Coal Dark

by dandeliononfire

Summary:

The Coal Dark Festival is the one night the coal-coated, sweating humanity that is District Twelve comes out to socialize, drink, and dance to foot-tapping fiddling, jigs, reels, ballads, and laments. But now that Prim is finally through her last Reaping, has Katniss waited to long to seek out the boy with the bread? Rated mostly T, but there are serious themes. (Previously pulled from Ao3, but back up now.)

Chapter 1

Summary:

This was originally 10 chapters, but I've transferred it over from Tumblr and back to Ao3 as two for convenience.

Summary

Canon-Divergent in that none of the main characters were reaped for the Games. EVERLARK.

The annual Coal Dark festival is the one evening a year District Twelve actually celebrates life. It is a rite of passage, and often a night of courting, for those that have recently aged out of the reaping process. Tonight’s Coal Dark is bittersweet for Katniss Everdeen, because while it is the first Coal Dark her younger sister Primrose is no longer eligible for the Hunger Games, it also means she’s grown into a woman. When an unwanted dance partner informs Katniss that Peeta Mellark, the boy she’s been quietly in love with for years, plans to start his own future once the lights go out at the end of the night, and that Peeta’s target is Primrose, Katniss is left to wonder if a proposal from a man she doesn’t love is better than having no hope of a future at all. Written in response to Musician! Peeta Prompt on Tumblr.

Chapter 1

Tonight is Coal Dark, the fall celebration where the coal-coated, sweating humanity that is District Twelve comes out to socialize, drink, and dance to foot-tapping fiddling, jigs, reels, ballads, and laments. It’s when we take one night to pretend we’re not perpetually teetering on the brink of starvation.

It might even just be, aside from Reaping Day, the only day of the year where District Twelve actually feels like a community, like a family, instead of a conglomeration of individuals scrounging for daily bread.

The sun is only just beginning to set and the crowd won’t show up until the stars come out, but Prim and I are walking over early. She wants to help her friends who are supposed to set up the refreshments. Really, I’m sure she wants to gossip with them about which boys they each hope to dance with tonight.

I hear myself sigh. I feel the sting of her coming of age like stitch in my side after having run too far.

“Katniss, you don’t have to come until later,” Prim says to me. Maybe she interpreted my sigh as boredom, or a disinterest in attending.

Neither is true. I am painfully aware tonight is a special Coal Dark for her. But secretly, so secretly it’s like I’m an ember ready to go out from suffocation, I harbor a hope that tonight might be special for me as well.

It is true that we needn’t have walked together, since the festivities happen only three minutes’ walk from our house, in the wide dirt lane that runs between the two oldest rows of coal miner homes in the heart of the Seam. But I want to keep an eye on her, since I feel like this will be the last time I’ll have this responsibility, the last time I’ll have this privilege. The last time I might walk my sister to Coal Dark at all, instead of her walking here on the arm of a husband.

The imaginary stitch in my side worsens, and I lace my fingers through hers, for my own comfort. I instinctively look down at her as we walk, to look down into her face and give her a smile. But when I do, I’m looking at her arm and am reminded again she’s as tall as I am now.

When my eyes finally come up, she’s smiling at me sadly, and gives my hand a squeeze.

So sensitive, my no-longer-little Prim. She can tell this is hard on me.

I put my arm around her shoulder and ask her if she knows I love her. Of course she knows, she tells me by slipping her arm around my waist and holding us hip to hip. Without speaking, our pace slows together, for this one last walk.

It’s too soon before Prim and I turn a corner and we’ve arrived.

Long strands of low-hanging light bulbs are always the primary decoration and in the waning light, several clumps of people are working hastily to finish stringing them up. The not yet lit, lifeless strands run the entire length of the long street, and zig zag back and forth across it.

I see the stage, really just a rough platform, has been constructed in the middle of the street for the musicians. And near that, the tables with refreshments are being set up. Usually, the drinks are water or mint tea, things we can make in large amounts for free here in the Seam. There will be white liquor for sale, too, though most people who mean to drink tonight will have made their own home brew in anticipation.

That’s illegal, of course, just like my daily poaching beyond the fence is illegal. But the Peacekeepers get the good side of our trades and look the other way. Some of them are even alright, like Darius, who lacks the arrogance and hostility of many of his fellow Capitol enforcers. And I’m grateful, because it’s the trades I make after my hunting and gathering in the woods, together with my mother’s and Prim’s healing skills, that have kept me from having to work in the mines since I turned eighteen four years ago.

Also going up are the Merchant tables. The butcher has a grill and a smoker going and the general store sells small parcels of prepackaged food stuffs. And the bakery always has cupcakes and sugar cookies. And they make toast smeared with butter and jam. The thought of toast, of late, has been making me more and more hungry. Nearly ravenous. Or, anyway, the thought of one of the baker’s sons has.

This is food we in the Seam can’t really afford, but just for this one night every year, the Merchants sell cheaply enough so most can buy at least a little something.

Prim spots her friends and waves, her body tense with excitement and anticipation. I can’t help but smile and a contented laugh escapes me.

Yes, tonight’s Coal Dark is special. It is the first one that actually makes me feel a hint of celebration in my own spirit, because it is the first one since Prim’s last eligible reaping. She turned eighteen this summer, right after Reaping Day for the seventy-ninth Hunger Games came and went without her name being drawn from that awful fishbowl of death by that multicolored Trinket creature. She’s free.

But it’s not only Prim who has come through the Reaping unscathed. Every year, there’s an entire class of graduating seniors who’ve aged out of the reaping, and Coal Dark is really a sort of revered rite of passage. It’s a time when many young lives start entwining, where long held affections are voiced, risks taken, and agreements for courting, and even for marriage, are commonly exchanged.

This is bittersweet for me, knowing that Prim and her school friends have been looking forward to Coal Dark for exactly that reason. She’s denied it every time I’ve teased her, but her cheeks always flush and give her away. I’m not blind to the fact that my little Primrose blossomed into a beautiful young woman.

I just hope she chooses wisely. I fear she has too big of a heart.

I feel a pang of dread as I also think on the most pivotal moment of our Coal Dark festival, the moment from which the night gets its name. Aside from the music, the real draw is the second it’s over. When the last song is played, usually a romantic lament, and the very last note struck, the many strands of bright, cheerful bulbs are turned off all at once, bathing everyone in a sudden darkness as black as coal. Hence, Coal Dark.

