t happening. None of that could be true. This was all just a bad dream, a horribly bad dream, just like the one I’d been having every night for the last week.

It began as a memory. I was nine again, living in District 7. School had just finished and all the kids were rushing out of the school to head home. The Hunger Games were being broadcasted and everyone was to go straight home to watch it. I was heading that way when I was pushed to the ground. I spun around to look up and see Trig’s face. Her usually olive complexion was paler and her eyes were rimmed in red from tears, but she wasn’t sad. She was angry. Rage painted her face as my best friend looked down at me.

“You! You’re one of them! This is your fault!” She yelled at me.

I didn’t understand and words failed me which was the wrong answer as Trig swung back and kicked me in the side. It tore the breath from my body as a huddled on my side, cradling the pain.

“You killed my brother!” She screamed again and kicked me in the stomach. My lungs struggled for air without success as pain I’d never felt before ran through me. By now, teachers had come by and grabbed Trig, pulling her away from me. I was helped up from the ground in time to make eye contact with Trig. Her dark brown eyes held a fury as she thrashed against the men pulling her away.

“I hate you! I hate you!” She screamed to me as she was dragged back to the school for punishment.

In reality, Trig would never speak to me again. Her brother had died in the 73rd Hunger Games that day and she’d forever blame the Capitol and all born there for it, including myself.

However in the nightmare, Trig would escape the men holding her and come barreling towards me. A knife appeared in her hand as she tackled me to the ground. She’d slice at my neck and laugh as I bled out, just like her brother Carver died. I felt every moment of it and by the third dream I knew it was coming. I’d struggle against her, attempting release but she’d always manage to hold my down and slit my throat. I’d wake up wrapped in my blankets like knots and in a cold sweat.

I gasped rather dramatically when I felt a hand pull at my shoulder to turn me around. Belba stood before me with Fredrick not too far behind her.

“Congratulations!” She loudly proclaimed but as she leaned forward to hug me, she whispered in my ear. “Are you alright?”

I couldn’t speak. I could only shake my head and fight back the anger that was beginning inside me. Belba sighed and released me, holding on to my shoulders to look over me.

“Of all the people who could have been drawn…” she murmured for only me to hear. She understood how much I didn’t want this.

I opened my mouth to speak but a shrill squeal came from the room in it’s place. My mother came in, loud and ecstatic, she made it over to me and wrapped me in her arms.

“Gemma, we did it! You’re the Rose! Oh the life you’re going to lead now!” She cried. I had to pry her arms off of me to get some air. The feathers at her neck were chocking as it was, let alone her smothering affection. The last thing I needed was her joy.

Luckily, her mother turned her attentions to the other people in the room.

“Can you believe it? My daughter! The Rose! I couldn’t be more proud!” She coed loudly to the room. I could already see her eyes darting around to see who were the most influential and important people in the room. It took everything in me not to die of embarrassment.

My father came around then, looping his arm around my shoulder and only speaking to me.

“This is going to be quite the adventure, eh Gemma? Nothing is going to be the same,” he optimistically remarked.

It was hard to ignore the heaviness in my heart at his words. He meant them in celebration, but I felt them in dismay and despair.

The rest of the party felt like a blur. Important people shook my hand and asked me ridiculous questions such as what colour would be my signature or how tall I hoped my future husband might be. It all felt so trivial and it only worsened my mood. Guilt wracked me at every turn.

“Gemma! Over here!” Belba called at one point. I drifted over to her and the woman standing before her. “Gemma this is Belladonna. She’ll be your stylist this year!”

Belba was starry eyed as she looked over the lean woman who wore all black apart from a red rose. It would seem understated were it not for the large black cages that sat on either hip and her shoulders. A black veil reached over her left eye and gave her a dangerous look. Her blond hair was pin straight, ending in a sharp bob and complimenting her dark carmel skin.

“Charmed,” she purred, holding out her hand covered in a black lace glove. Her black lips quirked up in a smirk when I took her hand and shook it in a daze.

“Quite a shock to the system, this sudden surge in fame,” Belladonna offered but there was something in her eyes like she meant more that she couldn’t or wouldn’t say.

I could only nod before the designer began to circle me. She gently touched the few flowers on my dress and the gold clips in my hair with her spidery like fingers.

“A flower to be sure, but is there anything beneath it,” she commented to herself.

It was then my mother came barreling over. Letta had indulged too much on wine already. Her bleach blond hair was falling out of it’s careful curls and the literal nest she’d secured this morning was falling to the side.

“Gemma! My sweet girl,” she came over and pinched my cheeks. It hurt nearly as much as her checkered dress hurt my eyes. “You’re going to get married. You’ll have a wedding after all,” she explained a little too emotionally.

I looked about at the attention she was drawing. My shoulders tensed with it.

“You know, when Marcius broke off the engagement I was afraid you’d never find a man, or a partner. Honestly I thought Belba might have been your girlfriend for a time but then she found fredrick and I thought you’d be all alone.” Letta continued.

It was all too much, too loud, too embarrassing.

“Stop it mother,” I tried to speak through gritted teeth but she either didn’t hear me over her performance or didn’t care. Instead she placed her hands on my shoulders to speak directly to me, and the crowd that gathered around us.

“You were always such a hard one to match up. No matter how hard I tried, and believe me I tried, I couldn’t seem to get a man to stick around for you but now! Now they’ll have no choice, eh piglet?”

It was a cruel nickname my mother had for me when I was young. I carried too much weight in her opinion, my body not quite the style it should be and my refusal to take Capitol measures to fix it was what spurned the name. I grew out of it to some degree, my baby fat becoming a fuller womanly figure. Still, she could not help but comment on the willowy form that was popular in the city and my much curvier shape.

It was that name that made me snap. “Enough!” I screamed and pushed aside my mothers doting hands aside.

The room was silent from my outburst but I didn’t care. The startled eyes could look at me all they want, it wouldn’t help calm the simmering rage beneath my skin.

“The one thing I’m most grateful for mother, is the time I’ll have away from you,” I hissed before turning and storming out of the room.

All eyes watched and I could hear one quiet comment over the silence.

“The flower has some thorns,” Belladonna spoke.

I walked home that night. Few people stopped me as few people thought the Rose would be anywhere but the largest party of the night. I managed to get home with relative ease and went straight for my bedroom where I locked the door. The room was still silenced from this morning, the first quiet I’d found since this morning.

Finally I could have a moment of peace. A moment to process. A moment to sink to the floor and cry.

It felt like hours alone. I managed to pick myself off the floor and into my bed where I hid under the covers, hoping this was all a dream. No matter how many times I shut my eyes when they opened, it still wasn’t a dream.

A pounding fist on my door startled me. Letta’s voice came through.

“Gemma! Open this door this instant!” She screeched. I could hear my father trying to make her see reason and not confront me but she wasn’t having any of it.

My rage renewed I stood and marched to the door, opening it to both of their surprise.

“Gemma!” My mother seemed as angry as I was, even more of a mess than the last time I’d seen her. “What were you thinking!? Do you have any idea how much you embarrassed me!”

“I embarrassed you?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes! Your blow ups, Gemma they’ll be the death of me I swear,” she tried to head into my room for her next performance but I refused to step out of the way for her.

“I wish they would already,” I spoke through gritted teeth.

“Gemma,” my father scolded but Letta took the insult and ran with it.

“You wish me dead? Is that it?” Large fake tears began to fall over her rosy cheeks. “Oh isn’t that wonderful. I give my daughter the world and she wants me dead.”

“Quit your crying, we all know you don’t mean a word of it,” I spat.

“Oh I mean it! These tears are real but they’re not for me! They’re for you!” She tried but I rolled my eyes. “You know this is the reason Marcius left you,” she tried.

Without thinking I reeled back and slapped her across the face. Silence prevailed as shock replaced my mothers dramatics. Not even my father dared to say another word.

“How DARE you!? I should-”

“You should what?” Letta was interrupted by a nasally voice. Behind her and my father stood Havvery and some guests he’d let into the house. Garth stood with Belladonna and a few others behind her.

“I.. I… she…” Letta sputtered but Garth was already moving past her towards me.

“Might I come in?” He asked and I stepped aside for him, casting Letta another dirty look. The others followed and when only Letta and my father were left in the hallway Garth offered a pleasant thanks and shut the door.

“Gemma Silver, I believe you’ve had the change to meet Belladonna Ivy.” I gave a not to Garth’s words. “Well this is Remington and Imogen, members of her, and now your, style team.”

I had no words, the sudden change from a fight to such polite introductions was staggering. Garth used this as a chance to speak a rehearsed welcome he must have given to all the Roses.

“As we begin the 8th Annual Red Games you will become the centre of focus for all of Panam. As such it is imperative that you make a good impression on the country. As such I will help guild you through these tasks and assist in any way I can. Together we will craft your love story and show Panam that life is always better unified.”

I was barely listening as he spoke and it seemed Garth didn’t care much.

“Now, I will take my leave. Belladonna will see that you are ready for your send off and we’ll head out on this marvellous adventure,” he spoke, again rather board.

I only nodded again. Garth accepted that and left to no doubt calm my mother down, perhaps scold her a bit if I was lucky. Though luck hadn’t exactly been on my side as of late.

Belladonna began rounding me once more. Her assistants, Remington and Imogen, who happened to look like twins with their lavender hair, near white skin and sweeping fitted cloaks. The only differences lied in their eyes. Remington’s were a soft grey and Imogen were a deep jade. They began taking notes on a small tablet while Belladonna circled me like prey. She came to the front and took my chin, raising it to meet my eyes.

“Tears of joy perhaps?” She commented, noting the redness of them and what must have been streaks of gold carried down my cheeks with my tears. She didn’t need me to answer. Instead she moved to my bed where Imogen placed a large box, unsnapping latches and opening all the various folding trays. Inside lay a smattering of colours, all waiting to paint my face. Her collection of paints and brushes put mine to shame. Belladonna spoke while examining the many tools and trays.

“My job is different than most stylists. Where most stylists are meant to help tributes find sponsors, my role is far more important.” She stopped and turned to me. “I am to make you worth dying for.”

My heart dropped at the idea. I hadn’t even thought of what the tributes might think of me.

“Now now, not to fear,” Belladonna sensed my fears all too clearly and reached for me, pushing my hair back and taking my face in her hands.

“This is your kindness to them, do you understand? They will be chosen, no matter who the rose is, tributes will be chosen and will die. It’s a service to them, you see, that you make yourself a worthy prize for all the loss they’ll face.”

Her words added more pressure that I hadn’t even thought to add to my shoulders. I would be their ruin and now I had to make myself worth that ruin? I had only hours ago let myself down. How could I not do the same to 24 unfortunate souls I’d yet to meet?

“Where are they?” Belladonna asked, confused.

For a moment I thought she might be speaking to her assistants but it seemed she was looking for something on my face.

“What?”

“Your thorns dear, where did they go? I saw them at the party,” she clarified with a kind smile on her black lips that didn’t match her usual mischievous grin.

She waited until I cracked the smallest of smiles before she released me and headed back to her work. My face was cleaned and drops were placed in my eyes to calm their redness. I was stripped down and placed in a robe as well, my hair untied around my shoulders to start from scratch.

“You made a sweet impression at the reaping, but let’s not have them think you’re some kind of soft girl. You’ll need to be capable. You’ll need to seem in control.”

The way Belladonna spoke, I had the impression the tributes were still more on her mind than the Capitol. That did ease my worry in some way. If her worries were alined with my own it would make this all so much easier.

Belladona began, painting my face with brushes and powders. She and her large cages stood in my way that I couldn’t see her work. Behind me I could hear the twin assistants working and moving, all in silence.

All the while Belladonna made small conversation. She asked me questions, about my family and my life. I wasn’t sure if it was to get to know me or to ease and distract me but it worked on all accounts. Soon she turned me and began working on my hair. I could see now that the twins were laying out clothing options, accessories and more that Belladonna gave the most subtle cues to. I couldn’t even perceive them but they seemed to know what she wanted.

The colours that laid on my bed weren’t far off from my peach choices this morning. White crossing strips of ribbon were embellished by flowers in blues, lavenders and soft pinks.

“So we’re taking the rose thing rather literal this year,” I commented to Belladonna. I instantly regretted it, I shouldn’t have been so rude to someone who was just trying to help.

“Oh the flowers aren’t about your title,” she corrected without skipping a beat. “The capitol can be cold, fake and cruel. Every district knows this but you, you will be different.” She finished with one last pin in my hair and encouraged me to stand with a push to my shoulders. The twins were already removing my robe and holding out a nude strapless one piece. The lines in it and corseting gave detail and shape as I stepped in.

“Though the Capitol look can be very alluring, it won’t be to tributes. I want to make a statement that separates you from the rest of us. A beacon for tributes to flock to.”

Once laced into the corseting, the white ribbons were lifted over my head. I could see now what the idea was. Each white ribbon wrapped around me as though the outline of a dress rather than the full piece. It began around my neck in a chocker and down my shoulders. More lines moved across my waist and at my hips the ribbon became stiff, moving away from me to create an a-line gown that reached to the flood. Through t it reacted the illusion of a dress my full leg was shown all the way to my one piece. This would have been rather risqué were it not for the flowers that wrapped around my waist and flowed down the ribbon cage. It was beautiful to be sure but…

“Ah, ah ah,” Belladonna waved her finger before me. “No second guessing yourself.” She took my shoulders and turned me towards my mirror.

On the other side of the mirror stood a beauty. Every line of ribbon the dress created was meant to accentuate my figure, making me look mature and kind of sexy, while the flowers made me look feminine. My make up matched that tone, colours that were reflected in the flowers of my dress had been painted on my lids, making my eyes large and my skin dewy. My hair was far less tamed than most in the capitol these days. My hair was pulled back in loose braids, nearly falling apart, that ran down my back. Delicate flowers had been woven into my brown hair all the way to its gold ends.

Belladonna picked and perfected a few of those flowers as she stood behind me. Imogen placed simple pearl earrings on my ears while Remington added a perfect violet gold band to my finger.

“You, my dear, will be a natural beauty amongst a world of harsh illusions.”

I gawked, unaware my curvy shape could be celebrated rather than altered. The look felt, simple and authentic yet would not be questioned by the capitol citizens. “Thank you,” I whispered as my hands began to explore the garden at my hips.

“Don’t thank me yet, we have a long journey ahead of us,” Belladonna added as she made a motion to the twins. In mere moments the entirety of their tools and things were packed away and ready to leave.

I was lead out to my living room where Letta and my father sat. Father read from his tablet while mother bowed her head. It was clear that Garth had been disciplining my mother. He all but ignored my father behind him and stood directly before Letta.

“We’re ready,” Belladonna announced and Garth lifted his gaze with a smile.

“Ah, aren’t you lovely,” he complimented and moved to my side with an offered hand. “Now, we’ll take you to the train station where we’ll begin the Reaping Tour. It is customary to say your goodbyes here.” He let his gaze turn to my uninterested father and emotionally exhausting mother.

“Goodbye,” I gave in a short tone. Father gave a wave and a smile, knowing he’d see me soon. Letta only made a blubbering sound, unhappy she wasn’t being doted on for her fake tears.

I gave Garth a nod and he seem to be quite understanding of my lack of sentiment. He lead me out the door without question into an awaiting black car.

This time I, or rather the car, was clearly noticed. They waved and screamed from either side even though I was sure they couldn’t see me through the tint of the car.

“You can stand and wave if you’d like,” Garth informed me when he noticed where my attention was. He motioned to the sunroof above us.

“No,” I spoke and cast my eyes down to my floral ring.

I’d been right not to wave. There was no need. It seemed the whole city had turned out at the station.

Citizens and reporters with their insect like cameras trained directly on my face all pushed to get just a little closer as the car doors opened. Peacekeepers kept them at bay but it seemed a struggle for them, especially once they caught sight of me. They screamed and hollered for even a second of my attention. This was fame it seemed.

I caught a glimpse of myself on a television screen on the wall that was airing my arrival live and felt gratified that I appeared just as Belladonna hoped. I looked natural, especially amongst the capitals vivid colours and multitude of augmentations.

I gave small sweet smiles but I just couldn’t hide how overwhelming this was.

I was ushered towards the train, eager to be out of the spotlight. Still, I was forced to stand a few minutes in the doorway of the train while the cameras gobbled up my images, then we were allowed inside and the doors close mercifully behind us. The train began to move at once.

The speed initially took my breath away. It had been years since I’d been on a train. The last one brought me back to the capitol almost eleven years ago. It was one of the high-speed Capitol model just like this one. I ran a hand over one of the chairs, it even smelt the same as before.

The staff on the train wore Red outfits with golden trim and showed us each to our rooms. I was surprised as I passed door after door. Twelve to be exact, one for each district on this section of the train. Their handlers and designers would be at the other end of the train. My room was larger and set just before the last car of the train. I’d be close to the viewing room with all it’s windows, but every single person on the train would know where to find me.

Stepping inside my chambers had a lavish suite. It would have been a well sized room were it not for the monstrous bed taking up most of the space. There’d have been room for a sitting area otherwise. Instead I had only a bathroom and dressing area apart from the sleeping area. I wouldn’t have seemed so… spoiled if I didn’t know exactly why the bed was so large.

Though I’d avoided watching too much of either games, it was impossible to ignore. It was broadcasted everywhere and all anyone talked about. I’d seen the blood and carnage. I’d seen the parties and events. I’d even heard of and seen one of the more heated nights between the rose and a tribute. I could never understand how the rose agreed to allow the broadcast of such an intimate moment. I couldn’t bring myself to watch it, let alone be broadcast doing it.

The drawers were filled with fine clothes all approved by Belladonna, as was expected. They were simple and comfortable. The real dresses were in Belledonna’s room, those were the dresses for the cameras. For now I was free to wear whatever I wanted.

After carefully taking off my outfit I looked over the clothing and opted for the thick, warm robe instead. I pulled out my hair and all it’s flowers as well as wiping off my make up. They’d just re-dress me again when we arrived at district one in a few hours. That was our first stop. District one. The district took turns deciding which way they would be reaped. The rose was to be present at each so the order the districts were reaped mattered strategically, it added time alone on the train with the rose. This year would begin at 1 and end at 12B

The only thing I kept on was the violet ring.

Flowers weren’t often real in the Capitol. They were silk or other materials and the ones that were grown were genetic mutations meant to look perfect. The petrified violet on my hand however, that was a real flower. Or it had been once upon a time. I let my finger stroke over the now preserved petals. Real, genuine beauty. That’s what I wanted to be. Belladonna’s natural look was to make me stand out and it had certainly done that. I wanted more. I wanted to be separate.

I’d always played the rebel. I stood up to the capitol in meaningless, insignificant ways. A braid, a secret aversion to games, a reluctance to participate fully. It was pitiful attempts to make up for my birth given status. This time I would make it clear, I would pick a side. I would choose the districts and their tributes instead of the capitol I was born to. No matter what happened, I would be on their side.

Garth came to collect me for supper. I followed him through the narrow, rocking corridor into a dining room with polished paneled walls. There was a table set for myself and my team.

I sat at the head of the table. Garth took the seat to my right and Belladonna to my left with the twins beside her. The rest of the table held countless chairs with no place settings. It would be for each of my doomed suitors. A shiver ran down my spine at the horrid idea.

Supper came in course after silent course. A thick carrot soup, green salad, lamb chops and mashed potatoes, cheese and fruit, a chocolate cake. Throughout the meal, Garth kept blathering on about all the exciting things I would experience in each district. After the Reaping they would put on some sort of feast, celebration or custom to entertain me. It would all be for me. I knew Garth was trying to cheer me up and get me excited but every word grated on my nerves and worsened my guilt.

I remained quiet until the meal was over and the moment I was free I excused myself and rushed straight to the last car to be alone. This time of night it was actually beautiful, the capitol was so bright that seeing the stars was impossible. Out here, they twinkled far above me, perfectly displayed through the glass ceiling of the car. I curled up on one of the chairs and stared at the sky.

All night the parties in the Capitol would continue. They would rerun my reaping, speak about all the things they could find out about me through the day. My age, my parents of which Letta would be thrilled, my past in District 7, my past engagement and tragic break up with Marcius, it would all be playing all night for the Capitol to indulge. My life, their entertainment.

I didn’t mean to but I fell asleep in that chair. When I woke to sunlight I ached from being curled up. It took time to stretch myself out. The sun felt too bright and I stumbled even though the train was no longer moving. We were stopped at District 1’s station, ready for the first of district reapings.