And it’s in that moment of darkness, which you’re supposed to have spent the entire evening waiting for, that you hope to find yourself linked with the one person you want a goodnight kiss from, or the one person you want to sneak away in the dark holding hands with.

When the last note is struck, I’m usually leaning against one of the houses near the stage, a spot which conveniently gives me a view of the bakery table, with Prim in front of me and my arms wrapped around her shoulders. It hasn’t mattered that she’s grown taller as the years have passed, she’s still my Prim, and we’ve still ended each Coal Dark that way.

Except that tonight, I know she’s not going to let her over-protective sister corral her. And tonight, for once, I won’t try to.

We make our way further up the street.

Prim finally lets go of my waist, so she can quicken her own pace and join her friends.

“Prim,” I protest. But she ignores me, more focused on their calls than mine.

“Primrose Everdeen!” I yell, with a volume that could clear all the game from an entire wood.

I hide my satisfied smile as she freezes. I can tell from the line of her shoulders that she’s mortified. I don’t care. Coal Dark may be a night where futures are begun, but it’s also a night where a certain common mistake is made. I promised Prim beforehand that I’d trust her. But it’s hard not to give her one last warning.

She turns, begging with her lips, eyes and brows in a frantic pantomime to not embarrass her further.

I hear a man’s chuckle coming from the direction of stage, but I ignore it and curl my finger at her.

She obeys and comes back, slouching.

I lift her chin, straighten her collar and move my hands along her shoulders to even out the lay of her dress. I mean to make a show of being comically melodramatic, to cut the heaviness of what I’m about to remind her of for the fiftieth time, but when my eyes catch her face, I notice for the first time the care she’s taken in her appearance. She’s used berry pigments to make her cheeks and lips look beautifully rosy and well-defined, and she’s taken her hair out of its braids and has brushed its long, blond length so that it falls around her face like a soft curtain of gold. It frames her blue eyes perfectly.

My chest tightens.

I know in that instant that I’m not losing her. I’ve already lost her. Tonight is only the part where I force myself to finally start letting go.

As though it is written in the sunset that’s painting the sky behind her with warm oranges and fiery reds, I know in my heart that soon she will be in love, and too soon after that, engaged, and too soon for my breaking heart, there will be a toasting. Because unlike me, with my aloof, unfeminine demeanor and Seam-olive skin, she’s as radiant as the sun. Because unlike me, there will be a line of suitors for waiting for Prim.

A line of music, something hopeful with an edge of sadness, floats to me from the direction of that sunset, from the direction of the stage. The melody dances with too many notes, struck by fingers too swift, for my ear to track each one, yet the harmony of it sooths me. It makes it possible to swallow the warning I’d been about to needlessly repeat.

And anyway, I think with a smirk, mostly I’m relying on our understanding that if she ends up allowing a boy get a too frisky, I’ll bury him in the woods tomorrow where they’ll never find the body.

My hands hesitate on her shoulders as I try to burn the memory of her face into my mind. The song drifting over us voices perfectly the hopeful lament of my soul, and I realize with a skip in my heartbeat whose hands are creating that music. I can tell from the nature of the complex, deft hammer-ons, pull-offs, and palm thumpings that those hands belong to Peeta Mellark, one of the baker’s son.

My eyes shift so that I’m not watching Prim anymore, but Peeta on the stage in the distance behind her. I don’t even pause to question why he’s there instead of setting up the bakery’s table, because all I’m thinking about is what he looks like. I take in the exact angle of his shoulders and the jump and flex of his forearms as he coaxes the lament from his guitar, a guitar that is laying flat across his lap and submissively letting him finger and slap it like a hybrid dulcimer and drum.

My breath catches as I watch his fingers dance, the same fingers that had burnt two loaves of purpose for me when I was eleven, soaked by the rain and hungry. I had been rummaging in the bakery’s garbage like a gutter rat, looking for anything to rescue Prim and me, or at least Prim, from the starvation that threatened to kill us after my father had died and my mother had slipped away into an almost comatose depression.

Those fingers, those hands, saved our lives that day, when they threw me that bread on the sly.

I’d watched helplessly as he’d taken the abusive blow from his mother for his trouble.

I had always appreciated him for that. It took me until our last year of school to realize that my appreciation had gradually evolved into something more resembling attraction, but I had never plucked up the courage to speak with him. He’d stared at me a lot during those years too, I’d noticed. But he’d never tried to approach me. His looks most likely had more to do with pity than anything else, tracking how well the poor, starving Seam girl was managing.

In the four years since we graduated, I have still been watching him. Peeta doesn’t have a wife, hasn’t had a toasting, District Twelve’s version of a commitment celebration, yet. And as far as I can tell, he doesn’t seem to be courting anyone, though how that has been allowed to happen, I can’t guess.

Whenever I hear that he’ll be out playing guitar in the Merchant Square, bearing his soul to our too-harsh world, I make a point of showing up, even though I take care to stand where I don’t look like I’m obsessed with him.

And this year, since his father has been ill, I’ve seen Peeta a bit more. I’ve been bringing a couple of squirrels by the bakery for him every other week for the last six months. It’s my way of repaying what he did for us back when we needed his charity. During Prim’s and my leanest years, once I’d taken up hunting, Peeta’s father had been more than generous in our squirrel-for-bread trades.

Because his dad keeps mostly to his sick bed, Peeta’s is the face I see most often when I come by the bakery’s back door to delivery my kills.

Peeta always tries to give me bread in trade, tells me to at least take some to Prim, but I always push it back. Sometimes I graze his hand or forearm intentionally when I do, just to know what it feels like to touch him. I am usually embarrassed by how gruff my introversion makes me sound, and if I’m honest, I’m embarrassed at how talking to him makes me flush and feel flustered.

I usually rush off before too many words can slip out between us.

It’s only recently I’ve let myself admit how much the thought of him matters. Before, I knew that if Prim was ever reaped, in my devastation I would self-destruct and burn to the ground anyone and anything next to me.

But now? I’ve finally admitted other impulses alive in my head and body are just as strong as that instinct. This is the first year I’ve indulged in a hope that my life might amount to more.

I realize I’m still holding Prim’s shoulders. It’s time to let her go.

I press a kiss to her lips, hug her, tell her again I love her, and then turn her around and push her off towards her friends with a playful shove. She looks back over her shoulder and flashes me a smile that both rends me and mends me.

Now I’m alone.

With Prim walking away from me, there’s nothing between Peeta and I except for a stretch of empty dirt road.

He’s still playing. I know he’s not playing for me. He’s just playing to warm up. But I give him a weak smile anyway.

The warm hues of the sunset’s red and orange bathe Peeta in an unearthly glow because of where he sits elevated on the stage. They give his blond hair a tint, like it’s catching fire. He looks something from a dream.

The song slows into a final refrain and then he puts his guitar down. It looks like he might be staring at me, and he even raises a hand in a sort of hesitant wave.

I turn my head to check behind me, to see if he’s motioning to someone else.

There’s no one else. Just me.

I hear that same chuckle again. It’s his. I feel myself smile, a bit embarrassed.

Just as I build the courage to walk up and say hello, Haymitch Abernathy climbs the steps onto the platform and hijacks Peeta’s attention. My shoulders sag as I watch him put Peeta to work moving chairs and stands and drums around on the stage. It makes me mad. Those hands should be doing more important things.

But least Abernathy’s sober.

Three years ago District Twelve finally had a victor. It had been Rory Hawthorne, one of my friend and hunting partner Gale’s little brothers. He might not have been a Career, one of those kids from the low numbered Districts that illegally train to be tributes, but Gale and I had been taking his two younger brothers and Prim secretly out into the woods once a month after each one’s eleventh birthday. We’d taught them what skills we had which we thought might be useful in an arena, in case they were ever reaped. His little sister, Posy, is still too young to be trained.

The Hawthornes might be surly, stubborn and opinionated, but they are nothing if not are determined survivors. Between what Gale and I had offered Rory by the time he was reaped at sixteen, and whatever help Abernathy had been, he’d come out alive. Though maimed for life with the loss of a hand and bad scarring along one side of his body, and still carrying the emotional trauma of the arena with him, he is still, miraculously, the victor.

Which makes the Hawthorne boys desirable matches, what with the sheer amount of prize money and food supply Rory receives every year, not to mention his extravagant house in Victor’s Village.

I worry for Prim. I detected an affinity growing in Rory for her during our training time beyond the fence. And Prim didn’t help. She is always so sweet, and so kind, I don’t think she realizes that her own behavior towards him could be misinterpreted as more than just friendly care. It doesn’t bother me about his physical injuries, but I worry about the mental ones. If anyone would be a good match for Rory, it would be someone with a healer’s spirit like Prim’s. But it doesn’t mean I want that extra burden for her. Because of the law of recency, Rory also has the unfortunate luck of bing District Twelve’s new tribute mentor.

Whether because Abernathy was finally off the hook as mentor, or because he felt he’d finally made penance for all the District Twelve children he’s lost, or for the tributes he killed in his games, he started his long trek to sobriety when Rory came home alive. He even accepted the role of master of ceremony for Coal Dark that year, and has been in the same role since.

The sun has finally sunk behind the horizon and I’m frustrated as I watch Peeta continues to labor under Abernathy’s direction. The light is fading fast, and it doesn’t look like his servitude is going to let up before the festivities begin.

I sigh.

I could go up and offer Peeta a hand. That might be the thing to do. But I’ve never gotten on well with Abernathy and don’t fancy the idea of being where he is. I spot a cluster of people working with the last of light strands and meander towards them instead. They accept my help, and offer smiles and joking conversation as we work.

As the last hint of dusk fades, the lights all come on at once and create a rare atmosphere of cheer.

My work has brought me close to the stage. I turn to see if Peeta is still there. He is, but so are the rest of the musicians. They are all in their positions, and their instruments come suddenly alive with sounds of being tuned to one another.

I lean against the wall of a nearby house, crossing my arms as I listen to them. It’s impossible not to stare at Peeta’s youthful grin.

Dark falls completely in a matter of minutes, and just as the first stars dance and twinkle in the sky above our heads, people begin to fill the street. Abernathy makes a short, if crude, commencement speech, including a few jokes that make me snort, and then the music and the evening begin…

 

_______

 

Chapter 2

I keep to the edge of the festivities. Tonight, there’s no little Prim for me to shoulder through the crowds to keep an eye on.

There would be no need, anyway. She’s been dancing near the front of the stage for almost a solid hour and is already on her third partner.

Wait, make that the fourth. The young man dancing with her now is about to lose his place following the third refrain of “may I cut in” I’ve seen tonight.

Prim’s comically uncomfortable expression is priceless. It’s clear to me she isn’t interested in any of the young men who’ve managed so far to snag her hand. But somehow, she can’t seem to find a polite way to say no.

She spots me and mouths the word “help” just as the song turns from an upbeat waltz into a slow and romantic fiddle.

I shake my head resolutely. You’re all grown up now, I remind her with my pitiless grin. Her eyes grow wide with horror as her new partner slips his hand around her waist and leans in close.

I let out a piercing bark of laughter so loud that several people between us, and even her partner, turn. I shrug at them. They lose interest immediately. But I’m still grinning, especially now that Prim’s face and neck are beet red. She averts her eyes to avoid any further embarrassment I can devise.

I turn my attention back to my evening’s main activity, watching Peeta Mellark coax the most incredible arrangement of music from his guitar. The way he plays most songs, the instrument is balanced on his knees and his hands dance in a combination of strikes, strums, thumps, and taps on both its strings and its body. He’s somehow able to make it, a thing made from little more than the wood of a felled tree, sound like a flock of delicate song birds singing harmony in one moment, while in another make it shout and knock like pelting rain against a house.

I am not his only enthusiast, I’ve realized with irritation. Standing by the edge of the stage, near where Prim has been all evening, is a cluster of girls. They smile, clap, sway, and perform whatever other bodily gesticulation is appropriate for the meter of the song he happens to play. The population of his little group of admirers has been rotating for the last hour, but has never decreased. Peeta usually has his head bent over the guitar, focusing, and rarely has spare time to look up. But for this song, he’s sitting with it against his chest and seems able to freely scan out over the crowd below. It’s impossible for him not to notice the flirtatious young women. He gives them a few nods and smiles.

Peeta also spots Prim. He seems to sense her discomfort and gives her a fortifying wink and a grin. She smiles back and I’m grateful that his effort immediately eases some of the anxiety from her face.