[thescificollection-blog]

“May the Odds Be Ever In Your Favor”

Young adult literature seems to often be assumed as a critical analysis black hole. Most novels directed at teens seem to focus on the politics of relationships and romance, yet a few like to venture off into the politics of the world. Suzanne Collins’ trilogy The Hunger Games is a diamond in the rough as far as young adult science fiction novels go.

Set in a future America where a disaster has caused the dividing of the country into districts that specialize in exports, the Hunger Games are real events that take place every year. Pitting two tributes from each of the twelve districts up against each other in a televised battle royal. If it sounds horrific, that is the point, Collin’s has stated that her inspiration came from flipping through the channels on her television and seeing both reality shows and Iraq war coverage1. The idea of children struggling to survive in a hostile war zone being a national sporting event like our college football games every year was meant to be shocking.

The idea of the Hunger Games is not necessarily radical, the politics being very similar to why we can turn on the television and see live cop footage of bombs being dropped on cities in Iraq. It is a sense of desensitization of human life that has become the norm as years pass. People once thought that the past was what was supposed to be littered with the horrors of war and human disgrace while the future was to hold opportunity and freedoms, except it appears that is not the case in our world or Panem2. Collin’s novels follow Katniss’ struggles navigating a government who has deemed children’s lives to be worth as much as cheap entertainment.

Out first hint to the brutal government of Panem is when Katniss is monologuing about how the Capitol “Take[s] the kids from out districts, forcing them to kill one another while we watch- this is the Capitol’s way of reminding us how totally we are at their mercy.” because this is a government that wants complete control over its people to avoid any and all rebellion3. The idea of keeping people in their place by using the lives of children is not a new concept, and has been used in war tactics dating as far back as the Napoleon era. Because children hold the future in their life, the threat of losing them creates a population of accepting adults who are willing to sacrifice the lives of twenty three in order to keep the rest safe for another year.

However that is not as easy as it seems on paper, because love always complicates things. For Katniss the love of her sister Prim is enough to sacrifice everything. “‘I volunteer!’ [She] gasp[s]. ‘I volunteer as tribute!’” are the words that make Katniss a double sacrifice4. She is sacrificing herself as her sister’s keeper, as well as a sacrifice for her community by solidifying the young bright future will still have someone to keep life and tradition going. Her sacrifice is one that their district has never seen before, and it is enough to cause the crowd to honor her in a sacred symbol “...every member of the crowd touches the three middle finger of their left hand to their lips and holds it out to [her]... It means thanks, it means admiration, it means good-bye to someone you love.” because they understand what a great sacrifice she is making5. Her life, her ability to care for Prim, her future has all been slammed into halt all for the sake of reinforcing the idea of complete mercy to a government who does not care about them.

Once becoming the female tribute of district twelve Katniss is taken to the Capitol where she sees that those who live in luxury, who are not affected by the flights of the districts that struggle to survive, even outside of the games, live. And it is just as polarizing as looking at the one percent in our current world. The people of the Capitol use “the arenas [as] historic sites… popular destinations for Capitol residents to visit, to vacation… visit the sites where the deaths took place. [They] can even take part in reenactments.” because to those who are favored by the government see this as meer entertainment6. They do not see the damage it is causing the districts that struggle, the trama it leaves in those children that survive, or the heartlessness it takes to see the lives of innocent children as a means of brutal entertainment. They do not see the suffering of others as something to be changed, but as something to discuss as if it is the latest sports game. Techniques used by tributes to survive are talked about as if they are some passing fashion trend, instead of fight or flight reaction to staring death in the eyes. It is very similar to how we might speak of the wars in Iraq, the horrors of the Holocaust, or disease outbreaks in African countries because there is a disconnect. It is hard to imagine the very real suffering of these people even as it happens, let alone as they pass into new and escalating horrors.

Once in the games Katniss finds herself participating as much as she can, killing in order to survive and making an alley along the way. Rue, a young girl much like Prim, helps Katniss avoid an altercation with some of the more prepared tributes and does her best to help Katniss survive the wilderness. Her death is a signifier that no one is safe in war. Innocence and pure kindness has no place in a world where everyone is out for themselves and Katniss’ reaction is a retaliation to this idea. “[She] want[ed] to do something, right here, right now, to shame them, to make them accountable, to show the Capitol that whatever they do or force [them] to do that there is a part of every tribute they cannot own,” she makes sure that they know “that rue was more than a piece in their Games,” that Katniss is more than just a pawn they can toss away7. Katniss is finally seeing the Capitol and their game as what it really is, a play of power that she is no longer willing to just sit and accept. As Katniss takes her precious time to give Rue a proper burial, she risks her life, because she believes making it a point to prove that Rue was a true innocent is important. By “slowly, one stem at a time. [She] decorate[s] her body in flowers. Covering the ugly wound. Weathering her face. Weaving her hair with bright colors” Katniss is showing the Capitol and the citizens of each district that she will no longer play by the rules because the sacrifice is no longer something she is willing to ignore8. Her acknowledgement of Rue is a turning point for the public opinion because this is no longer an entertaining game, but a reality of children losing more than just the title of victor.

At the end, when Katniss and Peeta decide to both die together then to kill each other, they are telling the Capitol that they will no longer be giving into their demands. They have decided that their lives are more important than the entertainment of the upper classes. This is important because it also starts the seeds of doubt through the other districts. When Peeta and Katniss agree to this action they believe “maybe they don’t care if we both die”, but that is not true and is proven when the game master announces that they are both deemed to be the victors of the games9. The games depend on having a winner to keep the false narrative that anyone can rise from the ashes of horror to be a star. By Katniss and Peeta attempting to both lose the narrative would change and loyalties would shift which no government wants. They would rather change status quo then risk the possibility of people questioning the reasoning behind sacrificing children.

The Hunger Games is a very good introduction for young adults into the complex idea of war and sacrificing children for political gain. It makes one think about how willing they are to just accept how the government uses its power over them, lets them question the background reasoning for government actions. And that is what science fiction is supposed to do, it is supposed to show its reader a possible world that reflects modern issues in an alien way in order to stimulate out of the box thinking to analyze what they are willing to let happen and what they are willing to change.

Notes

1. “The Hunger Games: Who Is Author Suzanne Collins?” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 23 Mar. 2012

2. Martin, Randy. “Where Did The Future Go?” Logos

3. Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. Scholastic , 2008. (18)

4. Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. Scholastic , 2008. (22)

5. Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. Scholastic , 2008. (24)

6. Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. Scholastic , 2008. (144)

7. Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. Scholastic , 2008. (236)

8. Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. Scholastic , 2008. (236)

9. Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. Scholastic , 2008. (344)

Bibliography

Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. Scholastic , 2008.

Martin, Randy. “Where Did The Future Go?” Logos, www.logosjournal.com/issue_5.1/martin.htm.

“The Hunger Games: Who Is Author Suzanne Collins?” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 23 Mar. 2012, www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/9161107/The-Hunger-Games-Who-is-author-Suzanne-Collins.html.

[readbookywooks]

5 R-i-i-i-p! I grit my teeth as Venia, a woman with aqua hair and gold tattoos above her eyebrows, yanks a strip of Fabric from my leg tearing out the hair beneath it. "Sorry!" she pipes in her silly Capitol accent. "You're just so hairy!" Why do these people speak in such a high pitch? Why do their jaws barely open when they talk? Why do the ends of their sentences go up as if they're asking a question? Odd vowels, clipped words, and always a hiss on the letter s. no wonder it's impossible not to mimic them. Venia makes what's supposed to be a sympathetic face. "Good news, though. This is the last one. Ready?" I get a grip on the edges of the table I'm seated on and nod. The final swathe of my leg hair is uprooted in a painful jerk. I've been in the Remake Center for more than three hours and I still haven't met my stylist. Apparently he has no interest in seeing me until Venia and the other members of my prep team have addressed some obvious problems. This has included scrubbing down my body with a gritty loam that has removed not only dirt but at least three layers of skin, turning my nails into uniform shapes, and primarily, ridding my body of hair. My legs, arms, torso, underarms, and parts of my eyebrows have been stripped of the Muff, leaving me like a plucked bird, ready for roasting. I don't like it. My skin feels sore and tingling and intensely vulnerable. But I have kept my side of the bargain with Haymitch, and no objection has crossed my lips. "You're doing very well," says some guy named Flavius. He gives his orange corkscrew locks a shake and applies a fresh coat of purple lipstick to his mouth. "If there's one thing we can't stand, it's a whiner. Grease her down!" Venia and Octavia, a plump woman whose entire body has been dyed a pale shade of pea green, rub me down with a lotion that first stings but then soothes my raw skin. Then they pull me from the table, removing the thin robe I've been allowed to wear off and on. I stand there, completely naked, as the three circle me, wielding tweezers to remove any last bits of hair. I know I should be embarrassed, but they're so unlike people that I'm no more self-conscious than if a trio of oddly colored birds were pecking around my feet. The three step back and admire their work. "Excellent! You almost look like a human being now!" says Flavius, and they all laugh. I force my lips up into a smile to show how grateful I am. "Thank you," I say sweetly. "We don't have much cause to look nice in District Twelve." This wins them over completely. "Of course, you don't, you poor darling!" says Octavia clasping her hands together in distress for me. "But don't worry," says Venia. "By the time Cinna is through with you, you're going to be absolutely gorgeous!" "We promise! You know, now that we've gotten rid of all the hair and filth, you're not horrible at all!" says Flavius encouragingly. "Let's call Cinna!" They dart out of the room. It's hard to hate my prep team. They're such total idiots. And yet, in an odd way, I know they're sincerely trying to help me. I look at the cold white walls and floor and resist the impulse to retrieve my robe. But this Cinna, my stylist, will surely make me remove it at once. Instead my hands go to my hairdo, the one area of my body my prep team had been told to leave alone. My fingers stroke the silky braids my mother so carefully arranged. My mother. I left her blue dress and shoes on the floor of my train car, never thinking about retrieving them, of trying to hold on to a piece of her, of home. Now I wish I had. The door opens and a young man who must be Cinna enters. I'm taken aback by how normal he looks. Most of the stylists they interview on television are so dyed, stenciled, and surgically altered they're grotesque. But Cinna's close-cropped hair appears to be its natural shade of brown. He's in a simple black shirt and pants. The only concession to self-alteration seems to be metallic gold eyeliner that has been applied with a light hand. It brings out the flecks of gold in his green eyes. And, despite my disgust with the Capitol and their hideous fashions, I can't help thinking how attractive it looks. "Hello, Katniss. I'm Cinna, your stylist," he says in a quiet voice somewhat lacking in the Capitol's affectations. "Hello," I venture cautiously. "Just give me a moment, all right?" he asks. He walks around my naked body, not touching me, but taking in every inch of it with his eyes. I resist the impulse to cross my arms over my chest. "Who did your hair?" "My mother," I say. "It's beautiful. Classic really. And in almost perfect balance with your profile. She has very clever fingers," he says. I had expected someone flamboyant, someone older trying desperately to look young, someone who viewed me as a piece of meat to be prepared for a platter. Cinna has met none of these expectations. "You're new, aren't you? I don't think I've seen you before," I say. Most of the stylists are familiar, constants in the ever-changing pool of tributes. Some have been around my whole life. "Yes, this is my first year in the Games," says Cinna. "So they gave you District Twelve," I say. Newcomers generally end up with us, the least desirable district. "I asked for District Twelve," he says without further explanation. "Why don't you put on your robe and we'll have a chat." Pulling on my robe, I follow him through a door into a sitting room. Two red couches face off over a low table. Three walls are blank, the fourth is entirely glass, providing a window to the city. I can see by the light that it must be around noon, although the sunny sky has turned overcast. Cinna invites me to sit on one of the couches and takes his place across from me. He presses a button on the side of the table. The top splits and from below rises a second tabletop that holds our lunch. Chicken and chunks of oranges cooked in a creamy sauce laid on a bed of pearly white grain, tiny green peas and onions, rolls shaped like flowers, and for dessert, a pudding the color of honey. I try to imagine assembling this meal myself back home. Chickens are too expensive, but I could make do with a wild turkey. I'd need to shoot a second turkey to trade for an orange. Goat's milk would have to substitute for cream. We can grow peas in the garden. I'd have to get wild onions from the woods. I don't recognize the grain, our own tessera ration cooks down to an unattractive brown mush. Fancy rolls would mean another trade with the baker, perhaps for two or three squirrels. As for the pudding, I can't even guess what's in it. Days of hunting and gathering for this one meal and even then it would be a poor substitution for the Capitol version. What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food appears at the press of a button? How would I spend the hours I now commit to combing the woods for sustenance if it were so easy to come by? What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol, besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of tributes to roll in and die for their entertainment? I look up and find Cinna's eyes trained on mine. "How despicable we must seem to you," he says. Has he seen this in my face or somehow read my thoughts? He's right, though. The whole rotten lot of them is despicable. "No matter," says Cinna. "So, Katniss, about your costume for the opening ceremonies. My partner, Portia, is the stylist for your fellow tribute, Peeta. And our current thought is to dress you in complementary costumes," says Cinna. "As you know, it's customary to reflect the flavor of the district." For the opening ceremonies, you're supposed to wear something that suggests your district's principal industry. District 11, agriculture. District 4, fishing. District 3, factories. This means that coming from District 12, Peeta and I will be in some kind of coal miner's getup. Since the baggy miner's jumpsuits are not particularly becoming, our tributes usually end up in skimpy outfits and hats with headlamps. One year, our tributes were stark naked and covered in black powder to represent coal dust. It's always dreadful and does nothing to win favor with the crowd. I prepare myself for the worst. "So, I'll be in a coal miner outfit?" I ask, hoping it won't be indecent. "Not exactly. You see, Portia and I think that coal miner thing's very overdone. No one will remember you in that. And we both see it as our job to make the District Twelve tributes unforgettable," says Cinna. I'll be naked for sure, I think. "So rather than focus on the coal mining itself, we're going to focus on the coal," says Cinna. Naked and covered in black dust, I think. "And what do we do with coal? We burn it," says Cinna. "You're not afraid of fire, are you, Katniss?" He sees my expression and grins. A few hours later, I am dressed in what will either be the most sensational or the deadliest costume in the opening ceremonies. I'm in a simple black unitard that covers me from ankle to neck. Shiny leather boots lace up to my knees. But it's the fluttering cape made of streams of orange, yellow, and red and the matching headpiece that define this costume. Cinna plans to light them on fire just before our chariot rolls into the streets. "It's not real flame, of course, just a little synthetic fire Portia and I came up with. You'll be perfectly safe," he says. But I'm not convinced I won't be perfectly barbecued by the time we reach the city's center. My face is relatively clear of makeup, just a bit of highlighting here and there. My hair has been brushed out and then braided down my back in my usual style. "I want the audience to recognize you when you're in the arena," says Cinna dreamily. "Katniss, the girl who was on fire." It crosses my mind that Cinna's calm and normal demeanor masks a complete madman. Despite this morning's revelation about Peeta's character, I'm actually relieved when he shows up, dressed in an identical costume. He should know about fire, being a baker's son and all. His stylist, Portia, and her team accompany him in, and everyone is absolutely giddy with excitement over what a splash we'll make. Except Cinna. He just seems a bit weary as he accepts congratulations. We're whisked down to the bottom level of the Remake Center, which is essentially a gigantic stable. The opening ceremonies are about to start. Pairs of tributes are being loaded into chariots pulled by teams of four horses. Ours are coal black. The animals are so well trained, no one even needs to guide their reins. Cinna and Portia direct us into the chariot and carefully arrange our body positions, the drape of our capes, before moving off to consult with each other. "What do you think?" I whisper to Peeta. "About the fire?" "I'll rip off your cape if you'll rip off mine," he says through gritted teeth. "Deal," I say. Maybe, if we can get them off soon enough, we'll avoid the worst burns. It's bad though. They'll throw us into the arena no matter what condition we're in. "I know we promised Haymitch we'd do exactly what they said, but I don't think he considered this angle." "Where is Haymitch, anyway? Isn't he supposed to protect us from this sort of thing?" says Peeta. "With all that alcohol in him, it's probably not advisable to have him around an open flame," I say. And suddenly we're both laughing. I guess we're both so nervous about the Games and more pressingly, petrified of being turned into human torches, we're not acting sensibly. The opening music begins. It's easy to hear, blasted around the Capitol. Massive doors slide open revealing the crowd-lined streets. The ride lasts about twenty minutes and ends up at the City Circle, where they will welcome us, play the anthem, and escort us into the Training Center, which will be our home/prison until the Games begin. The tributes from District 1 ride out in a chariot pulled by snow-white horses. They look so beautiful, spray-painted silver, in tasteful tunics glittering with jewels. District 1 makes luxury items for the Capitol. You can hear the roar of the crowd. They are always favorites. District 2 gets into position to follow them. In no time at all, we are approaching the door and I can see that between the overcast sky and evening hour the light is turning gray. The tributes from District 11 are just rolling out when Cinna appears with a lighted torch. "Here we go then," he says, and before we can react he sets our capes on fire. I gasp, waiting for the heat, but there is only a faint tickling sensation. Cinna climbs up before us and ignites our headdresses. He lets out a sign of relief. "It works." Then he gently tucks a hand under my chin. "Remember, heads high. Smiles. They're going to love you!" Cinna jumps off the chariot and has one last idea. He shouts something up at us, but the music drowns him out. He shouts again and gestures. "What's he saying?" I ask Peeta. For the first time, I look at him and realize that ablaze with the fake flames, he is dazzling. And I must be, too. "I think he said for us to hold hands," says Peeta. He grabs my right hand in his left, and we look to Cinna for confirmation. He nods and gives a thumbs-up, and that's the last thing I see before we enter the city. The crowd's initial alarm at our appearance quickly changes to cheers and shouts of "District Twelve!" Every head is turned our way, pulling the focus from the three chariots ahead of us. At first, I'm frozen, but then I catch sight of us on a large television screen and am floored by how breathtaking we look. In the deepening twilight, the firelight illuminates our faces. We seem to be leaving a trail of fire off the flowing capes. Cinna was right about the minimal makeup, we both look more attractive but utterly recognizable. Remember, heads high. Smiles. They're going to love you! I hear Cinna's voice in my head. I lift my chin a bit higher, put on my most winning smile, and wave with my free hand. I'm glad now I have Peeta to clutch for balance, he is so steady, solid as a rock. As I gain confidence, I actually blow a few kisses to the crowd. The people of the Capitol are going nuts, showering us with flowers, shouting our names, our first names, which they have bothered to find on the program. The pounding music, the cheers, the admiration work their way into my blood, and I can't suppress my excitement. Cinna has given me a great advantage. No one will forget me. Not my look, not my name. Katniss. The girl who was on fire. For the first time, I feel a flicker of hope rising up in me. Surely, there must be one sponsor willing to take me on! And with a little extra help, some food, the right weapon, why should I count myself out of the Games? Someone throws me a red rose. I catch it, give it a delicate sniff, and blow a kiss back in the general direction of the giver. A hundred hands reach up to catch my kiss, as if it were a real and tangible thing. "Katniss! Katniss!" I can hear my name being called from all sides. Everyone wants my kisses. It's not until we enter the City Circle that I realize I must have completely stopped the circulation in Peeta's hand. That's how tightly I've been holding it. I look down at our linked fingers as I loosen my grasp, but he regains his grip on me. "No, don't let go of me," he says. The firelight flickers off his blue eyes. "Please. I might fall out of this thing." "Okay," I say. So I keep holding on, but I can't help feeling strange about the way Cinna has linked us together. It's not really fair to present us as a team and then lock us into the arena to kill each other. The twelve chariots fill the loop of the City Circle. On the buildings that surround the Circle, every window is packed with the most prestigious citizens of the Capitol. Our horses pull our chariot right up to President Snow's mansion, and we come to a halt. The music ends with a flourish. The president, a small, thin man with paper-white hair, gives the official welcome from a balcony above us. It is traditional to cut away to the faces of the tributes during the speech. But I can see on the screen that we are getting way more than our share of airtime. The darker it becomes, the more difficult it is to take your eyes off our flickering. When the national anthem plays, they do make an effort to do a quick cut around to each pair of tributes, but the camera holds on the District 12 chariot as it parades around the circle one final time and disappears into the Training Center. The doors have only just shut behind us when we're engulfed by the prep teams, who are nearly unintelligible as they babble out praise. As I glance around, I notice a lot of the other tributes are shooting us dirty looks, which confirms what I've suspected, we've literally outshone them all. Then Cinna and Portia are there, helping us down from the chariot, carefully removing our flaming capes and headdresses. Portia extinguishes them with some kind of spray from a canister. I realize I'm still glued to Peeta and force my stiff fingers to open. We both massage our hands. "Thanks for keeping hold of me. I was getting a little shaky there," says Peeta. "It didn't show," I tell him. "I'm sure no one noticed." "I'm sure they didn't notice anything but you. You should wear flames more often," he says. "They suit you." And then he gives me a smile that seems so genuinely sweet with just the right touch of shyness that unexpected warmth rushes through me. A warning bell goes off in my head. Don't be so stupid. Peeta is planning how to kill you, I remind myself. He is luring you in to make you easy prey. The more likable he is, the more deadly he is. But because two can play at this game, I stand on tiptoe and kiss his cheek. Right on his bruise.