But fate would have intervened on her behalf anyway. A communal dance breaks out and Prim, and the boy with her, are swept up into the large, fast moving circle. Soon I lose sight of them. Amid its frenetic pace, she should be able to break free and dissolve into the crowd in no time.

I settle back and focus only on Peeta. I try and will him to turn his head my direction and catch me staring at him. But even though the sweep of his gaze moves back and forth over the crowd, it never reaches me.

It almost must be intentional, considering how close I am to the stage and how I’d purposeful I’d been to place myself within his easy line of sight.

I don’t like it. It makes me feel twisted up inside, and anxious. And not like I did about Prim tonight. This is worse. It’s the first time I feel an edge of panic strong enough to make me think twice whether I have the courage to risk rejection.

“Hey Katnip.”

I don’t turn to see whose taken up standing beside me. I know who it is. It’s Gale.

I sigh.

Of course, I couldn’t go an entire Coal Dark without seeing Gale.

It’s not as though we’re not friends. But since I’d rejected his offer of marriage after my graduation, and he’d then gone and found himself a wife before a half year had passed, that friendship has been strained. We’ve both wanted things to go back like they were before, but his wife doesn’t like the idea of him spending time in the woods hunting with with me. And since he’d had to start working in the mines, aside from training our siblings, he barely has time for anything. We still talk like friends when we’re alone, although our conversations are reserved. But when we’re around anyone other than our younger sisters and brothers, it’s always halting and a little awkward.

“Hey Gale,” I say, sparing him a friendly, but weak, smile.

He takes a swig from a bottle of something I guess is home brew. He offers it to me for a tasting. I wave it away politely and for a time we don’t say anything. Apparently, he notices I’m watching Peeta.

“You’re still carrying a torch for that Mellark kid,” he observes, with an extra hint of condescension. Gale’s father died in the same mining accident as mine, only Gale had more siblings to feed once the coal dust had settled. Since then, his attitude towards the better fed and more affluent merchant class has been testily resentful at best.

I don’t bite. Instead, I pull my arms in tighter around my chest.

“Sorry,” he mumbles an apology to me. “You should talk to him tonight, you know? Do something about it for once, if you’re still… leaning that way.”

I look at him again, and study to see whether he’s being serious. It’s a surprising suggestion coming from him. His dark eyes, framed by thick brows and thick, strong cheekbones, look heartfelt. Even tender. I’m attacked by a stab of regret that I refused his proposal with so little thought, but I remember quickly that I never felt that type of warmth for him, and wipe it away.

No, we were always going to be comrades, never lovers.

The thought of being lovers with anyone makes me look back towards Peeta. He’s back to playing the guitar in his usual percussive manner instead of the rhythmic style he’d been at for the song before. I feel relief wash away some of my earlier jealousy. He can’t encourage the pack of giggling girls while his head is bent monogamously over the instrument on his lap.

I feel flushed suddenly and hold a hand out for Gale’s bottle. He offers it without comment.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say when I pass it back. It occurs to me that at least a minute has passed since Gale said anything at all, and so my delay is self-incriminating.

“Uh huh,” he says. But it carries a sigh underneath it. Part of him still loves me.

I sigh too, feeling guilt. I’ve wondered many times whether my own unreserved and carefree attitude with Gale during our earlier years had sent a message I hadn’t intended. Maybe that’s why I’d been so quick to pick up on Prim’s making the same unintentional mistake with Rory.

“Nice outfit, Katniss,” he says, but not teasing, and not unkind.

In our shorthanded language, he’s telling me I’m not as untouched by longing as I pretend.

“Thanks,” I manage, though the word comes awkward up my throat.

He takes another swig from his bottle, asks if I want to hold onto it, which I don’t, and then says he’ll see me later. We both know he won’t. The offer of the bottle was tonight’s parting of ways.

And once more, I’m alone.

When he’s gone, I look down at my dress, self-conscious. It’s a simple white linen thing with long sleeves I’ve rolled up to my elbows because of the evening’s warm humidity. It should be off-white from the coal dust native to the air of District Twelve and washings in tannin-heavy water. But I wear dresses so rarely, almost never, that it looks almost new. To make the outfit seem not so plain, Prim had woven a circlet of daisies and buttercups and rue into my hair right before we’d left our house. I’d protested on the basis of hating the fancy of it, but truthfully it made me painfully aware of just how boyish and unfeminine I was by nature.

But she’d made those eyes, the same ones she’d made over every feral or sick animal she’d ever asked to keep and nurture back to life, so I’d had to agree. She claims I look pretty tonight.

My fingers gently caress the flowers and leaves to make sure her handiwork is still sitting right.

I feel myself blush, feeling silly, even though no one is looking at me. I’ve never handled dressing up well.

I realize the music has stopped and Abernathy is prattling on about something to do with the graduating class. I tune him out and look instead for Peeta. He has just stood up from his seat and is unfolding his body in a full stretch. I swear those hands of his reach so far up into the sky that they touch a few of the stars.

I decide to take my chance, terrified but determined, and walk over towards the steps he’ll have to descend.

A little kid, maybe three years old, runs straight into me, bouncing himself to the ground and halting my progress. He looks stunned, but then he grins up at me with wide, blinking eyes. We share a laugh. I recognize him, though I don’t know him by name.

“Looking for your momma,” I ask.

He nods and I bend and lift him easily. A flutter of warmth draws over my belly and chest when I realize how snugly he fits on my hip and in my arms. I can’t resist, and press a kiss to his temple and sway with him in my arms.

“See her anywhere?” I rotate us so he can scan the crowd. His mother is only a dozen feet away and spots us, sending a wave and a smile. I help him wave back, grinning like a fool, and few seconds later she is here taking him from me.

I get her thanks, but the warmth I feel cools suddenly cold as ice as I watch her nuzzle her nose to the little boy’s and them both disappear into the crowd.

I’m alone again. And somehow this moment feels worse than when Prim ran after her friends earlier.

I look back towards the stage. Peeta’s not there.

“Well if it isn’t Katniss Everdeen.”

I turn around, and see blond hair and that familiar stocky build. The man’s head is hanging, like he’s staring at my hands.

“Peeta!”

When he looks up, I see the blue eyes, but also my mistake.

It’s not Peeta. It’s Rye, his older brother.

“And here Peeta thinks you don’t even know he exists.”

“Of course I know he exists,” I snap defensively, although I don’t know why I should be defensive with him.