[everlarkficexchange]

Unmasked ~ Twenty-One

Written by: ~ M ~

Prompt #88

Rating: E (Explicit) This fic will contain consensual sexual content; mild language; discussions of injuries, illness, and amputations in a historical setting; discussions of miscarriage; discussions of minor character suicide; references to non consensual sexual situations; minor character death. 

My thanks to the moderators of @everlarkficexchange for always running an entertaining event, and for playing along with a little fun and mystery. 

Now, dear readers, a bit of fun. I thank you for allowing me to write and share with you from behind a mask, for embracing this story wholeheartedly despite not knowing my identity. A few of you have wondered at it, and since we approach the end of this story, I have a small game for you to play. At the end of each chapter from now until the final one, I will provide a clue. You must use the clue to hunt for a word in the text of the chapter itself. Gather the words, hold onto them, for they will provide the final clue to the puzzle. 

Understanding that I cannot control your actions, I do ask that you use caution in discussing any theories. If you believe you have solved the puzzle before the end, I ask that you hold your silence and allow others to enjoy it as well. This is meant to be fun, so in the modern parlance… No spoilers please!

Please enjoy the twenty-first chapter of this adventure. Previous installments can be found here. Regards,

~ M ~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~ Chapter 21 ~~

Over the next several days, I immerse myself in tasks and avoid the concerned eyes of my family. Between the many guests, the festival, and Maysilee, I run myself ragged and am grateful to do so. If I am too busy to think, then I cannot think of Sir Robert’s words. If I cannot dwell on them, then I cannot insult my dearest friend by begging her to tell me it isn’t true. Such fickle hearts that stray so easily with the slightest bit of doubt! I do not want these thoughts in my heart.

Throughout each day, my mother has plates of food and tea sent to me, to entice me to eat more – ginger root tea in the morning, a dandelion tea in the afternoon, chamomile in the evening. My father expresses concern and I wave it off as fatigue. 

“Too many guests to attend to, nothing more,” I assure him with a smile. I can see that he does not believe me, and yet Haymitch and Effie are kind enough to provide a timely distraction that keeps him from persisting. He has no choice but to let it go for the moment when he is faced with the same quandary that I hide behind.

My mind and my heart, torn apart between what I believe, and the distance between us, do not allow me to confess my fears, my shame, to anyone. Was I truly fooling myself, believing Peeta and I happy and in love? It would not be the first time my heart misled me so. The man in the mask lurks in the corners, taunting me with my past gullibility. I try not to think of him, yet the harder I try, the more present he becomes in my thoughts.

Madge worries over me, I know she does. I can see it in her eyes, and yet I cannot look too closely nor for too long. I know Sir Robert’s insinuations to be false, against all I know of her character, and yet I cannot seem to shake their hold. They creep into the darkest, most fearsome corners of my mind, an invasive vine of doubt clouding out the light of all reason. The more I fight them, the more they seem to take root. My own mind has become my worst enemy.

At night, I find no rest. Terrifying images of swirling reds and dancing flames. A leering man in a mask and one who seduces with sweet words and sweeter kisses. Betrayal and pernicious lies that leave me gasping and crying, reaching for the companion of my bed and of my life who is not there.

I long for him. I wish him here to hold me and know that I cannot wish that until I gain control of and evict these doubts from my heart.

Early in the mornings, before I rise, I lay in our bed and read each of Peeta’s letters again, perusing the pages of the sketch book meant only for me, hoping for some sort of solid proof to uproot the gnawing fears. He took his other sketch book with him, or I would peruse that one as well. While the early letters help, the latter, more impersonal ones only serve to clear a space for the fear to grow further into my heart. I’ve no reason, no accounting for his growing distance from me and it feeds the fear. 

Rain arrives and either cancels or drives the festivities indoors, such as they are. The day before Peeta is meant to return, I wake late, to a near silent house. I grumble to myself about being left abed too long and force myself into motion. I’ve much to see done today and do not intend to waste time.

I work and see to the household until I finally feel that I have earned some rest. I think I need solace and comfort, and the only place I know for certain I can find that now is in my mother and father’s embrace.

In searching for my parents, I discover a rather odd sight and halt in the hallway, peering through the door to Maysilee’s room at the pair playing on the floor.

“Katniss! So good to see you looking better. How are you feeling?” Delly says and Maysilee hurries over to hug me. “Won’t you join us?”

“Yes! Come play with us, Miss Katniss!” Maysilee pleads. I couldn’t possibly refuse her, much as I would like to avoid Delly right now. I agree and sit on the rug next to Maysilee, dutifully playing the role assigned to me and falsely deepening my voice to that of a man’s as I accept tea on behalf of the doll.

Maysilee giggles and then yawns. We play for a while longer until she curls up in my lap. I comb my fingers through her thick, wavy blonde hair and smile contentedly as she sucks her thumb, drifting off into sweet girlhood dreams. I should move her to the bed, yet she looks so content, I hate to wake her.

Only, this means that I am left in uncomfortable silence with Delly and no idea how to speak to her. She clears her throat and seems determined to initiate the task for me.

“I must thank you again, Katniss, and your family…for welcoming us so kindly.”

“You are Peeta’s sister now, that makes you family,” I say, keeping my eyes focused on Maysilee.

“Yes, well. Even family can become a complicated tangle sometimes, no matter how much one loves them.” For some reason, this makes me chuckle. I appreciate Delly’s candor. Somehow, she does not sound bitter about it, and I envy her that. When I lift my eyes to her, she is smiling, arranging the skirts on a doll as though she hasn’t a care in the world. For some reason, she reminds me of Effie and I realise I have been remiss in so many of my manners.

“And I must congratulate you on your nuptials. I do not believe I have had the chance and apologise for my tardy felicitations,” I say.

Delly’s smile wavers and she turns watery eyes to mine. “Thank you. Truly, Katniss. I worried that perhaps you might hate me and I could not bear the thought of it.”

“Why would you care if I hated you?” I ask before my mind can stop the question. I blame the comfort of Maysilee’s warm body asleep in my lap, the steady rhythm of her breathing and the soft pattering of the rain on the roof.

“We are now sisters in way…are we not? But primarily it is because Peeta loves you so.” Her answer surprises me. For a moment, my fingers halt their motions. Maysilee shifts and whimpers. I continue my attentions to her and Delly looks away, out the window towards the rain. “When he first spoke to me about the lady he had helped in the rain one day, I had such hope. It had been so long since I’d seen light such as that in his eyes. He will not…he will not speak to me of what happened while he was with the infantry and yet I know it eats away at him. He came home with a… a darkness in his soul that I did not know how to touch.”

“You know him so well then?”

“As you know the Countess,” Delly says with a quirk of her lips and an almost amused look. “He may be several years my elder, but we were friends since I could walk and he was in many ways my protector when we were children. I think our parents thought perhaps we might marry one day, but I had always thought of him as my brother. Even if I hadn’t, fate,” she sighs, a heavy sound at odds with her usually cheerful disposition “Well fate decided otherwise, and she does know far better than I, in this case especially.”

Such a pleasant way to describe what happened to them, and yet I am drawn into the tale yet again, much as I was when Peeta first told it.

“Anyways, when he asked me to replace your boots and he was so…particular with the whole thing, so troublesome in pestering me for details afterwards, even though I insisted that I never share the conversations of my customers. ‘Twould be a breach of their confidence to do so!”

I cannot help but smile at her indignation, at her conviction in maintaining the trust of those whose footwear she fashions.

“And what did you think of me after that meeting?”

“Oh, that you would be a perfect fit for Peeta. You were so strong, so very brave and yet kind. I could see in an instant why he was taken with you, but then so soon after, I saw him in Capitol. He said that Robert had begun courting you and…” she pauses and glances back out the window. I wish to scream at her to continue and yet she does not. I think then of what Peeta said, about how Robert had proposed to her several years ago, and she refused, afraid it would bring him down in the world and he would resent her for it. It strikes me then that this appears to be precisely what has happened.

Oh poor Delly, to have her heart slashed so.

I continue to caress Maysilee’s hair for courage and find my voice. “It must have been terribly upsetting for you. To think that Sir Robert’s affections had wandered.”

“Forgive me, Katniss, but that is not what led me to what I did. You must think me so fickle.”

“In truth, I am still attempting to discern what I think of you.”

“So very bluntly honest. Just as Robert said,” she appraises me with a smile and shakes her head. “I did not think Robert’s affections had wandered. He hardly spoke of you at all, only of facing what was expected of him, his duty to his family name. Marriage, family, the pride of the Marquis. No, it was not Robert’s words that drove me back to him but Peeta’s.”

“Peeta’s?” I ask, even more confused.

“You will think me terrible. Robert has always been fond of attentions and an incorrigible flirt,” she says this rather fondly while I think she should wish to strangle him for such behaviour. “There were always at least a dozen ladies hoping to be Mrs. Robert Mellark and while he could fall in and out of love with all of them on any given day, none of them showed any advancement or sign of success in securing him. He always returned to me, in letters most of the time, since we could so rarely be together. Until you.”

“He did not love me,” I say with a shake of my head.

“No, he did not, as it turns out. But Peeta did,” Delly says with conviction that almost frightens me. “He did and he still does.”

“That still does not explain why you eloped with Sir Robert,” I argue. “Perhaps you had them confused.”

“Oh no, I could always tell the difference, even before the scars. And of course it explains why. You must understand, Robert was the only one in that family to open their heart to Peeta when he needed someone the most. Ethan and Henry did eventually, but it took years to do so.” This much, I already know to be true, by Peeta’s own admission. “Peeta will forever be bound to love Robert for this. He will spend his life attempting to reciprocate in some fashion. As part of that, Peeta would never allow himself something he wanted – be it a toy, a sweet stolen from the kitchens, or the love and attentions of a certain person – if Robert wanted the same thing.”

I stare at her with wide eyes, understanding that Peeta’s loyalty to Robert would lead him to sacrifice a great deal. It then dawns on me precisely what sacrifice Delly refers to in this case, a chance at something – or rather someone. My cheeks burn with the realisation.

“Peeta wanted to be the one courting you. He wanted you… so very desperately, but Robert seemed to want the same thing.”

And so Peeta would not even take the chance, withdrawing to a position of observance, to protect his brother who falls in love too easily, to ensure that the fortune hunting lady Robert had chosen to pursue in earnest would not break his brother’s heart, even as our courtship, such as it was, broke Peeta’s. How very sad indeed.

“It was Peeta’s certainty that you and Robert would be married soon, Peeta’s refusal to even entertain the thought of courting you when he so clearly wished to, that convinced me I was about to lose Robert forever. That is what drove me back to Robert. I had to know if he seriously intended to marry you. I always regretted spurning his first proposal, even though I was right to do so, I…oh Katniss I am so sorry. I was terribly selfish in running away with him.”

“Well,” I say with my throat constricted and my head pounding. “Not entirely. You did save us both from a loveless marriage.”

She stares at me and then begins to laugh. It is quite a cheerful sound, and I find then that I am rather fond of Delly. There is much that needs fixing in this family, and that includes the sadness I still see lingering in her eyes, even as she laughs. If she truly loves Robert, rakish ways and all, then she deserves some form of happiness with him.

“Oh look!” Delly exclaims cheerfully. “The rain has finally stopped!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The rain only clears for an hour. Not even long enough for me to strengthen my fragile grasp on my doubts and pull them from the muddy quagmire my mind has become. It stops just long enough for Maysilee to wake and decide she wishes to play in the gardens. It stops just long enough for the post to arrive and nearly destroy what little gains I have made with Delly’s words, her belief in Peeta’s love for me. Someone else’s belief in our love is not enough. I need to believe it for myself, and I do not seem to have the talent for hoping and believing today.

There is no letter for me from Peeta. There is, however, a letter written in his hand addressed to Lady M. Charmaigne. My heart clenches as I deliver it into Madge’s palm. She smiles, bright and beautiful, and turns from me.

“Maysilee! Darling, Mister Peeta has answered your letter. Come and I will read it to you.”

The shock and relief register, sweeping through me so quickly that I’ve no chance to guard my expression. Of course. Maysilee asked to write to him and he has responded. This is no secret  love letter to Madge.

“Katniss? Are you ill?” Madge asks.

“I…” 

I cannot answer. It all overwhelms me, and I have spent so much effort fighting it, that I find I have none left. Madge asks Sae to take Maysilee to the parlour to read her letter instead, and I am left in the soggy gardens with my dear friend and a storm of feelings I cannot seem to sort. It is too much, building and building over days, weeks even with little to no release.

“I am so sorry. Madge, I…please forgive me. I cannot face him alone much longer, Madge. Something is…wrong with me,” I whisper between crazed gasps for air. 

She takes my elbow and guides me to a bench in the garden. We sit and I am struck by the memory of just such a scene in Peeta’s sketchbook, rendered with beauty and care. Both of us, lovingly drawn.

“Who? Sir Robert?”

I nod and stare across the neatly tended flower beds, towards the cursedly empty lane. No riders. No Peeta.

“Why not?” Madge asks and there is a strange sort of anger in her voice.

“Because he…” I cannot even say it.

“Because he broke your engagement? Katniss can you really still mourn such a thing?”

“No. No, it isn’t that,” I say and turn to look at my friend. The blaze in her eyes frightens me.

“As it should not be. I know his elopement left you in a very awkward position for a time, and that your pride was hurt, perhaps even your heart to a small degree, but honestly Katniss. You have to let him go. Had Sir Robert not eloped with Delly, you would be married to him right now!”

I make a wretched noise of disgust and she laughs. Then I laugh and tears burst free, a torrent of them. I am no longer able to contain them. “And it would be a wretched marriage!” I moan through my tearful laughter.

“Completely wretched! You could never be happy with anyone so inconstant. And you would not have your Peeta then.”

Doubt flares back up and I eye my smiling friend for signs. Oh God above, why am I falling prey to such doubt? I know my husband and my friend better than that. Only that…he has deceived me before. The truth slices through me, swift and deadly as a sword.

“My Peeta,” I whisper and she nods, no sign of envy nor deceit in her cool blue eyes. Only the openness of my friend. And I can no longer contain it. “I am so confused right now. He said things…about you and Peeta and the strangeness of our family here…” I trail off and Madge shakes her head, brow creased in her own sort of confusion. “He said you would not linger here if there were not a reason… that you would find another husband post haste, and he does not know about what happened after your marriage yet implies the same sort of… arrangement. I know you would not betray me so and I shouldn’t even ask but–”

“Oh,” she says, her eyes widening in understanding and then narrowing. “What evidence could he possibly give for that?”

“He said you have the look of a woman in love.”

“And you believed him?”

“No,” I say and my convictions slowly begin to return to me. I do not know why, only that I draw from her expression the strength to voice my fears and begin to banish them. “No, I believe you have the look of a woman who is finally happy, and it does not require love.”

“I am happy, and it did require love, but not necessarily from a man.” Her words are shocking and calming and so welcome all at once. Everything I needed to hear and I regret not speaking to her sooner. “You know I have reasons for not pursuing another marriage, but that does not mean my life is without love. I love you, Katniss, as you love me. You are my dearest friend, and you have so generously and lovingly welcomed myself and Maysilee into your home and your life without expectation. I linger here because Everdeen has become our home, and all of you our family. Your family – Primrose and your parents – I have always loved along with you, and I confess that yes, I count Peeta now as part of my family as well. 

“Your husband has been…extraordinary with Maysilee. I cannot deny that she sees him as a sort of father figure, but it does not follow that there would be an amorous relation between myself and him. The very idea is absurd! You know how he loves you. I would hope that you know how much I love you! Of course I look to be in love and happy. For I am happy here, and there are many people whom I love dearly. As do you…”

She tilts her head and examines me and I burst into more tears. Everything wells up out of me onto her shoulder as we sit in the garden in the late afternoon sunshine. I cry and pour out my heart. The love I feel for Peeta and our child whose existence inside me I grow more certain of with every day that passes. His sister and mother and his gradually chilling letters. Delly’s words and Sir Robert’s. My anger with myself for falling prey to such pernicious lies.

“Oh my darling friend,” Madge coos and holds onto me. “You are with child! No wonder you are so uneasy.”

“What?” I ask and break free of her embrace. She smiles at me, the expression wistful. “I thought pending motherhood was meant to be a happy condition!”

“In many ways it is, but the fears are real too. I felt it too, with Maysilee. All the fear and the doubt about the future, my ability to love her when I felt no love for her father, not even affection. I barely tolerated him. The terror that I would be a wretched mother. How could I possibly protect her from the worst of the world? And the fear of what our future held for us, it felt… It felt…”

“As old and as immutable as time,” I whisper and she nods.

“Yes. Exactly.” Our eyes meet and she sniffles a little. “I should be angry that you would even entertain the idea of my betraying you so. Or the idea that Peeta could betray you so, but I understand it is not he nor I nor even yourself causing such doubt, but Sir Robert. His presence and your history with him has naturally caused much discord. Even your father seems ill at ease lately. But you know me, and you do know Peeta as well. You must silence the doubt. Only one day more. Then Peeta will be home, and I know you will see in his eyes exactly what you need to see.”

I clasp her hand in mine and squeeze. She leans her head on my shoulder and I sigh happily. It is good to know my friend is exactly as I believed her to be. Quiet, kind, and brave, with a strength to rival any fortress.

“Thank you, Madge.”

“You must come to me sooner with these fears, so they do not torment you so, especially now that you are to be a mother.” I nod in agreement. We sit in silence then. We could continue like this for an age, until Sir Robert wanders into the garden.

“Ladies, I hate to interrupt, but your charming daughter calls for you, my Lady Hargrove.” He sweeps a bow and smiles at us. I stiffen, but Madge squeezes my arm as she stands. She turns to me and gives me a true smile.

“You know what is real, in your heart. Silence the rest,” she says and I nod. Her eyes flash with a bright sort of fire and I draw more strength from her. The strength to stand as she departs and to face Sir Robert.

“Well this is pleasant. Such a charming garden, a lovely lady for company.” My heart hammers in its duplicitous dance and I am quite tired of my body treating me thus. 

I squeeze my eyes shut and attempt to control it. This is not my husband. Why my body insists on responding like it is, I do not know. He has stolen the face of my love and plants doubts in my head where they do not belong. I laugh inside at the thought and Maysilee’s indignant tone when she voiced it a few days ago.

“I am glad to see you enjoying yourself today, Mrs. Mellark. We have all been rather concerned for you. My wife seems to think our presence has caused you some distress.”

With my eyes shut, his voice sharpens in my mind, the inflections wrong. An unfamiliar scent reaches me. Wrong. Wrong. All wrong, my mind and my heart protest, just as Maysilee did, and finally, my body listens.

When I open my eyes, I am able to smile at him, although my face feels strained in doing so.

He stands with feet braced apart in a confident pose, a tentative smile on his lips. Good. He should be wary of me. 

“I cannot imagine what would give her such an idea,” I say but the sarcasm of my tone seems lost on Sir Robert.

“Has my brother had opportunity to enjoy your lovely gardens? He was rather fond of the gardens at de Vale, always running off to them when Mother took to scolding one of us.”

“Thank you, Sir Robert,” I say and clench my hands together. “Indeed he has had opportunity to enjoy it, and even to sketch some of it. We were married in the summer, you know.”

“Ah so he still insists on his scribbles.”

“They are much appreciated around here, and I would hardly call them scribbles,” I scold and Sir Robert cringes.

“Of course. I know he is quite talented. I was merely thinking of the many times he was taken to task for drawing instead of focusing on his Latin conjugations.” I’ve no answer and stand still as Sir Robert fidgets. “It is good to be out of the house for a time, after all the rain the past day. Would you care to join me in a stroll through your gardens?”

I do not want to spend any amount of time alone with this confusing, infuriating man. I’d rather stomp on his toes and spit in his tea. How uncharitable of me.

“Very well,” I say instead and begin walking. For Peeta’s sake, and perhaps even a little for Delly’s, I will be polite to this wretch.