He throws his hands up, taking a mocking step back but fixing me with an infuriatingly teasing grin.

“Say, you have a…” He points to where he had been looking and I follow, “a big swatch of dirt on your dress just there.”

The boy who’d taken a spill. Everywhere he’d touched me, sat on my hip, leaned against my side, nestled in my arm, there is dirt. I do my best to beat it off, but some of it smears.

When I’m done, Rye appraises my success with an slow visual rake of me from foot to forehead. He gives me an approving nod, clearly unrelated to my now soiled dress, and a grin so lecherous I’m tempted to punch him. I feel myself redden with embarrassment.

“Want to share the next dance, when the music starts back?”

“I’d rather dance with a drunk Abernathy,” I say curtly, crossing my arms and looking away to scan for Peeta. Somehow, I manage to add with acid politeness, “But thank you.”

He laughs.

“Alright, alright. I can take a hint. Little cat has another mouse it wants to hunt tonight instead of me.”

Damn right.

When I notice he doesn’t move, I turn back to him.

“Can I help you,” I ask with as much irritation as I can muster, which is a lot.

“No. No, you can’t.”

His mocking is gone, replaced with a more serious expression. For some reason, he finds me interesting tonight. I can’t think of why. We’ve barely shared a dozen words our entire lives, and I only know who he is because he’s Peeta’s brother.

I feel awkward glaring at him. And I’m getting frustrated, because I still haven’t managed to get to Peeta. So I look back out over the people. This break won’t last more than a few more minutes, and there’s only one more break before the lights go out, so I’ll have no chance of finding Peeta after that.

Eventually, Rye turns and stares out at the crowd with me.

“You know, you and my brother have a lot in common.”

I turn to him again, and keep my expression guarded.

“You’re both prickly little things, though grant it I know you only by reputation. Both hard willed. Determined. You both have never married. You’re both aloof when it comes to courting. And it’s even like you were both planted at the same time, because tonight, out of the blue, to look at you, both of you are almost screaming that you actually care about having a future after all.”

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

I can tell he’s dying for me to ask. I feel like I’ll lose self-respect for it, but I do it anyway.

“And by that you mean what?”

He looks at me, clearly feigning surprise that I’m actually interested.

“Oh, I thought you’d know, of anyone.”

Could he mean Peeta has been talking about me? My heart races instantly. It’s almost as hard to breathe as it is to keep my expression neutral.

“Why’s that,” I ask after too long, which is the time it takes me to speak without my voice cracking or sounding overeager.

“Well, my little brother has a dandelion in mind to pluck tonight. In fact, there he is right now.” He motions with his jaw out off to the side of the crowd. “And if I’m not mistaken, that’s your fair-haired sister.”

Yes. I can see. It’s Peeta.

Talking to Prim.

Leaning close to her as she cooperatively turns her head so he can say something into her ear.

They’re both smiling.

They share a laugh.

I feel like I just fell out of a tree and landed flat on my back. A winding. A seizure of my diaphragm like I’ve been punched in the chest where my heart is.

I don’t even notice when Rye disappears into the crowd. I don’t notice, and I don’t care.

I am planted to the spot, like a lone tree in the middle of a field, its leafless, gnarled limbs drooping low with an agony no one else can perceive. My eyes glaze over and I see nothing.

Until someone jostles into me. And then another person.

And then I’m awake.

I edge backwards with small, shuffling steps, still half-stunned by the news that he- now I can’t even say his name in my mind without my heart rupturing inside me- that he is interested in not just someone else, but Prim.

Of course he was never interested in me. Those looks across the school yard when we were kids, and across the classroom and hall in the years after, they weren’t interest in me except to the extent that I was Prim’s sister.

Maybe even the burned bread hadn’t been real.

Maybe he’d tossed it to me only so it would get to her.

A hole widens inside me like the pupil of a deer’s eye that dilates after I’ve shot it. I think back to his insistence this summer that I ‘at least take some bread back for Prim’ when I’d been bringing squirrels by for his dad, and I see again with new eyes the way he was watching Prim only minutes ago while she was dancing.

My cheeks and chest catch fire and suddenly the crowd makes me claustrophobic. I want to melt into the mass. Melt through it like water draining away through a crack in the dry earth. And then run.

Run for the woods. For the meadow. Not the sad one that people here go to lay down in when they’re moments or hours away from dying of starvation, though maybe that’s exactly what’s about to happen to me. But I want to be in my meadow. Deep in my woods. Damn that it is nighttime and I shouldn’t go out past the fence in the dark. Damn this dance.

Damn the hope that brought me here just to snap me into so many pieces of firewood and tinder like the dry branch I am.

What was I thinking, to come here tonight?

“What was I thinking,” I whimper angrily between grit teeth.

In my back-stepping, I bump into someone tall and stout enough that I teeter. A hand grabs my arm to steady me from the impact.

“You were just about to tell me, I hope.”

I know that voice.

Warm. Confident. Slightly teasing, but not with the leer or cruelty of its sibling.

Peeta.

Of course, I bump into the last person I want to see. The one person I want to run from. The one person whose face will kill me.

I determine not to look at him. But his hand on my arm applies a polite, neighborly pressure and my feet shuffle around without asking me.

God, he is smiling so broadly it brings out his dimples. And his blue eyes twinkle as they catch flecks of light from the bulbs strung over our heads.

I want to die. I will go to my meadow, sit against the tree trunk, draw in a deep breath of the warm night air, and simply stop being.

“Well?”

He is still grinning, and I suddenly hate him.

And his hand is still on my arm.

I stare at him dumbly, not understanding the question. All I understand is that my misery is complete.

What had I been thinking? Rye is right. My fair-haired sister is a dandelion. Just like Peeta. Both of them full of healing and joy and warmth. And yellow headed dandelions don’t belong with muddy, misshapen Katniss roots. They’re a different class.

A different race.

My parents, after all, had tried. And all it had brought them was tragedy.

He keeps staring at me, this Peeta, as I circle lower and lower in my thoughts of self-loathing. It takes a surprisingly long time, but his grin finally mirrors my own descent and morphs into a frown.

I want to look away. But I have never been this close to him, so still for so long, that I can see the detail of his eyes or the way his eyelashes kiss each other when he blinks. It is too precious to waste, even if it’s a memory that will torture me for the rest of my life. As will the burn on my arm from where he is still touching it.

“Katniss?”

I swallow, not thinking of a single word to say, and finally break away from his eyes to stare down at the dirt between our feet.

“Katniss, are you alright?”

“I’m fine.”

“Oh.” He hesitates. “It’s just that I saw my brother bothering you…” His hand finally comes off my arm, and the sudden loss of contact makes me look up at him again. He uses that hand to rub the back of his neck, which I know from my many covert observations is muscled and has a tan line from the collar of his shirts. I also know the exact angle at which the short hairs at the bottom of his haircut taper down that neck and form a vee.

I feel suddenly dirty for those thoughts. For every thought I’ve ever had.

“Rye can be a real nice guy sometimes,” he say, sounding apologetic. “And by ‘nice,’ I mean a real jerk.”

“I’m fine,” I say again. Dishonestly. Too sharply.

“Oh.” His arm drops to his side and he exhales quickly through his nose. The breeze of it makes the few stray hairs on my forehead dance.

Neither of us moves, until it becomes awkward.

“It was… good to see you, Peeta,” I half-whisper, not able to handle the tension. I hear my voice try to tell him I had just been leaving, but his face lights up like a firework and he speaks over me.

“Hey! You remembered my name!”

Why is he grinning?

“Of course I know your name,” I growl, self-conscious and embarrassed.

Damn that grin of his. I just want to shove him against something, press my forearm to his neck, and force it off his stupid face.

“Well, it’s just that you never really talk to me, aside from when you bring those squirrels by. And then you’re off like a shot every time.”

Well, you never talk to me, I bite back in my private thoughts. He’s laughing at some joke he’s just made that has gone over my head. I register that it’s something to do with my hunting. I feel resentment rising.

I don’t make fun of his playing guitar.

At the thought of him playing guitar, my eyes dart instinctively to his forearm, which hangs loosely against his ribs. The arm attached to the hand which had been touching me only moments before.

The sleeve of his shirt is pushed up, up close to the elbow, with the fabric of the ribbed cuff stretched. My eyes travel down to his wrist, and then to his knuckles covered with fine blond hairs, and then finally down to his fingers, mysterious things that dance so lithely along the neck of the guitar he lays across his lap, and which I imagine are calloused from the tension and abrasive resistance of the metal strings.

I want to touch them. Just reach out and touch them. Graze them with the backs of my own fingers and see if they will respond. But it would be suicide on so many levels, with what Rye told me. Like the Greek myth I’d learned in school. Like Icarus who’d dared to fly to the sun on wax wings that melted once he got too close.

“Uh, Katniss?”

“Yeah?”

I look up at him while inhaling deeply, suddenly far away. Or else, everywhere at once. The night air is full of the smell of dust and a distant, coming rain shower. Crickets are buzzing from the weedy edges of the houses around us. My skin is slick with a fine sheen of sweat from the humidity, and I can feel the heavy beats of my heart against my ribcage right where it sits half-tucked under my left breast. There’s a slight tang of salt on my tongue after it runs slowly over the roughness of my oft-chewed lower lip.

How is the world suddenly so alive and so peaceful, when it’s burning down around me? Is it nature comforting me? Are my senses reaching out for the protective womb of its smells and sounds and tastes?

Peeta clears his throat and says my name again. Suddenly I’m awake from whatever trance I’d been lulled into, and back swirling in a black pool of misery.

He rubs his neck again, and looks slightly embarrassed. Searing, burning heat dances up my chest and climbs my neck and cheeks at the realization of how transparent my thoughts must have been if they were able to embarrass him.

“I have to go,” I say quickly, needing to bolt. “Good luck with… with…”

I can’t even say my sister’s name.

I start to push past him, tears threatening at the corners of my eyes, but he nimbly hops sideways to keep up with me.

“Wait. You’re not leaving already?”

I have nothing I am willing to say to the boy with the bread. I simply keep walking.

He turns around to match my step, so I speed up, dodging around chatting idlers in order to force him away from me. But he’s persistent. Somehow, he finds me again, and his shoulder bumps roughly into mine as he veers my way to avoid my next attempt at using a bystander to wedge us apart.

He finally stops me, clamping his hand on my shoulder, pulling me around and then clamping his other hand on my other shoulder.

“Don’t go so soon.” His eyes are darker now, probably because I’ve led us several paces off the street and away from the abundance of festive lighting. He isn’t frowning, but he also isn’t grinning.

The same fingers I’d been staring at and dreaming of since pretty much the first time I’d seen them dance and flit and coax song out of a guitar, press into my skin through the thin linen of my dirt-smeared, white dress.

He might as well punch me, because the way each of his rough thumbs finds the dip behind my clavicles, just on the inside of my collar, leaves me without air.
I wait for him to say something, or do something, because I can’t do anything.

But he says nothing, because someone is yelling, hollering, from somewhere distant, like the threatening buzz of a wasp. I recognize the voice, though it takes me a second. It is Abernathy.

“Peeta!”

Peeta’s eyes snap away from mine and back towards the revelers.

“Come on, break’s over! Get your maiden-swooning fingers back on stage before all the girls start leavin’!”

His words shoot me through the heart.

Peeta looks back to me, his lips pressed thin. He clearly has something to say to me.

“Don’t go yet, Katniss? Please? I need to ask you something.”

I feel cold and shaky as it occurs to me, immediately, what it is he wants to ask.

Permission.

I’m as good as Prim’s mother, in many ways. He wants my permission to… court her?

Having now guessed at it, I can read it clearly on his face.

His eyes blaze with intensity, and his fingers squeeze at me with a near painful urgency, when Abernathy yells for him again. The other musicians are already back on stage, making sporadic, lilting music as they re-tune and adjust their instruments.

“Stay?”

I nod agreement, for Prim’s sake, but I loathe myself for it.

“Great, thanks.”

His fingers pull off me, too easily, and he grins, free and comfortable again.

My stomach lurches and grows heavy as a bucket of coal. Instantly, I decide to take my agreement back, so I can flee to my woods.

But as nimbly as he’d chased me, Peeta Mellark is already gone and weaving back through the crowd towards the stage.

This time, I am really alone.

 

________

 

It’ll be nearly an hour before there’s another break for the musicians, an hour I’ll have to suffer this dread that Peeta means to ask my blessing to court Prim.