“This statue is quite unique. It reminds me of one I saw in Northwest Panem.”

“That is where my mother is from,” I inform him. “She brought the statue with her when she married my father.”

“Such an expense, dragging a ponderous statue that distance,” Sir Robert grumbles and I laugh with no humor.

“My father loves her, always has. He would have dragged a dozen statues from Northwest Panem, if she wished it. Thankfully, this was the only one she desired.” 

“Oh the things one will do for love,” Sir Robert scoffs. I ignore his complaint and continue, recalling a bit of something Delly said just yesterday at tea. 

“When did you have occasion to be in Northwest Panem? Is that where you and Delly honeymooned?”

“Yes,” he answers, his smile strained now. “Although exiled might be a better term for it,” Sir Robert mutters then offers me his arm and motions towards a corner leading into the hedgerows. “Shall we?”

I leave his arm waiting and take the turn unassisted. My slippers crunch on the gravel walk. Sir Robert’s boots right behind. He takes longer strides than I and soon walks beside me, arms folded behind his back. I do not look at him as I continue to walk.

“In all the business of the festival, I’ve not had the chance to ask you… Where then has my brother run off to? You did not exile him, did you?”

“He has run nowhere, nor have I exiled him. He is greatly missed, but his leaving is understood. Peeta answered a plea for help. A friend from the infantry recently and most unexpectedly came into lands in need of some attention.”

Sir Robert makes a strange noise at this. “He runs off to help some grumpy soldier for two weeks when he could be here with you and the lovely Countess?” His comments annoy me, given the implication once again that there is something between Madge and my husband. I control the rage and answer with shocking calm.

“His willingness to help a friend is quite noble, and how would you know his friend’s disposition? I did not even tell you the name of the man.”

“Yes, well. I’ve met enough of them to know they are all grumpy and far too serious, including my brother at times. He was much more pleasant before his time away. Although, he always was insufferably noble, at least he used to be fun when pressed to be so,” Sir Robert says. 

His words only stoke my rage. Used to be fun? How could he say such a thing? Has he any idea of what Peeta’s “time away” entailed? Such a spoiled attitude, acting as though Peeta went away on holiday instead of being banished by their father to the infantry for the temerity of existing. Such arrogance to think Peeta did not endure his service, sweating and bleeding and dying in many ways, so far away from any place he’d once called home. And despite the fact that I once called Peeta that exact same thing — insufferably noble — I halt and whirl to face Sir Robert.

“You make it sound like a flaw in his character. To be noble.”

“Not at all. What is, perhaps, the true flaw in his character is leaving such an exquisite bride behind so soon after the wedding and neglecting her in such a shocking manner. Were I your husband–”

“Were you my husband,” I say with an inordinate amount of rancor. His face pales and his eyes widen as he realizes what he has done.

“I misspeak.”

“Indeed you do,” I say, anger and some awful sadness mixing inside me as I stare at this man, his face identical to and yet so different from the one I most wish to see. “For you are not my husband.”

And I am, as I told Madge, exceptionally relieved by the fact.

“Come now, you were honest with me that day in the garden. You cannot pretend to a broken heart. You made it quite clear that love was never your quest.”

“Which garden do you speak of, sir?”

“Which garden…” His face shows confusion and he shakes his head, yet his teasing smile remains in place. “The one…at your Uncle’s townhome…when I proposed?”

It is awkward enough for him to be saying it outright, yet I remain silent, waiting for a realisation. A hint of something that never comes. His smile falters. His feet shift. A goose honks overhead. The earth moves forward a small degree.

“Have you already forgotten my proposing? If so, then I truly have reached a low, although it would not be surprising.” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, removing his hat in the process, and the movement is another sharp pang to my heart. Peeta does the same thing when agitated.

One more day, I remind myself. It is only one more day. A trifle. Nothing. Peeta will be back in a blink and I will regret these maudlin thoughts. Especially once I tell him the secrets I carry now in my heart and in my womb, a secret promise for a happy future for us to share.

“I remember you proposing marriage, and I further remember the shame of it when I learned from your father and Peeta that you had eloped with someone else with no word to me at all.”

“I do apologize for that. Surely you must understand. I could not pause to post a letter. How should I explain that to my Delly? Sorry, darling! Just need to stop here to inform the woman I proposed marriage to this morning that the wedding is off! Such confusion.”

He attempts a smile. A joke then. I am a joke to him. I stare at him until he coughs, finally grows uncomfortable with his words and the implications. He purses his lips and glances at the ground. I use the silence to continue walking. The fresh air is welcome, invigorating even. I piece my resolve back together one step at a time. Sir Robert follows but we remain silent for a time.

“He speaks highly of you. In his letters.”

“He would not insult me, even were he miserable with me,” I say and Sir Robert sighs.

“Indeed that is my great fear. That he would be miserable and suffer in silence. It would not be the first time he did so. But at least admit that the outcome is better for most of us involved,” he says. There’s a thread of concern, almost desperation in his voice, as though he is not sure of it himself and needs me to do the reassuring for him. It makes me wonder if Sir Robert now regrets his actions, or merely the consequences of them. I stand still as stone until he shuffles his feet to a halt beside me. I cannot repair whatever damage he has done to his own and to Delly’s life, but I can take him to task for what he did to me.

“Yes, humiliation and forced betrothal are precisely the outcome I wished.”

“It could not have been so awful. You act as insufferably noble as he. Clearly you and he are well suited and you must forgive me.”

“Why must I?”

“Because despite what you may think of me, I do care a great deal for my brother’s happiness, and it is clear he has lucked into a comfortable and secure life here with you. And I cannot stand the thought of anyone thinking so ill of me.”

“I would not dare to think ill of you. Peeta loves you, and so as you imply, there must be something redeeming in your character.”

“There, see!” Robert says triumphantly. 

“And yet you insist on implying that he is ignoble and would perhaps develop feelings for my dearest friend…perhaps even act on them?”

“Yes, about that. I did warn you my thoughts were a touch rude. Her behaviour and that of her daughter struck me as odd. It seemed a perfect situation for such a thing, perfectly reasonable given the lack of blood connection. Surely you–”

“I surely do not. Do you suggest family ties must be bound in blood to be real? If you believe that, then you surely know very little of your own beloved brother’s life before you entered it. I know Madge better than you could ever hope to, and I begin to believe that I know Peeta better than you could hope to. You claim to wish to protect him? Then cease suggesting he might betray his own character and break his promises to me, with my dearest friend nonetheless.”

Sir Robert stares at me as the fury flows out of me with the words, replaced with relief. Relief to be saying these things and in fact…believing them. I draw myself down to a less aggressive, more ladylike stance, once more folding my hands together and continuing to walk. Silence reigns for a time, a most welcome quiet, only the sounds of our footsteps.

“You are quite right, madame. I have…acted most abominably,” he finally admits.

“Indeed you have,” I agree and he sighs.

“Then we are in agreement of sorts? You will forgive me for my erroneous thoughts?”

“Why should I?” I should absolve him, for Peeta’s sake. Yet even as I think it, we pass a stone bench and my memory conjures the sweet scents of blossoms in the spring night. So many memories I have tucked away for fear of what they mean, now hazy and obscured by time. There is one more thing yet unresolved between us, though I fear the resolution of this mystery.

A scattered few drops of rain strike the ground. I hold up a hand to catch several as Sir Robert makes a noise of protest. He grasps my elbow and we hurry through the rest of the garden, seeking refuge from the rain beneath the roof of the verandah just as the sky opens, pouring its contents on the world.

“More rain will make the roads impassable,” I mutter.

“Indeed. Mrs. Mellark, I do apologise for my behaviour. It seems I am in need of another of my brother’s lectures. He was rather fond of preaching when we were younger. It’s a wonder he didn’t take the cloth as a profession. I will beg him to spare you at least. Such lovely ears should not be tortured so,” Sir Robert says with that smile that no doubt melts all the knees in Capitol, and yet I find it no longer affects me. How odd. It is then that I notice…his lips pull up evenly when he smiles. Not lopsided.

Another memory leaps into focus, unbidden and unwanted. A blonde head tilted towards me. Blue eyes bright with mirth. An asymmetrical mask covering…the left side of a face. Yes I am certain it was the left side. A peculiar design for a mask that I had thought was meant to match my dress at the time, but now I wonder if there was another reason and plumb my memories further… 

A pair of red stained lips curling in a lopsided smile.

Peeta’s smile is lopsided… is it not? Have I imposed his now beloved smile upon the face of the man in the mask in a fit of wishful thinking? How sad that I cannot recall for certain in this moment. He’s been gone far too long for my liking. I cannot seem to distinguish memory from fantasy and push them both aside rather than sort them. Instead I shall deal with what is in front of me.

I shrug to show my indifference to Sir Robert’s charms. In truth, his flattery does warm the heart, but it is fleeting and meaningless without the constancy of devotion behind it. The steadiness that Peeta brings to everything in many ways is what lends credence to all of his flowery praise of me. 

“Why have you come here, Sir Robert? To Everdeen?”

“I wished to visit my brother. I’ve not seen him in months. Have I any other need?”

“As long as that is your sole reason,” I say as we continue to stand, observing the rain rather than retreating once more to the confines of the house. 

I watch the gardner hurry up the path, a basket overflowing with blooms, covered with a cloth on her arm. She curtsies and hurries inside, the scent of the flowers trailing on the air behind her and an image, vivid and sweet returns to me. 

The cloak of night and soft lips on my scars. Merciful heaven. Guilt such as I have never known surges up inside me, hand in hand with latent desires. It should not matter. Peeta and I… we are happy, I believe, or at least on the path to happiness. We have begun to build something together, grown together in a way I had scarcely dared hope for when I set out to secure a marriage. I do not wish to jeopardize it and yet I feel an unquenchable need to know for certain.

The man in the mask…such a plague to me all those months ago. I have rarely thought of him lately. In my mind I had divided them into three men to better deal with the confusion and heartache. There is Peeta, now my husband and my love, a man I trust and rely upon, the father to my unborn child. There is Sir Robert…a man to whom I was briefly engaged, although I knew so little of him, and now realise ‘twould have been disastrous for me to wed. 

And third there is the man in the mask, someone I felt enamored with for a night or perhaps longer, who I think represented to me the hope that I might not have to endure a marriage without affection, without trust, without…love, though I only sought one of those at the time. The man in the mask represented perhaps some sort of fantasy, an illusion that I might still have all three. And I have achieved that dream against such terrible odds. I should let him go, as I long ago let Sir Robert go, and yet…I cannot.

The problem lies in the fact that these three men do not exist well in my mind at the same time, although I know that two of them must be one and the same. If it was Sir Robert in the mask, he romanced me most shamefully for a man on the cusp of an elopement with another. Used me most shamefully, but ‘twould make it easier to let the man in the mask go. All of it would then have been a lie, an act, and none of it real.

And if it was Peeta? I do not know. I admit that while it would be easier to relinquish the man in the mask were it Robert instead, I nearly hope it was Peeta, because I cannot bear the thought that he may have lied to me about it after we were engaged, because those feelings that sprung to life inside of me that night with the man in the mask… I feel so many of them now with Peeta. 

It feels almost a betrayal of him to have felt so for another man, and yet…at the time I believed it to be Robert and would that not be a betrayal of Peeta as well? How could I betray him when there was nothing between Peeta and I at the time of the masquerade, nothing at all save a pair of boots, a questionable rescue or two, and some peppered tea. And what of the betrayal of my heart that occurred that night? 

For there to be betrayal, there would need be trust first. 

It is such a muddled puzzle in my head, and I begin to feel a headache forming. This is why my brain conjured the three man solution. Think of them separately and I need not consider the implications of that night. For even if my hopes are realised and it turns out that it was Peeta in the mask… why then would he have kissed me, and with such intimacy and passion? Surely he could have shared a glass of wine with me, chatted about the portraits, and then been on his way. That would have been distraction enough from Sir Robert’s absence, and I would have remained unaware of the elopement, unable to raise a cry of suspicion until the following morn or perhaps even later. Why take the added step of kissing me? 

Delly’s words rise up as an explanation and yet my mind is as hazy as the rain soaked world before me right now. I cannot see to the end of the garden and I do not know. I do not know and I hate that this now arises to make me doubt my feelings for my husband when I have only so recently dealt with a different source of doubt.

“Mrs. Mellark,” Sir Robert intrudes upon my reverie. “Tell me what I can do to earn your forgiveness. Peeta would not wish any sort of conflict between us as we are both important to him.”

“You wish forgiveness?”

“Of course. My brother is…well he is the perfect brother to me. Perhaps you do not understand. As an eldest sibling, you would be the example for your sister. I, as the youngest, inevitably have the successes of the older shoved in my face. With Peeta, however, there was always… Well it was different with him. Father would never have used him as an example for me to follow, even though he is older. The expectations placed on me, on all of us save for Peeta, could often feel suffocating. And our older brothers, Ethan and Henry they expected as much out of me as Father did. But Peeta, he was not just my brother, he was… he is my friend. One of the few I can truly trust and be myself around without fearing recrimination, save for the occasional insufferably noble reminder that I know is right, even if it annoys me to hear it. I tease him for his righteous attitude, but he still cares for me and attempts to protect me, even from myself, no matter how many times I disappoint him.”

I can only stand in silence for a time.  

“Do you understand what I mean?” he prompts.

“I do.” And I believe that I do understand. Such a sad life they must have led surrounded by all the comforts and education that money could buy and none of the affections of a real family until they found one another. How sad that it was only with great loss for Peeta that were able to do so. And now Sir Robert seeks absolution from me before his brother returns and finds himself once more disappointed.

“A relief,” Sir Robert says with a smile. 

As I gaze up at him, I cannot help but catalogue the differences not just in their characters, but in their features. Beside the most noticeable – Peeta’s scars – I am certain Sir Robert’s jaw line is rounder, softer. His eyes, while usually full of mirth, carry little depth and no capacity for intensity. His hair borders on foppish. Peeta’s nose is dusted with freckles that speak of his time out of doors while Robert’s remains clear of markings. Peeta’s hands are calloused and scarred from labour and a rougher life while Robert’s remain apparently smooth and pampered.

Perhaps I imagine it yet I am almost certain Peeta’s shoulders carry more breadth and strength in them, and while my observations might be superficial, they only add to my growing belief that while the outcome was initially messy and uncomfortable for all involved, Sir Robert has done me a great favor in eloping with Delly. I cannot, however, bring myself to sever the bonds between brothers, nor even cause deliberate tension, not when I know how important they are to one another, despite the wrongs Sir Robert may have visited upon me.

“I wish my brother happy in life, and you as well. So please, I beseech you. What need I do to earn your forgiveness for my callous behavior in abandoning you so that another more worthy might wed you instead?”

I scowl at the man. Even though his words are accurate in a way, as well as a backwards sort of compliment, I would not recommend his behaviour, nor praise it. But as he gives me an earnest, pleading look to rival Maysilee’s, an idea comes to me.

“You will take better care of your wife. I rather like her.”

“Indeed. I should do that anyways.”

“And…tell me what is your favourite colour.”

“My favourite–” he chuckles and his smile extends to his eyes now. “What a Peeta sort of question to ask, but if you must know, it is red. My favourite colour in all the world is red. Do I earn your forgiveness now?”

“I will consider it.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I awaken to thunder. A great crack of it causing my pulse to leap and my body to do the same. I sit up, momentarily stunned as I stare out my window. Buckets upon buckets of rain pour from a churning autumnal sky. It lashes the upper panes on my windows and invades the room through the open lower half. The wind howls, twisting the wet drapes in a frightening dance. Lightning rends the sky in brilliant scars of light that turn the night into day, the sky to a voft violet for a second right before another great crack of thunder hurls me from the bed and into action.

I slam the window shut and cry in distress as my skin responds to the frigid rain on the floor beneath my feet. My feet slide over floorboards and I frantically move to stand on the rug, teeth chattering at the cold, rain soaked fabric of my shift now clinging to my calves. The chill permeates my body. I shiver, hugging myself and then resting my head on the sash.

Another bolt of lighting illuminates the gardens below, the river of water rushing along the paths. The accompanying crack of thunder shakes the house.

Travel home today will be difficult. Unsafe. Perhaps even impossible. Peeta may not be able to keep his promise to me.

With a sigh, I move to the fireplace and add a log, stoking the blaze in the grate back to something that might warm my now cold frame and dry my shift. I curl up on the sofa and listen to the rain. I do not bother mopping up the mess. It is my own fault, my fanciful whims getting the better of me. Peeta prefers to sleep with the window open, and so I have chosen to continue to do so in his absence.

The storm rages outside as I stare into the fire and my eyes droop. I am so very tired. 

When I wake, it is with a start and confusion. A warm blanket covers me and fresh kindling is piled beside the grate. A tea service sits on a nearby table, a curl of steam drifting up into the air from the spout. The sky outside has lightened considerably, indicating that it is morning. I struggle to stand and throw the window open, gasping at the cold bite of air that sweeps in and embraces me. The honking of geese overhead reaches me as I squint into the bright sunlight, my eyes relaxing as great, puffy white clouds race across the azure sky, momentarily blocking out the light and what little heat the sun provides. Rainwater drips from the eaves of the house and puddles in the garden below. If I hold my breath, I can hear the faint rushing of the stream in the neighboring woods.

Peeta is meant to be home today.

My heart skips at the thought. I linger over the tea. I dress and then change my mind, discarding one gown for another with an urgency that disturbs me. When I finally leave my chambers, it is well past the hour of breakfast. Everyone else in the house seems to have eaten and moved on to whatever amusements they might find in the now pleasant weather. I eat then wrap myself in a warm coat and sit on the verandah, attempt to read and fail.

Finally, I wander into the study, ringing for tea and warming my hands by the fire as I wait. I mull over everything said to me the past few days and despite the mounting evidence, I still doubt. Doubt and doubt and doubt until the tea is brought and Mary retreats and the fire pops loudly. 

A memory sparks to life in the blaze. A letter. One I never read and thought to burn.

I scramble to the desk and search the drawers, casting aside bits of wax and broken quills, scraps of paper until I find it, all the way in the back of the drawer, forgotten for months. The letter Peeta gave to me the day after we were betrothed. I sink into the chair with it shaking in my hands, the weight of it pushing me deep into the cushions. It is thick, several sheets at least. I breathe heavily and rip open the seal. The top sheet slides askew as I unfold the thing and I catch sight of the corner of a drawing.

For one moment, I am immobilised. Frozen in my seat and then I separate the top sheet with Peeta’s writing on it and set it aside to stare at the drawing. Only it is not one drawing, but rather several crammed onto the sheet. Three pages of them. A mad, disorganised ejection of images from his mind, as though he feared that if he did not commit them to charcoal and paper as soon as possible, he might forget them. I know it is his work, as I would recognise his touch anywhere. And they are almost entirely of me, wearing a mask and a gown with one bare shoulder. Gazing at portraits, laughing, staring up at the artist with a teasing gleam in my eyes, weilding a fan, comforting the girl with red hair and red lips.

He has drawn the entire evening I spent with the man in the mask in exquisite detail. It is difficult to ignore this last piece of proof. A lightness burgeons upwards in my chest, threatening to choke me with something like tears and hope.

The mask, I realise. The truth is in the mask. I grab the first sheet as well and race upstairs, leaving my tea on the desk to cool as I search my room until I pull the mask I wore that fateful night free of its confines and set it on the table, next to the drawings.

“Oh!” I gasp and sink into the sofa.

Perfect. 

He has rendered the mask in perfect detail, the intricate designs painted on the plaster, the whorls of color, the shading about the eyes, the curvature over my forehead, the fall of the feathers and the cowl over my shoulder. The minute details are too faithful, too accurate, to have been relayed by word of mouth. Whoever drew this… he saw me wearing this very mask. He saw me wearing it, and I have only ever worn it the one night before hiding it away and leaving it locked out of sight.

That is when I am finally able to accept it, to know without a doubt in my heart, my soul, and my mind… Peeta is my man in the mask.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To be continued…. Chapter 22 will be posted to @everlarkficexchange

Your clue for chapter 21: Remember that it is a word you seek, a single word. The others might only lead you away from the answer. What was Peeta meant to provide the night of the masquerade?

[everlarkficexchange]

Springtime Edition 2018.

These are the prompts we’ve received so far.

Crossed out prompts have already been selected and are being turned into fics!

I’d like to thank everyone who’s taken the time to come up with an idea and send it our way. Your prompts are the heart of the Exchange. Without them our lovely authors wouldn’t get to write all those beautiful fics. So, please, keep them coming!

You haven’t sent anything yet? Don’t worry, there’s still time. We’ll be receiving prompts until Mar 11.  Don’t be afraid to inspire us!

We have more than 100 prompts now! So make sure to  keep reading to see them all. Enjoy!

Prompts:

Prompt 1: “I wish that ball had hit you in the face!” [submitted by @peetaspikelets]

Prompt 2: Awkward or embarrassing job interview. [submitted by @peetaspikelets​]

Prompt 3: Personal trainer from hell! [submitted by @peetaspikelets​]

Prompt 4: Modern AU where katniss is a wedding planner and peeta is the caterer and her ex. [submitted by @sunflowerslyf​]

Prompt 5: Katniss + Peeta + Krazy Glue = ? (Seal wound? Office prank? How they meet? How they’re forced to speak?) [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 6: Desperate petite Katniss takes a job jumping out of a cake. [submitted by @567inpanem​]

Prompt 7: Young Peeta has an imaginary friend, Katniss, with superpower to help him when he’s alone or afraid, but something happens (good? bad?) and she becomes real. [submitted by @567inpanem​]

Prompt 8: Start your story at the end (like the backwards Seinfeld episode “The Betrayal” about a wedding in India) and reveal how it began at the end. [submitted by @567inpanem​]

Prompt 9: "Was she ever real?“ (SciFi Katniss is a cyborg or hologram.) [submitted by @567inpanem​]

Prompt 10: No games, but 16-year-old Seam girl Katniss is sent away to serve time for the killing of her sister’s murderer. She’s just returned to D12. How will she adjust? Who is still there? (mom, Gale, Madge, Sae, Darius, Peeta??) [submitted by @567inpanem​]

Prompt 11: Mom makes a new life for herself in D4. How would Katniss receive the news of her mother’s death at different times of her life (at 20-something while adjusting to life in post-war D12; after becoming a mother herself in her late 30s/early 40s; after becoming a grandmother in her 60s/70s). [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 12: Wait, what?! What do you mean, “We’re not exclusively dating”?! [submitted by @567inpanem​]

Prompt 13: Private eye Peeta and the dame who hires him, Katniss, in an old fashioned mystery turned romance. Bonus points for using 1920/30s turns of phrase. [submitted by @noneyabidnes]

Prompt 14: Planning and executing a first birthday party for oldest toastbaby. [submitted by @booksrockmyface]

Prompt 15: Pirate Katniss and wealthy nobalmen Peeta’s worlds collide. [submitted by @7-ah]

Prompt 16: Soulmate AU: Katniss has 2 soulmates/marks/indication of some sort, after the loss of her first, she’s terrified to have loved and lost again. Until Peeta. [submitted by @7-ah]

Prompt 17: Saying “I love you” for the first time at the worst possible moment. [submitted by @xerxia31]

Prompt 18: Canon/Canon Compliant: How about Katniss wanting to have the little youngest toastbaby, and being nervous to ask Peeta(and of course, excited when he says yes!)? [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 19: Awkward first date in high school, could involve a bet or a dare. [submitted by @savedbyyeezus]

Prompt 20: A fix about Katniss and Peeta having an arranged or forced marriage, but Katniss wanting her wedding night. [submitted by @ealaatnara]

Prompt 21: Visual prompt. Day 1 of Peeta as a Daddy [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 22: Peeta is a peacekeeper in Twelve, maybe a rebel undercover? And he and Katniss love story. Thanks [submitted by @marizpe17]

Prompt 23: A fic based on the song “Saturday Sun” by Vance Joy! [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 24: Ex with benefits [submitted by @sunflowerslyf]

Prompt 25: Katniss Everdeen is a 17-year-old Olympic gold-medalist who seemingly has reached the absolute pinnacle… except her country’s main nemesis happens to have a golden champion of their own, and he happens to have stolen her heart. [submitted by @thelettersfromnoone]

Prompt 26: Peeta buys and wears Deadpool riding on a rearing unicorn while holding a sword in the air, boxer briefs as a surprise for Katniss. Where you want to take it from there is left up to the writer. [submitted by @amazinglovers747]

Prompt 27: An older Peeta mets a young Katniss and it’s love at first sight on them. The trials and tribulations they have to endure to prove their love to everyone and the law. [submitted by @animekpopxx]

Prompt 28:  In Panem AU (no games) majority of the district are werewolves but it’s forbidden to speak out loud about it. Peeta and Katniss are mates. (Follow real wolves traits; packs, behaviors, mates, knotting, in heat) [submitted by @animekpopxx]

Prompt 29: Polygamy. Katniss becomes Peeta’s second wife. She’s not happy about it because she had feelings for the another mellark brother and thought she was destined to be his wife instead of Peeta’s but Peeta starts warming her heart to him.  [submitted by @animekpopxx​]

Prompt 30: Everlark is a young couple who get married when Peeta gets stationed to Fort Panem. Have to deal with deployment, new weird friends, pregnancy, and staying a couple. [submitted by @animekpopxx​]

Prompt 31: My favorite THG Character besides Katniss and Peeta is Wiress. Maybe Everlark from Wiress’s POV? Or perhaps an AU where she lives and her and Beetee help Katniss when Peeta returns hjacked? Anything with Everlark with Wiress :). [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 32: Prompt Based on the Alicia Keys lyric - we’ve got way too much In common, if I’m being honest with you. If you could love someone like me you must be messed up too. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 33: April fools prank or practical joke ends in disaster. Maybe a trip to the emergency room. [submitted by @peetaspikelets]

Prompt 34: Panem distracts and divides its people. Celebrity School is the training ground where they cultivate the most promising beautiful young blonde hopefuls. (drama, talents, sex, excess, cat fights) For the first time, each district is forced to send one non-blonde among their tributes. Minority trib Katniss gets fed up with the nasty treatment and takes action. [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 35: Fact: A 2017 Reuters article says free land still available! Fiction: Write a story of Peeta and Katniss (together? meeting after?) joining those leaving D12 for a better life beyond its boundaries when government writes a homestead act. Requirements? Struggles? Obstacles? Conflicts? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 36: Katniss and Peeta are friends on the verge of more. Katniss or Peeta is hesitant to take the next step until something tragic happens to the other (just not death) that pushes them to realize their feelings and commit. [submitted by @ra3lynn3]

Prompt 37: Her family murdered, so mail-order-bride Katniss marries Peeta who seems sweet at first; the location is remote; something unnerves her. Could Peeta have an evil twin? Or an alter ego? Is Dr. Aurelius really helping or is he not what he seems? Can she trust anyone? Even herself??? [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 38: Katniss and Peeta are destined for each other. But when destiny is tired of the countess fail attempts, she makes one last attempt for them to get their happily ever after. Does it work this time? [submitted by @animekpopxx]

Prompt 39: Katniss falls for charming Peeta. Things are going well until she starts noticing a few odd things. What katniss never knew was that Peeta became a mafioso in la cosa nostra. [submitted by @animekpopxx]

Prompt 40: Katniss, a priestess of Diana, goddess of the hunt, is asked to sacrifice a man that has angered the goddess by looking too long at her favorite priestess: The baker’s youngest son. Katniss and Peeta have history together prior to her appointment as priestess, so she struggles to obey and comply. [submitted by @alliswell21]

Prompt 41: A story from Peeta’s POV about the things he loves about Katniss. Maybe watching her as she wears an old T-shirt of his. What’s the story behind the shirt and why she likes to wear it. [submitted by @ra3lynn3]

Prompt 42: For her 17th birthday, Capitolite!Katniss, gets a night with her celebrity crush, Victor!Peeta, as her surprise birthday present. Peeta (may or may not be older in this fic) is desensitized about taking Capitol girls virginities, ‘cause that’s the norm in high society, and he’s considered the gentlest lover in the catalogue, but she’s so shy, pure and starstruck, he can’t help being endeared by her. Make it as sweet and angsty as you wish :) [submitted by @alliswell21]

Prompt 43: Prompt - a story based on the song “Say Something”, by Great Big World and Christine Aguilera… [submitted @xerxia31]

Prompt 44: Katniss is hired as a writer for Hallmark cards ….. [submitted by @thegirlfromoverthepond]

Prompt 45: I answered your oddly specific craigslist roommate ad as a joke and now we’re living together… [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 46: Broken-hearted Katniss goes to see a psychic, hoping to get one last message to her departed loved one (Goodbye? I’m sorry? Where’s the key to the safety deposit box?). Peeta is earning his college tuition using his charm and empathy to tell fortunes. What happens when they encounter each other? [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 47: Katniss and Peeta accidentally switch phones and she’s getting really tired of fielding questions from wrestling team members and some weirdo who sends pics of modern art asking for opinions. Did K&P already know each other? How do they switch their phones back? What sort of hilarity ensues in the meantime? [submitted by @katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Prompt 48: You’re an Art student and I’m an English major and you keep stealing the papers for my assignment to doodle and I would kill you but you’re really cute and hey that’s actually a really nice sketch. [submitted by @katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Prompt 49: Injured in a mosh pit at a concert because Johanna. Peeta can ask her for her phone number as part of exchanging insurance information and she can think he hit his head harder than she originally thought but he’s just trying to flirt. [submitted by @katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Prompt 50: The fire alarm went off at 3 am and now the cute guy from the apartment next door is standing next to me in his underwear… [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 51: Modern Day: “Totally worth it - you always are…” [submitted by @winegirl65]

Prompt 52: "I know what you want. You have money, but what I have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a dream come true for people like you.“ Sexually frustrated trophy wife Katniss commissions artist Peeta who immortalizes naked women after giving them the greatest O of their lives. [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 53: The Mellarks take in HS exchange student Katniss for one year for the $. Popular Peeta objects to getting saddled with her at home, at school, socially, in the bakery. "She’s not very big or particularly pretty.” But when Katniss (?) Peeta reacts (?) [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 54: “Your bakery gave me food poisoning!” [submitted by @peetaspikelets]

Prompt 55: Katniss was turn into an Avox and the Mellark family (a wealthy family from the Capitol) buys her. Her love story with Peeta. And maybe after the war, Peeta takes her to a Dr that is performing tongue surgeries (I read about that an it is possible) Thanks. [submitted by @marizpe17]

Prompt 56: Katniss turns to sperm bank to conceive. Despite option of anonymity, records opened. Peeta learns he has fathered child(ren). Now what? (What motivated them to use service? What are their ages now (same or wildly different?) Child(ren)’s age? Relationship status (Peeta involved? Katniss single or married?) Strangers or not? Interest in co-parenting? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 57: Peeta’s Plan: private jet to meet his fiancé’ parents; get tour of future father-in-law’s offices, meet the Board, meet with attorneys; take formal portrait; attend rehearsal and dinner; the wedding; brunch; private jet to Maldives for honeymoon. His mother is finally pleased with him. But the groom is having doubts, and that’s before he hears the voice of the wedding singer at the dress rehearsal! [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 58: Sacrificing a worthless sickly goat at the altar, Peeta’s frugal mother prays for a daughter and a long life together. The gods, seeing no love in her heart, are displeased with her offering and give her a son. She curses him and them. In punishment, they grant him a very long life: 1,000 years and 1,000 tears. Over the centuries he resists falling in love only to lose a wife over and over. But then he meets Katniss… [submitted by @567inpanem​]

Prompt 59: Peeta and Finnick are a bi couple, who’s relationship is crumbling. They bring Katniss in to add some sizzle in the bedroom… will she help save the relationship or complete kill it off??? [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 60: Post Mockingjay AU Katniss and Peeta finds themselves having twins unexpectedly and Katniss struggles with the idea of becoming a mother to not one child but two. [submitted by @que-sera-sera88]

Prompt 61: Katniss is a Midwife in the late 50s and meets Peeta (somehow) and flirts with him. When she’s goes to a delivering mother Peeta is there and she gets mad at him because she think he is her husband/father but he isn’t. [submitted by @que-sera-sera88]

Prompt 62: Katniss (a gifted culinary graduate) is recently widowed (her Ranger husband killed on a mission) - no family - she needs to make a life for herself. She takes her little belongings and his motorcycle and rides to find her future. She stops in a small town to rest for the night, with a failing restaurant/bakery owned by Peeta. He needs her help and she needs his. Maybe they help each other and fall in love in the process. [submitted by @winegirl65]

Prompt 63: Katniss and Peeta are teachers. Their classrooms are across from each other so they eat lunch together everyday which leads to some of their students shipping them. Whether they actually get together or not is up to you. [submitted by @ra3lynn3]

Prompt 64: A fic based on the song Austin by Blake Shelton [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 65: Years ago, you promised your firstborn to a witch. Since then, despite your best efforts, you can’t seem to get laid. The witch is starting to get pretty pissed.Y’all get together to discuss your options and she starts coaching you on how to get dates because she doesn’t want to waste more magic on you without promise of payment. The more time you guys spend together the more you realize you have a bit of a crush on her. Soon you’re sabotaging your dates on purpose to see her again. Long story short, you fall in love and get married AND YOUR FIRSTBORN IS HERS BY DEFAULT. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 66:��What she said while standing beside Gale: “I never go anywhere without my bow.” What Peeta hears: “I never go anywhere without my beau.” Peeta won’t pursue another guy’s girlfriend, no matter how much he wants her. Will he try moving on? How long before that misunderstanding gets cleared up and Peeta asks out Katniss? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 67: Peeta can’t help but be a bit of a player when it comes to girls and struggles hanging onto a girlfriend. He goes to his best friend Katniss for advice. Not knowing she’s harboured a crush on him for years. Can be written in either POV. [submitted by @peetaspikelets]

Prompt 68: Katniss gets locked out of her apartment wearing only a towel and the only person she can turn to is her neighbor peeta. [submitted by @sunflowerslyf]

Prompt 69: Katniss and peeta are both doctors and everytime they attend to a patient together they always get mistaken for being a couple or married but really they’re just best friends [submitted by @sunflowerslyf]

Prompt 70: Based off the movie Ms. Congeniality. [submitted by @tal-han13]

Prompt 71. Katniss and Prim (and possibly the Hawthorne’s and Undersees) are in a cult and are just rescued out of there by an underground organization that de-indoctrinates cult members. Peeta and Haymitch are part of the underground de-indoctrination team. Angst at trying to pull away from the old way of life. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 72: Everlark fic based on the song “You Shouldn’t Kiss Me Like This” by Toby Keith. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 73: A story based off either Nancy Mulligan or Castle on a Hill by Ed Sheehan. [submitted by @historywriter2007]

Prompt 74: horoscopes - Peeta and Katniss have poorly matched signs, or one believes in it and the other does not, or Peeta is a horoscope writer who Katniss mocks/is skeptical of, etc. and then their daily horoscopes narrate their burgeoning relationship super accurately (bonus points if you write the horoscopes!) [submitted by @savedbyyeezus]

Prompt 75: Katniss and Peeta looking for they first apartment/house. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 76: “Peeta as a women to woo katniss” [submitted by @joshifer4everyone]

Prompt 77: I'd like to read a story with Everlark ... and a unicorn. Or unicorns. :) We need more unicorns in the fandom !!! [submitted by @thegirlfromoverthepond]

Prompt 78: an everlark fic based on the song Who's that girl by Guy Sebastian. [submitted by @uniquepizzacollectionblog]

Prompt 79: Everlark roomates when Peeta brings back a puppy home. Of course Katniss hates it... so she says... [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 80: AU where Katniss is interviewing for a job as a leg model. Until the photographer asks for more. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 81: I work at a movie theatre and I’m trying to clean up but you’re still here ugly crying... [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 82: Katniss is a barrel racer and trying to become a successful videographer and her loving husband, Peeta, is there supporting her and being there for her through it all. This is near and dear to my heart so I really hope someone chooses this prompt to write. [submitted by @amazinglovers747]

Prompt 83: Professional cuddler! (It's a thing.) Is Peeta or Katniss the client, the therapist, the trainee, the job applicant, the business owner, the journalist trying to write about the experience, the instructor, co-workers? With Finnick, Johanna, Delly or anyone else? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 84: it's wedding day (may be everlark wedding, but not necessarily) and the major scenario is the groomsmen dance. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 85: Canon-divergent. Everyone is born with a clock embedded within the inside of their left wrist that ticks down to the very moment you realize your love for your soulmate. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 86: Where Peeta is an Avox, involved with the Rebels, who works for Seneca Crane and his wife, Katniss. He seduces Katniss for informations but then falls for her. Rebellion still happens (the most angsty the better) [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 87: Peeta's great idea to meet single girls: teach a one-night "Romantic Baking" cooking class and impress them! Oops, course description says "couples." Katniss agrees to a date with a guy who thinks this is a great idea for their first date. (Do Peeta and Katniss know each other or are they strangers? Are they exes? Does he get her number? Does he ruin their date? Is the date handsy? Got any recipes to share?) [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 88: I love soulmates fics ! Anything with Everlark being soulmates and finding each other -finally :) thank you ! [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 89: prompt - a very adult version of truth or dare after work in a bar. [submitted by @uniquepizzacollectionblog!

Prompt 90: katniss and peeta are both heartbreakers and after both breaking someone's heart again, they're finally both single. They go after each other and make the other fall for the other (someone is already in love from the beginning but doesn't want it to be known because of their reputation) [submitted by @sunflowerslyf]

Prompt 91: Peeta as the tatted, ex-rocker owner of bakery chain (like in in DC-Balto area called dangerously delicious pies). Katniss is an attached (engaged or otherwise unavailable) food critic or reporter doing a piece on him but she and P can’t deny the attraction. Angst and such ensue. [submitted by Anonymous] 

Prompt 92: When Peeta's brothers pass on getting the bakery, Mrs. Mellark decides to find Peeta a wife she approves of AND to get in some immediate free help by posting unpaid summer internships at the bakery. Lots of girls hoping to land a husband with a business show up, none really interested in working or learning. One by one they dramatically quit or get fired until only Katniss who's only in it for the free day-old bread survives. Will Mrs M honor the bargain? Possible fairytale ending? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 93: Peeta and Katniss having never spoken graduate at 18 without getting reaped and must find work or a spouse to support them or else report to the mines. This drives one to devise a way of working as partners to start a business drawing on each other's strengths to become a team. They pretend to marry to get Peeta housing and to keep men away from Katniss. Will they work as business partners? Or screw it up? Or work through their problems and feelings to become more? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 94: Hate group vows to drive all olive skinned people over the fence and keep them out of D12. Katniss prepares for the worst. Does she ask Peeta, the kindest man she knows, to marry Prim? Does she fight back with her voice, the law, her bow? [submitted by @567inpanem]

Prompt 95: A fairytale: "Dear God, make me a bird. So I can fly far. Far, far away from here.” If Katniss turns into a bird, what breaks the spell? Does she speak besides sing? [submitted by @567inpanem​]

Prompt 96: What if Katniss uses Peeta to get even with Gale? (Gale and Katniss are supposed to be betrothed, but Katniss finds out about Gale's trips to the slag heap. She befriends Peeta when trading-maybe) Peeta of course refuses at first, but then can't resist, but it gets super complicated because Katniss realizes she actually loves Peeta... Canon/Divergent please! [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 97: Peeta is promised to marry Delly, or another merchant girl, but she ends up getting pregnant by Gale. Peeta must marry to keep the bakery in the family, but there is no one available but Seam girls. His mother tries to convince Mrs. Everdeen to let him marry Prim, but she is too young and of course he really wants to marry Katniss. Secretly she wants him too. They marry and admit/show each other their feelings! [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 98: Peeta is pining for Katniss, but is about to give up because he can't figure out a way to get her to notice him and he is being pestered to marry a merchant. He also thinks Katniss is already with Gale. Somehow, he ends up following her or he is already in the woods when Katniss shows up. Katniss, believing she is alone, pleasures herself. When she is finished, she says Peeta's name. Of course he realizes that he needs to pursue her. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 99: Canon-divergent. Katniss develops a habit of sleepwalking which she only realizes when she discovers love bites appearing on various areas of her skin from seemingly no where. Embarrassed by the stares she receives around the District, she grows confused by Peeta Mellark's increasingly strange behavior towards her. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 100: "See, this is why no one lets you make the plans." Pregnant,unwed, underage Prim will be punished unless Katniss hides the pregnancy, pretends baby is hers. Caught and tangling others into deception, Katniss agrees to another plan: marry Peeta, pretend it's his so Prim can move on with her life. But then Rye forfeits bakery, claims child, wants to marry Prim. Only way to keep up lies and to let Prim have her own baby now is for Katniss to get pregnant, too, because of strict antiabortion laws. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 101: Last minute addition. Peeta is a police officer and is responding to a big event where Katniss is somehow involved. If they knew each other before or meet that day is up to you. [submitted by @historywriter2007]

Prompt 102: I've had this one in my head for a while but know I could never do it justice. Edward Sheeran's Perfect everlarked. 'When you said you looked a mess/I whispered underneath my breath/you heard it/darling you look perfect tonight...' The duet version with Beyonce chokes me up, but Ed's solo version speaks about a Strong Woman. Totally bonus points. [submitted by @noneyabidnes]

Prompt 103: Everlark in the Red Rising universe following Morning Star where Peeta (as Virginia/Mustang) is the politician and Katniss (as Darrow/Reaper) is the warrior. Bonus for toastbaby! [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 104: Both of them are rescued and make it to 13 after the Quell... They can stop pretending now. [submitted by @thestuckinbed]

Prompt 105: I'd like to read a really quirky, awkward teens-falling-in-love everlark story (can be set in high school /summer camp /in-panem au...). Casual, shy, no ‘love at first sight, insta-love. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 106: Katniss is Rye’s girlfriend when he dies. Katniss and Peeta (Rye’s father) start to hang out to go through their grief together. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 107: Everlark fic based off of the song "Thinking Out Loud" by Ed Sheeran. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 108: Modern AU/ katniss is desperate for a job to support prim and her mother and ends up getting a job for care and companionship for a disabled man, the Ex playboy Peeta Mellark Based on Me Before You (preferably with a happy ending) Check out this beautiful banner by the amazing @akai-echo for more inspiration. [submitted by @redhoodhungergames]

Prompt 109: Peeta is a womanizer and big flirt. (Imagine like finnick!) Katniss has aversion to love life, since she saw her mother's suffering. Many guys try katniss, but she scowls and scares them away. A strange situation happens, where peeta and katniss need to act like dating each other for some time. How katniss changes her opinion on love and how peeta realized katniss is his true love! [submitted by @joshifer4everyone]

Prompt 110: I know it's too late but it's worth a shot. This prompt popped in my head and I had to try. Everlark are at the beach and Peeta gets attacked by a shark and loses his leg. Peeta is rushed to the hospital where Katniss stays by his side and the story goes into Peeta facing the reality of not having a leg. How does it affect his work life? Sex life? And Katniss being there for him through thick and thin. [submitted by Anonymous]

Prompt 111: So I was driving earlier and Mary’s Song by Taylor swift came on and it made me really want to see this everlarked!! [submitted by Anonymous]

Feeling inspired?