A thought occurs to me and my teeth pinch my bottom lip until it almost bleeds. As I recall the easy manner of their shared whispers and laughs, and the way Prim stayed close by him when she was dancing, I wonder whether the courting might already have happened under my nose. Maybe the request will be for approval of something more… final.

I again consider breaking the promise to Peeta that I will stay. But I’ve always honored my word and so instead I try and work out what I can do with myself until then. Preferably, it will be something to keep me from thinking.

The smell of roasting meat and toasting bread registers.

I’m not hungry. Far from it. And I’m not even sure I could eat if I was, because my stomach feels as small and hard as a peach stone. But, the vendor tables are also where the liquor sales are, and the taste of Gale’s home brew is still floating on my breath. It might be time to artificially numb myself.

As I walk up along the edge of the street, enough people have already spent their energy dancing that my way is intermittently blocked. I’m forced to cut across people’s porches where I can, although most of those are filled with older residents who sit on chairs they were able to move out from their homes. They smile at me, many of them toothless and wrinkled. Life in District Twelve is difficult, and while it’s rare to age well, it’s a feat just to have reached an advanced age at all.

I cross a porch where an old married couple is sitting on a rough cut bench together, thigh pressed to thigh. The old man is holding one of his blind wife’s hands in both of his, describing for her the festivities taking place in front of them.

I return the enthusiastic greeting he gives me, although the warmth of their life only reminds me of how cold my own is.

The music swells as I get closer to the stage. I have no choice but to pass by it to get to the vendor tables and when I do, I’m aware the other musicians have toned down their volume so Peeta’s guitar can take precedence. It’s a lovely tune, energetically hopeful. I recognize it. I know there are words to it, though no one is singing them. It’s something about lovers and moons and naked grass bathed in dew.

I can’t prevent myself. I stop to watch him.

Once again, the music he draws out from his soul, the way his whole body moves, tenses, and releases to accomplish its evocation, and the lines of absolute concentration on his face capture every beat of my heart and make it hard to breathe.

Damn the music, I think harshly, as soon as I realize I’ve stepped into that snare line. My chest is as painfully tight as it ever was, but now it’s also knotting with a sense of anger and betrayal. I don’t care if it is unjustified. I embrace it and let it build until it’s strong enough I can turn my head away and walk by. Instead of cooperatively gliding by people in my way now though, I savor the harsh, unfriendly bumps I mete out as I push my way through to the vendor area.

A vendor area I had forgotten is relatively cramped. I want to stand in line for the alcohol, but its table is nestled cruelly between the baker’s table and the water and tea table. With my bad luck holding, Rye is at the one, with one of the other Mellark brothers, and Prim has retreated from the dance and is hovering behind the other, talking with her friends. I see her exchange energetic whispers with one of them and they both giggle. For a sound that used to melt my heart, it now has a surprisingly opposite effect.

Thankfully, she doesn’t seem to notice me, or my glare, since she would disapprove of me buying booze. But then I realize, bitter, that it doesn’t matter if she does disapprove. As of tonight, our lives are no longer entwined the way they have always been. So I make the decision and get in the line.

Perhaps not the best choice, since there’s several Peacekeepers in it. But at least I recognize the messy red hair of the one immediately in front of me as a friendly.

“Hey, Darius.”

He turns around, his face brightening with a smile as soon as he does. At least someone tonight is happy to see me for me, and not because I can do something for them or because I’m related to Prim.

“Katniss! I’ve been hoping to see you tonight, and here you’ve managed to find me.” He looks pleased.

“I’m surprised drinking on duty is allowed for you white shirts.”

He shrugs. “Boss encouraged us to buy from the food vendors tonight and said we could each have one bottle of the beer. Says it helps keep the goodwill going so people won’t start picking on us.” He laughs easily, and then adds, “I’m surprised to see you in line, though. Never took you for much of a drinker.”

Of all the Peacekeepers, Darius knows me the best, and I him. He and I often share jokes and barbs in the Hob and on the street when we encounter each other, and he sometimes trades actual currency with me for berries and rabbit. That’s excellent for me. Capitol sanctioned currency is hard to come by in my trades, and it lets me buy supplies from the Merchants who refuse to barter.

Even though he has four, maybe five years on me, he’s got an easy going manner and has never felt like he’s anything other than someone I might have gone to school with. That is, if his lot hadn’t forced him into the Peacekeeper force. I don’t even know how he ended up there, whether he was a volunteer for the twenty year term of servitude, or if he was forced there as punishment or to pay off debts. All I know is he is originally from the Capitol and seems happy to be away from it.

I’ve always found him gentle and good natured.

The line moves forward. I step up beside him as it progresses. I’m sure it looks like I’ve done it so it’s easier for us to talk. But really, I’m using him as a human shield so Prim is less likely to see me.

Rye, working the bakery table on my exposed side, spots me. He gives me another leer and I narrow my eyes at him before pointedly looking straight forward. He can go rot.

But I realize with my thoughts on Prim and Rye I’ve missed something Darius has said.

“Huh?”

“I said, you look pretty tonight.”

I look up at him, dumb and confused by the compliment.

I see his eyes catch on the crown of flowers Prim made for me, before he measures my dress. It’s a quick survey that ends in a friendly, if awkward, smile a thousand miles away from the lecherous grin I’d suffered from Peeta’s brother.

The compliment embarrasses me, but was also given with sense of genuineness that makes me feel reluctantly flattered.

I can’t come up with anything to say back, so when the line moves again and we step forward together, he leans in conspiratorially to whisper.

“But, I’m afraid I’ll have to warn you against public brawling, miss.” He nods down to the dirt streaking the side and front of my dress.

Yes, it does look like I’ve been rolling on the ground and fighting with someone. It’s ironic that the state of my dress reflects the evening’s emotional battles.

He chuckles, “Fighting’s a punishable offense, you know. And I might be forced to drag you away from tonight’s wonderful festivities if you persist in being so… lively.”

That almost sounded like it carried an undercurrent of flirtation. But I know that it didn’t, that it wouldn’t. Peacekeepers aren’t allowed to marry or have any sort of a family at all. And if Darius is one of the many Peacekeepers who manage to find occasional illicit pleasure at the slag heap or wherever they go, I’ve never heard that rumor about him. And I’m certain he knows me better than to believe I’d be one of those girls for the asking.

But my cheeks have heated, nevertheless.

The line moves again without me speaking. We’re almost to the table.

“You’re unusually quiet tonight,” he observes.