Choose a prompt from the list and tell us about it. (Chosen prompts will be removed from the list so that there will only be one fic/artwork per prompt.)

Write a fic or create some artwork. Fics can be as short as 500 words or as long as you like. They can be one-shots, new chapters from your current WIPs, or out takes from any one of your fics. As long as your work covers the details provided in the prompt, you can create whatever moves you.

Submit your finished fic or artwork. We’ll be posting finished works from April 2 to April 15.

Got questions, comments or suggestions? Click here. We’d love to hear from you!

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[ellanainthetardis]

prompt : peeta plans to loose his virginity to katniss so he goes and asks haymitch for some pointers and advice on if there is anything special hes suppose to do for a girl

One very uncomfortable conversation coming up! (X]

Haymitch, The Poet

Breakfast had become something Haymitch reallylooked forward to since Effie had brought Peeta back to Twelve – and had showedup along with him. It might have been absolutely stupid in its simplicity buthe loved sharing coffee and toasts with her in the morning, eggs if he feltlike cooking. Breakfast had always been a quiet time for them during the Games,a time they either used to strategize before their tributes showed up or tobanter over a blueberry muffin. In Thirteen, they hadn’t had many occasions tosit down and eat together. Their schedules had been different and, when theyhad matched, there had always been people around them to intrude.

So, all in all, the last three weeks of themhaving breakfast together in the mornings had become something he had reallystarted looking forward to. Living together wasn’t something they otherwiseexcelled at for now. She had too many expectations and he sometimes resentedher overwhelming presence in his house. They would get there though. He really wanted them to get there. She hadtalked about sharing her time between Twelve and the city at first – becausePlutarch had offered her a job in the entertainment industry that she wasconsidering taking – but she had yet to pack and leave.

Which suited Haymitch fine because he enjoyedtheir breakfasts.

And their nights.

And their in-betweens, even the fights thatleft him hoarse.

So that morning, as he sipped his cup of coffeeand smirked over the rim of the mug because she was trying not to smile whilebiting on her toast, fluttered as she was with his attention, he was in a verygood mood. It might have had to do also, perhaps, with the foot she had hookedaround his ankle under the table.

“We are ridiculous.” she chuckled, wiping herfingers on her napkin. “I hope you realize that.”

He did. He really,really did. But that wasn’t enough to stop him from behaving like a kid inlove.

He was entertaining the thought of clearing thetable so he could have her on it instead when the back door opened on Peeta.Effie immediately patted her blond hair self-consciously – wigs might not befashionable anymore but she still spent a good thirty minutes styling her hairevery morning regardless – her foot discreetly retreating away from his ankle.

“Good morning, dear!” she greeted with herusual cheer. “Would you care for some coffee?”

Haymitch stood up to pour one for the boy whenhe nodded, gently pulling Effie’s silk dressing gown close with one hand on theway because it was open wide on a lacy red nightgown that had Peeta’s ear growred. She tightened the belt with a flush and a small wince. She still mindedthe kids barging in without warning, Haymitch had long grown used to it. Still,that meant that she wasn’t always presentable and that wasn’t settling rightwith her.

He didn’t mind so much. If Peeta was botheredby his lack of shirt, he didn’t let on.

“Where’s Katniss?” he asked, scratching hischest while he poured him coffee.

“In the woods.” the boy offered, alreadysitting at the table. “She thinks she saw a deer yesterday. She said she wantedto try and track it down.”

“Would be good.” he approved. A few people hadcome back but rebuilding Twelve was a huge endeavor and resources were scarce.The government was sending rations over but an addition of meat wouldn’t hurt.If Katniss caught a deer there would be plenty for everyone.

They chatted a little about the rebuildingwhile Peeta drank his coffee, wondering if more people would choose to comeback and if Paylor would soon send the working crew she had promised. Effiekept toying with her hair and hurried in finishing her mug, clearlyuncomfortable being in such an improper outfit in front of the boy. She excusedherself quickly and disappeared upstairs to get ready, leaving him and Peetaalone.

He didn’t realize immediately that somethingwas odd. It was only after the fifth awkward glance Peeta gave him that hefrowned, not quite understanding while the tips of the boy’s ears were stillred when Effie’s infamous crimson nightgown had disappeared from the room.“Something you want to tell me, kid?”

“I wanted to talk to you about something.”Peeta hesitated.

“Sounds serious.” he snorted, taking a bite ofthe toast Effie hadn’t finished.

“I was wondering if you could tell me aboutgirls.” the boy spat out in one rushed breath.

Haymitch choked on the piece of toast and Peetaimmediately slapped his back only stopping when he shot him an incredulouslook. “You want me to give you the talk?”

“No!” Peeta protested, red in the face now.

Fair was fair, Haymitch was fairly sure he wasequally flushed. “Then, what?”

“You’ve been with women before…” the boycringed. “More than one, I’m assuming.”

“Geez,kid, you don’t mess around, do you?” he chuckled because it was either laughingabout it or being mortified. “Yeah, I’ve been with more than one. More than two or three dozen probably.”

Peeta made a face at that. “Well, I haven’t. And Katniss and I…”

“Ah, ah, ah.”He stopped him right there, lifting both hands in the air. “You wanna have that sort of talk, we ain’t mentioning Katniss.”

“She will have to sort of be involved at somepoint.” the boy joked and Haymitch shook his head, wishing he could wipe theimages that it conjured out of his mind. “Okay, okay! No mention of Katniss.”

“Good.” he sighed in relief, rubbing his eyes.“So what are you asking, here?”

Peeta wavered, distractedly playing with thebutter knife. “Last night, we…”

“We,as in you and a totally hypothetical girl who isn’t the closest thing I have toa daughter.” he muttered to himself.

“Yeah, thatwe.” the boy snorted but his amusement faded fast into awkwardness again.“Things got a little heated? She had a nightmare and she came to sleep with meand… We kissed and it just kind of got… Out of hands?”

“Please, tell me you’re not trying to tell meyou’ve slept with her without protection and now there might be a Mockingjayfledgling on the way.” he begged. “’Cause that’s the thing you want to go to Effie about. Not gonna lie, she’s gonnascream but she probably has a solution too. Me, it’s just gonna get my bloodpressure higher and then I’m gonna try to strangle you.”

“We didn’t sleep together.” Peeta sighed.

“Oh, good.” he said in relief. Then he shot alook at the kid and amended “Well, maybe not for you.”

Where was booze when you needed some? He hadn’ttouched a drop since Thirteen. Not exactly by choice either. Twelve wasn’texactly well supplied and he couldn’t go through another withdrawal. And,really, with Effie and the kids there, it wasn’t so bad. He wanted to trysobriety for a while. For old times’ sakes. To see if he could actually makesomething of life.

“I just feel we could get there soon, youknow?” the boy said.

“I’d rather notto.” he admitted. But he would make sure the kids were well-stocked in condoms.And he would also make sure Effie had a talk with Katniss about getting her onthe pill. They so weren’t dealingwith a baby right then.

Peeta’s face closed and he slumped a little inhis chair. “Fine. Forget I said anything. I knew it would be weird to ask you anyway.”

“Why did you?” he whined a little, standing upto clear the table. That would please Effie and that would give him somethingto do. Two birds with one shittystone.

“You see a lot of older men in my life rightnow?” the boy scoffed. “I’m sure Doctor Aurelius wouldn’t mind spending ournext session giving me sex pointers.”

Fair was fair.

He hadn’t had much more guidance thefirst time he had been with a girl but he had been listening to Chaff for longenough that he knew more about sex than was needed at that point anyway.

“Okay.” he relented and he was going to regretit, he already knew it. “Shoot. What do you want to know?”

The look of relief on Peeta’s face wasunmistakable. “I want to make it good for her.”

“First times are awkward and it’s worse forwomen.” he countered without thinking.

“Have you ever been with a girl who had neverdone it before?” the kid asked.

That was the kind of things he hadn’t mindtalking about with Chaff, Beetee and Blight so much. With Finnick on occasions.Peeta, though… Peeta was too close to a son and it was really weird. Or maybe it was the lack of liquor that made it soodd.

He kept on putting everything away, thinking hemight just do the dishes because it would keep his back to the room and thatwould be way easier to have thisconversation that way.

“Yeah.” he answered at last. “My first time.”

“Oh, so you were both…” Peeta hesitated.

“Yeah.” he nodded, deciding he was definitely going to do the dishes. Andmake it last. “Wasn’t that bad. It was sweet, even. We didn’t really know whatwe were doing but figuring it out is part of the fun.”

“How old were you?” the boy asked.

Haymitch watched the hot water pool in the sinkand added the soap as an afterthought. The memories weren’t bad but likeeverything in his life, they were so tightly entwined with the Games that…“Nineteen.” There was only silence behind him and Haymitch glanced at the boyover his shoulder, an amused smirk on his lips. “Not the answer you expected,kid?”

Peeta gave him a sheepish shrug. “I thoughtyou’d have started younger. With the Quell and everything… I thought girlswould have been all over you.”

“They were.” he confirmed, turning back to thesink. “Might surprise you to hear but I’m a one woman man. And I was in noplace for that after my Games.”

“Sorry.” the boy offered genuinely enough. “Thewoman… Was she your first time?”

“Thought we were gonna talk about you.” he snapped but then he took a deepbreath and tried to calm down. The kid was just curious. “No, she wasn’t. TheCapitol killed my girlfriend along with my family after my Games. Thought thegirl would have told you.”

It wasn’t getting any easier to say the wordsor to talk about them but every time he managed, he felt a weight lift off hischest.

“I’m sorry, Haymitch.” Peeta said. “I didn’twant to bring back bad memories.”

He focused on washing Effie’s pink mugthoroughly, trying to keep his shaking hands under control. “They’re not. Badmemories. Just…”

“Difficult?” the boy suggested.

He gave a grunt in answer and he volunteeredthe rest because he was sure Peeta would ask anyway. “The girl I was with? Shewas a victor from Eight. Alina. I liked her. Didn’t love her but I liked her.” He didn’t clarify what had happened toher, the mere fact that she had been a victor was self-explanatory. The war hadtaken care of their specie. “It wasn’t awesome but it was okay. It gets betterwith experience. Thing is, sex isn’t… It’s supposed to be fun, yeah?”

He finally rinsed Effie’s mug and placed it onthe drying rack, deciding it was more than clean enough. He moved on to thenext one. He had rinsed it and put it with the other one when Peeta spokeagain.

“I don’t want it to be just… fun. I want it to mean something.” the kid argued. “I love her. I don’t want her tothink that I just want… I do wantit but that’s not all I want.”

He sighed and dropped the dishes pretence toturn around and study the boy. “Sex can be fun and still mean something. You don’t want to make a big deal out of it‘cause you’re both gonna be tense and it’s gonna be awful. The more pressureyou put on yourself, the worse it’s gonna be. Just be respectful of what shewants. Make sure she’s okay when you do something new. If she doesn’t like it,just do something else. And make sure she’s ready before you… You know.”

Peeta cleared his throat, deliberately avertinghis eyes. “How do I know when to…”

“For fuck’ssake.” Haymitch cursed, lifting his own eyes to the ceilings because really. Somewhere Chaff was laughing hisass off at him, he could see it. He hadn’t signed up for this when he haddecided to mentor the boy. “Okay.Asking is never a bad idea.”

“Won’t that ruin the mood?” Peeta winced.

“Less than if you accidentally hurt her.” hedeadpanned. “After a while… Well, you get to a point where you know the otherperson’s body, yeah? You don’t need them to tell you anymore but at first…Yeah, asking is definitely the thing to do.”

“Alright.” the boy said. “And… How do I knowif…”

“The wetter the better.” He rushed the wordsout quickly and thought about everything butKatniss. This wasn’t about Katniss.This wasn’t about Katniss. Or aboutthe fact that he would probably neverhave sex again after that really, reallyawkward brand of conversation. “Ask what works for her. Show her what works foryou.” He tossed the kid a distressed look. “Anything else you need to know?”

Peeta shook his head and bolted out of hischair. “Thank you, Haymitch. I’m sorry it was awkward but I really needed totalk about it with someone and…”

“It’s alright.” He made a face. “That’s whatI’m here for, yeah? Well, not just the sex talks but…”

Mentoring.

“Thanks.” Peeta insisted.

Haymitch wasn’t sorry to see him dash back tohis own house truth be told.

He breathed a sigh of relief and left thekitchen, intending to go for a long shower that hopefully would get his mind offthat conversation. He hadn’t been expecting to find Effie leaning against thehallway’s wall, just out of sight, a mocking grin on her red painted lips. Shewas dressed in a tight blue dress and it was a shame he had just sworn off sexbecause…

“The wetter the better.” she repeated, clearlyhaving difficulties keeping her amusement in check. “You are such a poet with words, Haymitch.”

“How much of that did you hear?” he groaned.

She shook her head, her grin turning into areal smile. “I think you handled that very well.”

“Most awkward conversation of my life.” hemumbled, rubbing his face.

He felt himself being pushed against the walland he didn’t resist, smirking when she pressed her body closer to his, herlips brushing his ear. “Shall I show you what works for me and let you tell mewhat works for you, darling? Would that help?”

She strutted away before he could answer.

It only took him two strides to grab her aroundthe waist and bring her back.

[ellanainthetardis]

Prompt, Based on the one where Katniss calls Effie 'Mom': The group visits Annie & Jo in 4. Katniss' mom finds out they're there & overhears Katniss' kids calling Effie 'Grandma', & cue regret that she'd never met them, maybe someone even had to tell her who the kids were, & perhaps envy that Effie's closer to them all than she'll ever be now?

Here it is, some toastbabies with a side of old very domestic hayffie {X]

Grandma

The playgrounds in Four were a lot bigger thanthe single one in Twelve and Effie was running herself frayed trying to keep aneye on the children. Next time, she vowed, she would force Finn to come withthem. He was a nice young twenty-three year old man and he would never refuseher. He was even sweeter on her than his father had been. It was shocking torealize Finn was older than Finnick had been when he had died and when she hadseen him waiting for them on the station’s platform with Annie and Johanna, shehad been forced to swallow back a gasp.

“Relax, sweetheart.” Haymitch snorted.“Willow’s right there.”

Willow was climbing the monkey bars, urging hernewfound friends on – she was just as reckless as her mother and just as promptto make friends as her father. Effie blamed most of her grey hair on the eightyears old.

“And Rye?” she worried.

“Still in the sandbox where we left him.” hepromised, relaxing further against the bench they were sitting on.

He looked tired, she noticed, briefly takingher attention away from the children to study him. One of his arms wasstretched behind her along the length of the wood, his other hand was on hisknee and his fingers were restlessly drumming an uneven rhythm. He alwayslooked restless since the surgery. Or perhaps it was having been forced to giveup liquor for good.

On bad days, days when he felt weak and sick,he blamed her for what he was going through. He would have simply given up anddied if she had let him, let cirrhosis win and take him away from her… She hadfought and fought until he had surrendered and accepted to go to the Capitol toget a second opinion and then she had fought and fought until he gave in andagreed to have the operation. They could do all sort of things in the city, cure all sort of things that would haveotherwise been considered terminal. It simply had a price because those privateclinics didn’t operate pro-bono.

All their savings and a part of Peeta’s hadgone into getting him into that program and Plutarch still had been forced topull strings.

But it had been worth it. Oh, so worth it.

Now he had a brand new liver grown especiallyfor him from his own DNA – and perhaps it was similar to mutts and perhaps hehad had reasons to be wary but she didn’t care because he was alive. They wouldn’t have had much morethan a few more months together without that surgery and instead they had had twoyears and hopefully many more to come. Having to take meds every morning andnight and staying off the liquor were a small price to pay in her opinion.

“We are far too old for this.” she sighed.  At fifty-eight, she didn’t have the energyshe used to and the children were a handful on the best day. At sixty-four,Haymitch was even less partial to entire days spent watching children all tooprone to accidents. Babysitting was fine but she wasn’t sure how they wouldsurvive an entire week as their sole caretakers. “Next time, they can send themto Annie and Johanna.”

Truth be told, that week was supposed to be asecond honeymoon for Peeta and Katniss who had packed up for Seven while theytook the children to Four for the traditional summer trip. The children wouldjoin them later, at which point, Haymitch and Effie would switch hotels for asmaller cozier one where they would be able to have some honeymoon time of their own.

Haymitch tossed her an incredulous glance. “Youwanna send your preciousgrandchildren away for a whole week with only Annie and Johanna to supervise?”

“They didn’t do such a bad job raising Finn.”she countered.

His lips twitched into a smirk. “Have you metWillow?”

“Point taken.” she chuckled. Willow and Johannawould be a bad mix. Willow was always up to all sorts of shenanigans and Jo wasalways too willing to humor her. “Oh, no! Rye is crying…”

The three years old must have gotten some sandinto his eyes. Effie was already halfway up but Haymitch waved her down,hauling himself off the bench to hurry to the boy. Despite his grumpy attitude,she watched as Haymitch’s irritation melted around the baby of the family. Ifanyone had ever told her she would see Haymitch Abernathy, Quarter Quellvictor, willingly sit down in a sandbox to play with a little boy, she wouldhave laughed hard enough to break a rib.

Rye being safe with Haymitch, she turned herattention back to Willow who had now urged her little group of friends to theslide. They were apparently playing at having an adventure and Effie smiledwith fondness at the girl’s antics. She was having the time of her life, itseemed. Hopefully, if she exhausted herself enough she wouldn’t beg to go tothe beach later on. Effie refused to let the children in the water if there wasno adult to supervise – which often meant herif Annie or Finn were otherwise engaged. She could never say no, of course, it was the point of theholidays after all but… She wouldn’t have minded a quiet afternoon, truth betold. A fashion magazine, a cocktail…

Perhaps they could take the children furtherdown the pier where there were carousels and ice cream to distract them fromthe ocean when they would be done playing. They would enjoy it and they couldall go to the beach in the morning instead of…

“Miss Trinket?”

Effie looked up at the woman who had called hername, adjusting her pink sunglasses on her nose to see better – she was up toall tricks to keep people from knowing her sight wasn’t as good as it once was,she wore contacts and had her sunglasses corrected. It took her a few minutesto place her because it had been years since she had given her any thought atall.

“Mrs Everdeen…” she said slowly, without anywarmth.

Her feelings about the woman had always beensomehow mixed because she didn’t believe an eleven years old should have beenforced to care for her family when there was a capable adult present. But thathad been another world and she could have understood if the woman hadn’t packedup and left right before the end of Katniss’ trial, leaving Haymitch forced tostep up to take custody of the girl and thus compelled to leave her behind in the Capitol to look afterPeeta when she had barely been able to take care of herself and when theirrelationship had been at a very fragile breaking point. It had added a lot ofdifficulties that the obvious pain Katniss had felt at her mother’s desertionhadn’t helped curb. Never mind the lack of surprise on the girl’s part.

The healer looked hesitant but she flashed hera small smile. “I thought it was you. You haven’t changed at all.”

Effie patted her dyed strawberry blond hairself-consciously, she kept the reddish hue because Haymitch was fond of it andbecause it was close to its original colors. There were lines at the corner ofher eyes but she supposed the sunglasses hid those. The blue summer dresshugged a figure that, fortunately, was still appealing enough in her ownopinion, the scars having faded enough in the last two decades not to be sonoticeable. The hands, though, were the dead giveaway. They were old woman’shands now. Wrinkled and sometimes swollen at the joints, preventing her fromsewing or knitting.

Wait until you hitsixty, Haymitchalways mocked because it was went his body had finally cried uncle for him. Notonly the liver but his knees and his back.

“You neither.” she offered politely.

It wasn’t a far cry from the truth. AsterEverdeen looked the same, albeit a little older. Her blond hair was mostlywhite now, it fell in a long braid over her shoulder. Delicate hands wereclutching the strap of a medical bag passed over a shoulder over a medicaluniform of some sort.

“Are you still living in Twelve?” the womanasked with a touch of… eagerness. “Katniss mentioned you had moved there a fewyears ago.”

Effie pursed her lips. As far as she knew,Katniss had had almost no contact with her mother aside from the occasionalphone calls in the years after the war – and those phone calls had becomeshorter and shorter until they had simply stopped. Aster hadn’t come to thewedding and the girl had never forgiven her for it.

She glanced at the boy who was now busy withhis favorite game of let’s climb Grandpa andwondered if the woman even knew about them. How long since the last timeKatniss had talked to her mother? She remembered it had been a big deal duringKatniss’ first pregnancy, how the girl had uncharacteristically sought her company at odd times because shefelt insecure and needed the input of another woman, one she was close to andto whom she could confide things that would have had Peeta and Haymitchrunning.

“I have been living in Twelve for more thantwenty years, yes.” she confirmed. “With Haymitch.”

“Oh, of course.” Aster smiled awkwardly. It was public knowledge after all. It hadmade quite the scandal and they had appeared together at various officialevents since then – the anniversaries of the rebellion weren’t things they wereallowed to miss, particularly when they hit a new milestone. The healer clearedher throat. “And how’s…”

“Grandma!” Willow shouted, choosing that momentto come running to the bench. “Grandma! Can I get Tali’s number so I can callher tomorrow for a play date, please? Her mother says I can have it and we cangive her Auntie Annie’s if you say it’s okay.”

Effie glanced from the flushed girl to thewoman who was standing next to another bench with a little girl, clearly aboutto leave. She rummaged in her bag for a piece of paper and quickly scribbledAnnie’s number on it. Willow snatched it from her hand and was gone before shecould even blink.

She shook her head with an amusement thatquickly faded when she looked back at Aster. The healer was staring at thechild.

“I didn’t know you had children.” Mrs Everdeencommented.

“I don’t.” she denied. “Not biologic onesanyway. Willow is…”

She never had time to confirm what the womanprobably already suspected because the girl was back, her prize clutched in herlittle fist. “Can you keep it safe for me, Grandma? I really like Tali. I don’twant to lose it.”

“Of course, darling.” she promised, placing thepiece of paper with her little friend’s number in her purse for safekeeping.“Wait.” she ordered before the child could scamper away. “Here, drinksomething. It’s too hot to be running around without proper hydration.”

Willow took the plastic bottle full ofstrawberry flavored water without protest and dutifully sipped from it, knowingthat the sooner she complied the quicker she would be allowed to go back toplaying. Her grey eyes fell on Aster and her eyebrows shot up, she pointed outat the woman’s hair. “My mommy does the same kind of braids.”

“Does she, now?” Aster breathed out, her eyesshiny. She dropped on the bench next to Effie who had half a mind to protestbut didn’t quite know how to handle the whole thing. What would Katniss wanther to do? It wasn’t her place todecide how to introduce the woman.

“Yep.” the girl nodded enthusiastically.“You’re a friend of Grandma?”

Mrs Everdeen flinched and Effie realized itmust have been a slap in the face to realize she was grandma. Their biologicalgrandmother was a stranger to them.

“I…” Aster hesitated.

“Hey, squirrel, why don’t you go back to playingwith your friends, yeah?” Haymitch suddenly cut in, his voice a touch wary.“They look like they’re waiting for you.”

Willow didn’t need to be told twice. She tossedthe bottle at Haymitch who caught it easily despite the boy clinging to hisneck and snickering hard at the game. It wasn’t long before Haymitch hadsecured the three years old against his chest and had handed him the bottle hissister had left behind. Rye took a few sips with obvious relief. He was lessflushed than Willow but it was clear he wouldn’t have minded some peace andquiet. The way he was rubbing his eyes, Effie figured it wouldn’t be longbefore he took a short nap. Without him needing to ask, she handed him the frayedstuffed horse that usually resided in her bag when it wasn’t in his arms. Hewedged it between Haymitch and his body, cuddling it close.  

“Hello, Haymitch.” Aster said, a bit waryherself. “Hello, young man.” Rye peered at her under his long eyelashes andthen buried his face in Haymitch’s neck, placing his horse over his head forgood measure. The woman smiled sadly. “I trust this one isn’t yours either?”

Effie shook her head. “Why don’t you say helloto the nice lady, Rye?” The boy clung to Haymitch a little tighter and refusedto look at the stranger. She shrugged apologetically. “He is a bit shy but heis such a sweet child…”

“He’s tired.” Haymitch said, his grey eyesnever wandering away from Aster. Effie knew that look. It was the way hewatched out for threats. “I was coming to tell you we should bring the kidshome.”

“Wait.”Aster pleaded, sounding scared. She searched Haymitch’s gaze, found no sympathythere and turned to Effie. “How old are they?”

She hesitated but really… “Willow is eight and Rye is three.”

“Rye…”the woman repeated. “Wasn’t one of Peeta’s brother…”

“Yes. His favorite one.” Effie nodded.

“Oh…” Aster breathed out, desperately staringat Willow who was once more leading her friends in an adventure. “But Katnissdidn’t name the girl after…”

“It was too difficult for her.” she interruptedswiftly. Rye was now watching them without looking like it and he was a brightlittle thing. He would tell his sister who was naturally curious and would putthe puzzle back together. Questions would be asked if certain names wereraised. “We all wanted a clean slate.”

Naming the children after dead friends andfamily members… Nobody had opposed Peeta’s choice to give his son his favoritebrother’s name because none of them had been close to the dead young man. Primnow… It would have been too painful. Rue had been pushed aside for the samereason. In the end, Katniss had decided her children wouldn’t carry that sortof weight.

“And they call you Grandma.” Aster stated,almost accusative.

Effie opened her mouth, feeling all defensive,but Haymitch got there first and there was a growl in his voice that hadintimidated more than one powerful person. “Cause she’s there.”

“Do they know you aren’t their realgrandmother?” the healer asked.

And it hurt.

It hurt alot.

She looked down at her knees, brushing imaginarycreases off her blue dress. Haymitch automatically cradled the back of Rye’shead as if to shield him from those words. Unfortunately, the boy’s blue eyeswere staring straight at Effie who gave him a small reassuring smile. It wasenough for the child to smile back before he started sucking on his thumb. Itwas a habit they were trying to break him out of but she didn’t chide him forit.

“Now, you listen and you listen hard.” Haymitch hissed. “Effie’s just asreal as…”

“Enough.” Effie declared, standing up.

“Sweetheart.” he warned with a  glare, clearly dying to say his piece. He hadclaimed to understand Aster’s decision to not go back to Twelve after the warbut her behavior since then, her failure to come back into Katniss’ life hadleft him angry and bitter. He hated to see his victor hurt.

“Darling.” she replied in the same warningtone. She found another piece of paper in her bag and scribbled Annie’s numberfor the second time before handing it to Aster. “Katniss and Peeta will join usnext week. Call your daughter if you wish to see your grandchildren.”

“Don’t call if you’re just gonna take offagain.” Haymitch snapped. “They’re kids,not toys. You can’t just waltz in their lives and disappear right after.”

“I didn’t disappear, I left her with you.”Aster protested faintly, rubbing her face. “I could never have… I knew you werethe best choice, Haymitch. I knew you would look after her better than I evercould have. She had always been closer to her father, you know, and you… Youfilled that gap in her life.”

“Yeah, well…” he grumbled. “Effie filled theone you left so…” He shook his head.“I mean it, Aster. If you call, you better be ready to own it.”

“Willow!” Effie signaled to the girl they wereready to leave and the child came running, wrapping her arms around her middlewith pleading eyes. “No, darling, we really need to go home. Your brother wantshis nap.” she said firmly before Willow could beg for five more minutes thatwould turn into a half hour. “However Iwas thinking that after a nap and a snack we might just go to the pier.”

Where there would be carousels and all sorts ofgames and where, she was sure, they would end up with one of those giganticstuffed toys Haymitch grumbled so much about because they had ended up with ahuge stuffed panda and a zoo of smaller animals in their guest room given thatWillow was running out of space to stock them at home.

The girl’s eyes brightened and she squeezed herwaist harder. “You’re the best Grandma in the whole world!”  

Aster flinched and Effie almost felt sorry forher. Almost.

It had been her choice to give up on herdaughter after all.

“How about me, squirrel?” Haymitch scowled,faking a pout. “Don’t even get a hug? I smell or what?”

Willow laughed, carefree and happy, andswitched targets to barrel into Haymitch. He winced a little when her head hitthe always tender spot on his stomach but it was soon smoothed away by anexpression of utter fondness.

“I am afraid we have to go.” Effie told Aster,polite but a touch cold. “Do consider giving your daughter a call.”

They didn’t give her a lot of time to ponderthat. Haymitch herded the children away, Willow clinging to his hand. Theyhadn’t gone really far from the playground when the girl grabbed Effie’s freehand so she could walk between them and peered up at her curiously. “Who wasthe lady?”

“An old acquaintance.” she dismissed.

The word seemed to puzzle Willow who made aface and turned to Haymitch for clarification.

“Just someone we used to know, sweetheart.” heshrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”

Willow pondered that and then probably decidedit wasn’t worth her interest because she started hopping happily between them.“Can Finn take us to the aquarium again sometimes? I like watching the fish.”

“We will ask him tonight.” Effie promised. “Butif he can’t we won’t insist, alright?”

Finn had been working at the aquarium since thebeginning of the year and she didn’t want him to get in trouble for them. Heloved his job, he loved taking care of animals, and she wasn’t sure giving themthe behind the scenes tour had beencleared with his superiors.

“Okay.” the girl agreed readily. She escapedtheir hands to run a little ahead.

“Stay in sight!” Effie demanded, shaking herhead at how impetuous that child was. A glance at Rye confirmed the boy was nowsound asleep in Haymitch’s arms. “What did you think?”

“Not sure.” he admitted. “Just hope she’sserious about it if she decides to call Katniss. The girl’s been let downenough.” His lips twitched with anger. “She had some nerves too, saying you’renot their real grandmother. What’s thatsupposed to mean? Who was there when Katniss went into labor? Who changeddiapers? Who stayed up all night with the kids when Willow had that fever?Who’s always there to watch the babies when the kids need some air?” Hescoffed. “Got some nerves, I’m telling you.”

She smiled at how protective he was of her butwaved a dismissive hand in the air. “She was just jealous, I think. What I getto be to those children… She will never have it.”

He seemed a little surprised. “Didn’t botheryou?”

“The comment did a little.” she admitted.“But…” She shrugged. “A few years ago, I would have been afraid of her stealingthem all away from me. Now… Now I know nothing can drive us apart.”

They had all been close since the war, theyformed a solid family unit that the children’s babies had only strengthened.But after Haymitch’s health troubles… Katniss and Peeta had rallied around themin a way that had brought her close to tears a few times. Katniss had beggedhim to take the surgery, she had raged until she had burst out in full sobs andshe hadn’t stopped until he had held her close like he almost never did becauseneither of them were touchy-feely –as they claimed. Peeta was the one who had sat Haymitch down and had forced himto consider everything he would be leaving behind if he chose to just give upand accept his fate – not only Effie but Katniss and him and grand-children whoworshiped the ground he walked on. The children had been there every step ofthe way. They hadn’t come to the Capitol with them but they had called threetimes a day to check on him, to talk to him, to make sure everything was goingas best as possible – to the point he had one day exclaimed that he didn’t needto be that coddled, all the whileflushing red in embarrassment and, Effie was sure, pleasure at knowing he wasloved that much.

So, no,she wasn’t scared of Aster Everdeen coming and stealing the matriarch placeback because that place belonged to Effie and to Effie alone. Katniss herselfhad confessed she felt closer to her than to her own mother. There was noquestion about how Peeta felt about her. And the babies… Well… Willow and Ryeloved her, she knew it deep down and she was secured in that knowledge.

“Look at you being all wise.” he teased.

“It suits me well, I think.” she teased rightback.

It didn’t have to be all hers or all Aster’s.She could share a little of them.

But it was Aster Everdeen’s decision to takethat first step.

[ellanainthetardis]

This is one of my favorite chapters in this story, I really hope you enjoy it! Let me know!

[FF] or [AO3]

24. Twenty-nine weeks

The stairs were tricky to manage nowadays.

She clung to the banister, forced to stop every three step down to catch a breath. She had lounged in a bath for hours with scented candles and soft music but the relaxing effect was already fading away faced with the reality of how heavy, big and annoying her body had become. Never mind the cramps or the heartburns – all normal according to the doctor – her back had been bothering her for weeks and she hadn’t thought it could get worse but now it was killing her. Haymitch was dutiful in massaging the knots away but relief never lasted long.

It took her about ten minutes to get downstairs and she vowed to not get upstairs again until bed time. She would simply have to send Haymitch if she needed anything. Or Snowball. She had been training the puppy to fetch specific things with mildly successful results.

She paused at the bottom of the stairs and made sure the towel wrapped around her wet hair was secured – it would mean wild untamable curls in the morning but she really didn’t have the energy blowing it dry would require. It smelt good in the house and she felt her mouth water as her stomach rumbled in hunger.

“What are we having for dinner?” she asked as she stepped in the living-room.

She had been thinking with her stomach for weeks. That, too, was a pain.

All in all, Effie was really done with being pregnant – a thought she immediately felt guilty for because she would never recover if anything bad happened now.

“White fish with some spices and orange sauce.” Haymitch answered absent-mindedly from one of the leather armchairs close to the shelves, engrossed in a book.

He looked up when she came in and, she had to give him that, his lips barely twitched – he had learned not to mock her too much anymore on pain of her trying to murder him with a pillow in a fit of pregnant insanity. She was sure there were reasons to laugh though. The shirt she had borrowed from him was stretched so tight it looked ready to burst at the seams and the stretchy pregnancy pants didn’t look – or felt – so stretchy. She looked anything but fashionable and she couldn’t begin to care even though the children would probably be around for dinner. In the state her body was in, comfort primed over fashion.

“You are getting creative with recipes.” she commented, dropping on the couch and immediately trying to find a good position – to no avail.

“Someone’s gonna need to feed that kid eventually.” he shrugged, sounding a bit embarrassed. She didn’t see why he was truly, he was a good cook when he bothered and she was helpless in a kitchen. It all worked out perfectly fine in her opinion. She would keep the house clean and he would put food on the table. He closed his book to look at her. “Your dad called.”

It was somehow funny to her how Elindra was always her mother but Tadius was her dad.

“Should I call him back?” she hummed, gauging the distance between her and the kitchen and not liking the results she was coming with.

“Nah.” he dismissed. “I sent a book last week, he just wanted to say thanks.” Which probably meant they had spent half an hour debating about whatever the book had been about. It had happened a few times since she had officially introduced them in Four. They sent each other books, then they argued about them. It was an odd form of bonding but they seemed to have developed a liking and some begrudging respect for each other so Effie wasn’t going to look a horse gift in the mouth. Even if it stung a little that her father seemed more eager to talk to Haymitch than to her. “He’s got a business trip in Eleven next week. He said he would stop by if that was okay with us… Wasn’t sure what you would want but… You were fine with your mother coming and it’s just for a night so…”

“You accepted.” she deduced.

He  made a face. “I can call him back if you…”

“No, no, it is more than fine.” she smiled. “I am happy you like him so much.”

“It’s not that I like him.” he denied awkwardly. “He’s your dad. I’m trying to…” He drew out a sigh. “I don’t want you to feel like…”

“It is fine, Haymitch.” she cut him off softly. “Truly. I appreciate your efforts.”

“You want them in the shrimp’s life, right?” he winced. “We have to… We can’t have a war. I don’t want to put him in the middle. Wouldn’t be fair.”

“Haymitch.” she insisted. “It is fine.”

“Good. Good.” He cleared his throat and looked down at his book before rolling his eyes. “Maybe I like him. He’s not too crazy for a Capitol.”

She grinned at him. “I think he likes you too.”

“Great. So we’ll be a merry family then.” he deadpanned, his grey eyes snapping back to her. “How’s the back?”

“I do not think it will get better until I give birth.” she complained with a pout. Which reminded her… “About that… We need to talk.”

He frowned and immediately left the armchair to come and sit on the coffee table – something that wasn’t a good idea because it hadn’t been designed to take that sort of weight. “Everything’s okay? You spoke to Larcher?”

“Not since his last visit, no. And everything is alright.” she hurried in reassuring him. “I just… I have been reading about childbirth lately and labor… And… We need to talk about practical details.”

“Do we?” He wrinkled his nose.

She narrowed her eyes at him, irritated with his antics. “Yes, we do.” She drew out an exasperated sigh. “First, and do not freak out over this because it is only a precautionary measure, I made an appointment at the Justice Building.”

“To give birth?” he frowned, obviously confused.

She reached out and squeezed his hand, knowing there was no softening what she was about to say. “To make a will.”

His whole body seemed caught between a bristle and a flinch. He physically recoiled as if she had hit him and his face grew darker. “You don’t need to think about that.”

“Yes, I do. We do.” she insisted. He tried to get up, walk away, but she held him back by the hand, clinging to it for dear life. “Haymitch, will you hear me out?”

“No.” he snapped. “’Cause you’re not going to die.”

“It is very unlikely.” she pacified him. “But I want to make sure… Haymitch, if anything happens to me, I need to make sure everything will be in order.”

“Like what?” he spat. “You’ve got next to nothing.”

It was true he was the one with the money but she didn’t like being reminded of that fact. It was hurtful and demeaning and she let go of his hand to fold her arms over her chest.

“I have a child.” she hissed. “Who I need to make sure will be lawfully recognized as yours as well so you can get custody if anything happens to me.”

“Custody of my own son?” he growled. “Why, thank you, sweetheart.”

“I simply do not want it to be difficult if anything were to happen.” she retorted. “The right preventive steps will make sure…”

“You’re not dying!” he shouted. From where he was lounging in front of the fireplace, gnawing on his toy, Snowball let out a threatening growl. Haymitch glared at him. “Sure, take her side. Maybe she can leave you to me too in her will. Not like you were my fucking dog to begin with.”

The baby was agitated and she rubbed her stomach, not any more partial to screams than their child seemed to be. She let him calm down, let him take a few heavy pants, and then she simply licked her lips.

“You are making a will too, by the way.” she stated. “As you so nicely pointed out, I have next to nothing. If anything happens to you, we need to make sure our child will be provided for.”

“I’ve got a will.” he spat angrily. “Anything happens to me, everything goes to you, Katniss and Peeta in equal shares.”

She couldn’t help but frown. “You have a will?”

“Yeah.” he scowled, calming down a little. “Made it in Thirteen.” He passed a hand over his face. “Guess, it needs to be updated to include the baby.”

“It would be wiser, yes.” she confirmed. “It is just a precautionary measure, Haymitch…”

“You’re not dying.” he repeated and it sounded like an order.

“It is certainly not in my short term plans.” she smiled, patting the cushion next to her. “Come on, there is more.”

“Oh, great.” he mocked. “What are we discussing now? Cremation versus burial? Gotta tell you, I’m a get back to the dirt kind of guy myself.”

“And you can put that in your will for me to hopefully never find out.” she replied. “Although, since the matter is up, I would like to be buried too and in Twelve. Do not let anyone ship me back to the city. I know there is a Trinket vault…”

“Shut up.” he demanded, dropping on the couch next to her. “I don’t want to talk about this stuff.”

“You started it.” she reminded him.

“Yeah?” he sneered. “Who started talking about wills and…”

“I want you with me when the baby is born.” she cut him off, grabbing his hand again. She didn’t give him time to argue. “I am aware other women would probably give their partner a choice in that and I am aware you would probably prefer to wait outside for the whole thing to be over but… You put that baby into me, you will be there when it gets out. You will hold my hand and you will let me insult you and I am sure you will be unhelpful and infuriate me to no ends but… I need you with me. There is no one else I would rather have with me. It will be scary and painful and I want you there.”

She was staring straight at him, searching for something, some doubt or disgust, she didn’t find. He actually looked calmer and it was his turn to squeeze her hand.

“Nice speech.” he teased. “Not really necessary. Wasn’t going to wait outside. Won’t leave your side. I… I wanna be there. I don’t want to miss anything.”

She wondered how much was due to his overprotective nature and how much was out of impatience at being a father.

“Good.” she commented with a long breath, relieved. “Which brings me to my next point…”

“Another one?” he cringed. “You don’t want to save some for tomorrow?”

She licked her lips, even more nervous about this than she had been about the will. She was resolved though. She had a list of pros and cons. She had read what every book had to say on the subject. She had talked to Larcher and to Eileen. She hadn’t gone as far as asking her mother’s opinion – knowing full well what it would be – but she had gotten close to it.

“I want a home delivery.” she told him.

He didn’t erupt in protests, which she took as a positive point. He didn’t seem overjoyed either.

“Isn’t it more risky?” he ventured and, when she opened her mouth to argue, he lifted his free hand. “Look… Home deliveries… It’s pretty much standard in Twelve, I guess… That’s how my mother did it… I’m not saying I’m against but… Times changed, yeah? Most people go to the clinic nowadays ‘cause… It’s safer, right? And you opened that speech with wills and you’re so not dying on me, sweetheart…”

“It is safer in some ways, yes.” she admitted. She hesitated but eventually shrugged. “I will panic in the clinic. I will be in pain and I will see the white walls and I will panic, I know it. I will space out, it will probably complicate everything and… I do not want to miss our son’s birth because I am flashing back to the war and…” She averted her eyes. “It would be safer in some ways but worse in others. Doctor Larcher agreed to come here once the labor starts, preventing there is no emergency at the clinic. He gave me the number of a local midwife… She would be there too. Oh, we will need to make appointments with her anyway for antenatal classes.”

He made a face. “What’s that now?”

“Breathing techniques and the likes.” she clarified. “The classes are for couples. And since you agreed to be there for the birth…”

“Okay, okay…” he granted, waving it away. “You’re sure about this? ‘Cause I’m guessing it means natural childbirth, yeah? No fancy drugs… It’s gonna hurt like a bitch, sweetheart. The shrimp’s big and I know for a fact you’re not that wide down…”

“Don’t you dare finish this sentence.” she hissed.

He smirked but he didn’t look completely reassured. “If you think it’s the best option.”

“The baby is healthy and if he remains so… There shouldn’t be any complication.” she argued. “I will go to the clinic if something goes or feels wrong, of course, but… I would really rather want to have him here. I already ordered plastic sheets for the bed.”

“Really don’t need the details.” he winced.

“You know, you will be in the room. You will see.” she teased.

“Yeah.” He did turn a little green at the thought. “Don’t spoil it. Leave me the surprise.” She rolled her eyes but he ignored her, reaching out to gently pat her belly. Not long after, the baby kicked. Following vibrations was one of his favorite games. “You’re sure you’ll be good with the pain?”

“I am not scared of pain.” she promised. “Well… That is not entirely true but I am certain I can manage. I have been through worse.”

He nodded and glanced up. “Fine, then. If you’re sure.”

“I am.” she smiled, covering his hand on her stomach because as much as he enjoyed playing with their baby, she wasn’t enjoying the enthusiastic kicking so much.

“We’re done with doom news?” he asked, lifting his eyebrows, half-teasing and half-serious. She hesitated, distractedly playing with his fingers, and he frowned. “Okay, what now?”

“I have something for you.” she admitted. “A gift.”

“A gift?” he repeated, confused.

She had been working on it for days but, if she had been nervous about broaching the subjects of wills and home deliveries, it was nothing compared to the idea of giving that to him. It could go very well or very badly. It felt like tossing a coin in the air, really, and the last thing she needed was him running away to spend his days in the woods again.

“A gift.” she confirmed.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I forgot an anniversary or something? ‘Cause I didn’t know we had one to begin with, Princess…”

Her lips twitched and she didn’t quite try to hide her smile. As fun as it would have been to let him sweat for a little while, this was too important.

“There is no special occasion.” she reassured him. “But I am afraid it will upset you.”

“You’re giving me something that’s going to upset me…” he chuckled, a bit wary.

“I do not know it will upset you.” she corrected. “I just think it might.” She waved that away. “If you do not like it, you can simply put it on the shelf and forget about it. It is as much for our son as for you, really. It is in the drawer in the hallway’s dresser.” The one he never rummaged through. “I would fetch it myself but…”

“Yeah.” he said, distractedly, standing up. His curiosity was piqued now, she could tell, but he also seemed cautious. It didn’t take him long to go through the drawer and come back with two leather notebooks similar to the ones Katniss used for her remembrance projects – except she had insisted on the covers of those ones being carved and decorated with spirals to make them a bit less gloomy. “Effie, what’s this?”

He sounded downward apprehensive now. He took his seat back next to her, placing the two notebooks on his knees but not making any move to open them.

One of them was bigger and she quickly switched them so it was on top. That one, she thought, would be the less difficult.

“I simply wanted to do something nice.” she whispered. “I hope you will like it.”

There was so much hope in her voice…

He studied her for a moment and then cleared his throat before cracking the big one open. She bit down on her bottom lip, staring at him rather than at the photo album she had spent days putting together. She had worked hard to put the pictures in a chronological order and to make it a bit festive. She had traced the numbers in calligraphic letters and had added names and places when she could. She had made whimsical comments when it was appropriate – mainly when he or Chaff were doing stupid things. She had tried to make it… light.

There were pictures of him with his friends. His earliest Games when he didn’t always have a glass, a bottle or a flask in his hand yet… Pictures of he and Alina Graves with their arms linked, making faces at the camera… Pictures of he and Chaff playing chess… Of him and Mags on a couch that had long since been replaced when she had arrived in the penthouse… There were Seeder and Beetee and Wiress and others…

He remained deadly silent, turning page after page, his jaw clenched…

He was a bit tense but he didn’t bolt. After four or five pages, he relaxed.  

“They’re not all mine.” he pointed out. “The pictures.”

“Most of them do come from the attic but I asked Annie, Johanna, Beetee and my mother for copies.” she explained. “Enobaria did not have anything I could work with but she wanted me to pass along her congratulations for the baby. She is still as intense as ever, that woman…”

“Your mother?” he frowned, ignoring the rest. “What has she got to do with…”

“You will see.” she grinned. “Do you like it?”

He didn’t answer at once. His eyes lingered on a picture of him and Chaff and then he forced a smirk.

“It’s a good idea.” he granted. “They’re… good memories. Despite…”

“Yes.” She spared him having to mention the Games. They were looming behind the pictures, out of sight but not out of mind. “Go on.”

He turned the pages a bit faster, clearly amused by her enthusiasm. She started appearing on pictures around the Sixty-Second Hunger Games. It was only promotional pictures at first or clips from newspapers – and that was where her mother had been useful because she had kept every paper and magazine on which either she or Lyssa had been featured – only later did the pictures become more genuine. She wasn’t sure who had owned the camera. Earlier on, she thought it might have been Mags. Then, the photographer must have been Finnick… She did remember Finnick snapping pictures at random sometimes, particularly during drinking sessions in the penthouse.

She had had one too, naturally, but those pictures only came much later, around the Seventieth Hunger Games… She had mostly kept using it because it annoyed Haymitch to no end. She had taken so many pictures of him that year… They had all disappeared with the rest of her belongings in the ransacking of her apartment but she had given him a few of the two of them and those never ceased to make her smile. The pictures were so genuine… Far from the posed and studied promotional ones…

There they were on the penthouse couch, with her arm stretch high so she could take the picture, her other arm around Haymitch’s neck to keep him in place. He was scowling so hard and she was grinning… Or there, when he had accidentally snapped a picture while trying to wrestle the camera out of her hands and only succeeded in catching them in what looked like an embrace. She was laughing on that picture and there was a smirk on his lips. If she wasn’t wrong, they had ended up having sex against the bay window that day…

There were a few others along the year, lost amongst more numerous official pictures that were intended to be funny – because funny was their style.

She rested her head on his shoulder and let him peruse the rest of the album.

It went as far as the Seventy-Third Hunger Games.

“None of the kids?” he asked.

“They have their own album.” she hummed. They had been taking pictures now and then since she had come to live in Twelve, Peeta liked photography. Not as much as he liked painting or baking but he had a knack for always capturing happy moments. She had been filing them away for a long time. “I want to start one for our son too. With the pictures of the ultrasounds… And the different pictures of me during my pregnancy…”

And everything else she hadn’t been recording just as she should, like Haymitch working on putting furniture together in the nursery… The trip to the attic had been a revelation on that front and her brand new digital camera should be delivered in the next few days. She intended to take pictures and videos of everything from now on.

There was a craft envelope at the very end of the album and he took it out with lifted eyebrows. “What’s that?”

“A bonus for your eyes only.” she grinned. “I am deeply vexed that they were buried under a heap of ties, I must say.”

He took a peek inside, smirking hard when he caught sight of the offered creamy skin. He had been having fun with her camera too one year.

She looked so young on those pictures… She couldn’t have been much younger than thirty or thirty-one but it was odd to see her body unmarred by angry red lines, unbroken yet. She was used to the scars.

“Hot.” he commented. “Should have kept them on hand. Literally.”

She wacked his arm playfully but smiled anyway. “Now, you can remember how I looked when I was beautiful.”

“You are beautiful, sweetheart.” he countered.

“I look like a whale.” she argued.

“A hot whale.” he teased, pocketing the craft envelope and closing the notebook. “Thanks. It’s not… It’s good. We can show it to the shrimp when he’s older. Tell him about them…”

“Yes.” she confirmed, slowly taking the photo album from his hands to place it on the coffee table, leaving the thinner one on his knees. “Now… This one I am not sure about. I hope you will like it. I hope it will help you. But if it upsets you… If it upsets you, do not feel forced to look through it.”

He didn’t open it.

His fingers were twitching on the cover, the anxiety increasing the tremors.

He must have had an inkling about what he would find, she thought, because he didn’t look at her this time. His eyes kept darting from the album on the coffee table to the one on his knees. It took him a few minutes to finally flip the cover open and he sucked in a sharp breath when he saw her flowery handwriting on the first page.

Abernathy Family.

“Effie…” he murmured, uncertain.

She entwined their fingers and gave him an encouraging squeeze.  

He slowly turned the page.

The first pages were pictures of him at sixteen. Some she knew he wouldn’t hate. Stolen ones during or after Training, fallouts of promotional shoots, a cropped one of him during his Reaping, when he had been joking with the boy next to him, grey eyes twinkling in amusement, lips stretched in a real smile that had now become rare…

He passed on those quickly.

“Fuck.” he gasped when he finally reached the pages that had asked the most work. She rubbed her belly with her free hand. The baby was probably feeling her stress and was rolling around, giving her cramps.

The quality of the pictures wasn’t as good as she would have liked and, even though Iris Abernathy was smiling, it didn’t reach her eyes. She was too worried.

“How?” he asked in a raw voice.

“You won a Quell, Haymitch.” she reminded him. “There were a few interviews once you had reached the last eight… Not all of them went on air, there were always cropped contents. I asked Plutarch to dig in the archives.” He didn’t seem to be able to tear his eyes off his mother’s face. “Go on.” she encouraged him softly.

There were a few more screenshots from different interviews. There were more for Iris than for Hayden but he stopped on the first picture of his brother, pressing his fingers against the glossy paper as if he could go straight through to that fixed world.

“He looks so young.” she lamented.

“He was young.” he spat.

His breathing came out in fast hard puffs and she pressed a kiss on his shoulder, over his woolen sweater. He didn’t feel it but he relaxed a little and he turned the pages.

That was her favorite part, the part that had asked hours.

Peeta had done an excellent job.

He had based the portraits on the interviews footage and, with Sae’s precious help, he had managed to do something beyond her hopes.

His mother was relaxed on those portraits, smiling a real smile, a twinkle in her eyes… Hayden looked carefree, boyish grin and exuberant youth…

There were a few sketches after that.

The Seam… Their house – based on Sae’s memories and Katniss’ occasional input… A few drawings of Iris in front of a garden with her hands on her hips and a scowling expression on her face that brought a sad snort out of Haymitch… Hayden running after geese…

Wistful images that had her blinking back tears…

He reverently brushed his fingers on each sketch.

“Marry me.”

His voice echoed in the living-room for a moment.

She had been expecting either a screaming match about her intruding or a heartfelt thank you. Not… that.

“It would certainly make things easier, yes.” she joked because she didn’t know what else to say and her mind was still on practical matters, like how they needed to make sure his paternity couldn’t be questioned. “But I already told you I won’t marry you simply because it would be easier.”

Or because she was pregnant.

He opened his mouth, no doubt to either clarify or argue his point, but abruptly shut it when he caught sight of the next portrait.

“You put Mabel in there.” he said flatly.

She barely glanced at the girl Peeta had really had troubles drawing. There had been no footage of her aside for a national ID picture from when she had been twelve that Plutarch really had gone to some lengths to get and they had been forced to go mostly on Sae’s and a few other old people’s memories.

“Well, she is the love of your life, it seemed rude to leave her out.” she pointed out cheerfully. “I wanted to put your token in there but I was not sure you would want it filed away so I left it in the nightstand.” He looked up then, a deep frown on his face. She lifted her hands defensively. “I have not been snooping in your nightstand. I simply happen to know it is there.”

For some reason, she had always made a point of knowing where the frayed pink ribbon he had dragged through an arena and back was.

The frown deepened ever further.

“She’s not the love of my life.” he declared, taking her a bit aback.

She looked down, chasing imaginary creases from her pregnancy pants. “It is perfectly alright, Haymitch. I know you love me too. There is no need to…”

“I was sixteen, Effie.” he interrupted. “We had a few months together. How long have we been together?”

“About two years since I moved in. Thirteen since we started sleeping together. Sixteen since we met.” she whispered.

Those were familiar calculations. She had done them often enough over the years.

“Almost two decades.” he scoffed. “You’re gonna compare a few months with two decades?”

“She was your great love.” she argued. “You always said…”

“Bullshit.” he snapped. “Haven’t been saying that in years. All those years… It was guilt. I loved her, sure. But she died because of me, she died because I loved her, because she loved me. Couldn’t toss that in the trash, yeah? You want the truth? It was easier, sweetheart, way easier than admitting that I…” He abruptly stopped talking, brought short as always by expressing his feelings. He shook his head. “She wasn’t the love of my life. She wasn’t my great love. Fuck, Effie. You are. How do you not fucking know that yet?”

He was out of breath by the time his speech was done and she was not sure how to answer that.

She had known he loved her. She had known for a long time, long before he had actually told her, but somehow… She had also long accepted she came second to a ghost.

He was waiting for her to speak but, for once, she was out of words.

He swallowed with obvious difficulty and waved the thin notebook in the air. “This… It’s… It’s one of the greatest things anyone… Ah, shit.” He sighed with obvious frustration and coiled his free hand around her nape, guiding her in a hard kiss that made her see stars. “I love you.” he mumbled quickly against her lips, the words rushed together as if it would be easier. “And we’re getting married. Not ‘cause it’s easy but ‘cause it’s right. If we’d been anyone else… We’ve been together so fucking long… If I’m sure of anything, I’m sure of you… We’re having a kid who’s gonna have my name and it’s stupid for you not to have my name too… And even if you weren’t knocked up… We’re a fucking family… We’re… It’s time.”

He punctuated each argument with a kiss, as if to cloud her mind – which was working to some extent – and she couldn’t help but laugh a little.

“Are you listing everything that pops through your head?” she mocked.

“Pretty much, yeah.” he shrugged. “So?”

“Well, I thought you could not do worse than last time in terms of proposal.” she grinned. “I suppose it was idiotic of me to at least hope for a ring. Or that you would wait until a time when I do not have a towel on my head…”

He rolled his eyes and drew back, placing the notebook on top of the other to stand up and start pacing. “When’s the appointment at the Justice Building for the will?”

“Next Wednesday.” she answered, a bit thrown by the change of topic.

“Good. That works.” he mumbled, rubbing his hands together. Snowball clearly thought it was a new game and started hopping around his legs, complicating his pacing by forcing him to sidestep the dog. “Your dad said he was coming on Tuesday. Maybe you should call your mother and give her the heads up ‘cause she’s gonna have my balls on a plate if you get married without at least telling her…” He made a face, probably not happy at the prospect of another visit from Elindra so soon after the last. “We can get them rooms at the inn, yeah? It’s gonna get crowded in here and you need the rest anyway. I guess you have to call Four too… They might want to come…”

“You want to get married next week?” she gasped, caught between awe and horror.

“Maybe we can elope.” he muttered as if he hadn’t heard her, still pacing like there would be no tomorrow. “We can grab the kids and do it. Just us. But your dad would be here so it might be awkward to explain… And, yeah, there’s the matter of your mother going after my balls…”

“Please, stop referring to your testicles and to my mother in the same sentence. It disturbs me greatly.” she cringed.

“And I know you, you’re gonna want a party or whatever…” he grumbled. “So, yeah… Eloping is out.”

“Getting married next week would already be considered eloping.” she pointed out. “And we cannot.”

“Why not?” he frowned, finally snapping out of his monologue. “You’ve got us an appointment. Just switch it from will to wedding. It’s not like they’re overbooked, sweetheart.”

“Why am I the one making all the phone calls again?” she deadpanned.

“’Cause you’re the best at planning.” he answered with faked innocence. “I just try to show up on time.”

“And fail if I am not there to push you.” she commented.

He smirked and stopped walking, his eyes sparkling with mirth. “Add it to the list of reasons I have to marry you.”

“That list should be as long as the tallest skyscraper in the city.” she taunted.

“Probably, yeah.” he smirked. “We’re getting married next week, sweetheart.”

“No, we are not.” she retorted. “I look like a cow. Do you know what cows in wedding dresses look like? Me neither but I do not think it would be pretty.”

“You’re pretty.” he countered. “You’re always pretty. Come on, Effie. Let’s do it.” He looked so expectant, standing there with a boyish pout on his mouth… Faced with her silence, he shrugged. “We can have a toasting now, if you like that better. The Justice Building is just for the papers anyway… We need witnesses for that but… We can take the kids. Whatever you want. As long as you marry me.”

Eloping now was tempting.

But the reactions they would get from their friends and family… Getting married without the children did not seem right. Neither did it to do it without Johanna and Annie there. And… She wanted her father to give her away – even if she had to waddle to get there.

She had never thought it would ever happen so what were a few more months to wait to have a dream wedding? Except there would be a baby then and babies took time and energy and she suspected they would have their hands full enough without having to worry about a wedding. Her mother would want to help and she would meddle and it would be horrible.

Better to have her come the day before and drive her crazy for twenty-four hours only instead of planning ahead and having her harassing her for months.

“Next week.” she surrendered at last and she was rewarded with a happy smirk.

He dropped back on the couch next to her to kiss her in an endless kiss that told her the fish would burn in the oven and the children might get more than they bargained for when they could come in. His hands were running in her favorite places already, waking her body up despite how sluggish and ugly she felt…

“Hear that, shrimp?” he mocked, nuzzling her stomach a little. “You’re getting married parents.”

“How traditional of us.” she taunted right back.

“Some traditions aren’t bad.” he argued, planting a kiss on the baby bump, before resuming his task of making her feel like a human pile of mush.

They managed not to traumatize the children further – although Katniss and Peeta arrived right when she was slipping the shirt back on and she thought her dazzled expression and the hair tousled beyond repair might have given them away.

The fish, on the other hand, was on the charred side.