“It’s been a long night,” I say, honestly. “I’m tired and wish I could go run away into the woods.”

I wince. Even though he knows where I go to poach, everyone does, really, it probably wasn’t wise to speak so casually of violating the fence. Especially since there’s another Peacekeeper in line two people behind us.

The line moves and we’re finally at the table. I look over towards Prim nervously and am relieved that she still hasn’t noticed me.

Darius orders two bottles. I start to order mine as soon as he’s paid, but he holds the second bottle out for me. I’m as stunned by the act of him offering it as I am by the act of him paying for it. Except for misery and coal dust, things in the Seam don’t usually come free.

I take it more because I don’t know how to respond than because I actually want to accept it. He tilts his head back towards the stage and I find myself walking beside him.

“Same story here,” he says, once we’re away from the vendors and around the other side of the stage. For some reason, the giggling girls have disbanded and the nearest reveler is at least twenty feet away. His voice is raised for me to hear above the music being produced right over our heads.

He takes a pull of his drink. A long one. Half his bottle is gone in that one attempt.

When I take a cautious sip of mine, I realize he’s staring at me.

“Same story here,” he repeats, as though I hadn’t heard him.

“What is,” I half-yell back.

He leans in a bit closer so he doesn’t have to shout, though his voice is still raised. There’s a sort seriousness in his eyes despite his smile. I’m sure I’m supposed to understand, but I don’t.

I’m sure I don’t.

I hope I don’t.

“Being tired and wanting to disappear into the woods forever.”

The music above us goes discordant for a moment, jerking my attention and giving me a reason to look away from Darius without it being obvious.

I hadn’t mentioned anything about disappearing forever. I’d just meant I wanted some space to think.

The music rights itself without me seeing what the problem was, so I look out into the crowd and pretend to be pleasantly distracted. I bob my head and move my shoulders to match the rhythm of the others in the crowd, hoping my actions convince him that I’m not really listening to him.

It feels like a good time to take a longer drink of my own beverage. I find I’m just as capable as Darius at downing half of it in one go. I feel it burn in my empty stomach, and the warmth of it climbs my throat and branches out along my shoulders.

“I’d ask you to dance,” he’s still talking to me, “but I don’t think a Peacekeeper’s uniform would be much appreciated mixing in. By residents or my fellow Peacekeepers.”

What is he thinking?

I have an instinct to take the bottle away from him and ask if he’s already been drinking. But as I study him sideways, he doesn’t look intoxicated. He looks exceptionally alert.

My heart starts pounding and I’m near to panic. I can’t move. Where my stomach had been warm and loosening a moment before, it is twisting tightly around itself now.

The song ends. In the sudden quiet, he leans his head close to mine.

“Katniss. I mean that. About moving on. Your sister is old enough to take care of herself.”

My mind is blanking. I don’t understand what he is saying or why, just that it has to do with me. I say the only thing that makes any sense, even though it seems crazy that this particular man would be angling for it.

“I’m not one of those slag heap girls, Darius.”

“I know you’re not,” he says quickly. “You’re many things. Clever. Funny. Warm.”

Warm?

I try to joke. To interrupt him. To stop him.

“Right,” I laugh, although it’s an uncomfortable laugh, “I’m about as warm as yesterday’s burnt toast.”

“And you’re brave,” he continues, not deflected.

I tip my bottle bottom-up and start downing the rest of my liquor. It’s the only thing I can think to do.

“Brave enough maybe to disappear forever into the woods and make a new life with someone.”

A crash nearby our heads startles both of us. I jump and what liquor I haven’t yet chugged pours from my bottle onto my dress.

Darius, being a Peacekeeper, has a different reflex. He turns around with his hand automatically on the handle of the billy club sticking out of his belt.

Peeta’s face is suddenly visible over the edge of the stage above, giving us a weak smile. He’s bright red, and I realize he had to have overheard Darius because apparently we’re standing right next to where he sits.

I’m immediately afraid. There’s a thousand terrible things that could happen. To Peeta. To Darius. To me.

Darius shouldn’t be having those thoughts. And he certainly shouldn’t have spoken them aloud in public, even if it did look like there was no one within earshot. He could easily be executed for words like that, as could I for just being perceived as receptive. And though it isn’t Peeta’s fault they were said within his hearing, he’s a potential threat now to Darius, which makes Darius a threat to him.

I can practically see the fear coursing through Darius as he looks from Peeta to me, trying to decide what to do. His shoulders are tight and his biceps bulge with tension against the thin fabric of his uniform.

I give Peeta a look that communicates for him to pretend like nothing’s happened, while I lay my hand gently on Darius’ arm and try and soothe him.

“Sorry, I’m always dropping things,” Peeta says, with a convincing level of innocence. He reaches for his guitar, which is upside down on the stage.

“He does always drop things,” I say with a bit of a chuckle, slipping my fingers under Darius’ arm and subtly pulling him as though sharing a joke. “You should see how many loaves of bread Peeta accidentally drops into the fire. His mother used to beat him for it, poor kid.”

“Katniss, you remember that?”

My gaze rises over the top of Darius’ red hair to meet Peeta’s eyes. I scowl at him for talking. I wasn’t trying to dredge up history, it was the only example I could think of to normalize the situation for all three of us. Why doesn’t he just let the moment pass rather than lengthen it?

But Peeta’s expression, though I can’t read it well, intensely demands an answer from me.

“Of course I do,” I say quietly, right before I chew my bottom lip and look away from him.

But in looking away I see that Darius is looking at me for an answer as well.

It’s an answer I can’t give him. He has to know the best thing I can do for all three of us is to pretend he never said those things.

An idea occurs to me.

I look back up to Peeta and smile stupidly, “Abernathy hasn’t done the graduation dance yet.”

I feel a wave of relief when Peeta nods in understanding. He goes over to Abernathy to whisper into his ear. The older man scratches the stubble on his chin before giving Peeta a nod and then stepping to the edge of the stage directly above Darius and me.

“Ladies and not-so-gentlemen!” Abernathy flicks long blond bangs out of his eyes and then raises his hands dramatically. “It’s been brought to my attention we haven’t yet had the traditional graduating class dance!”

There is an immediate chorus of applause, hoots and hollers. The graduating class dance is another big set dance, like the gigantic ring that saved Prim earlier from her fourth dance partner. The rest of us will be forced to move off the center of the street to make a space wide enough for them.

The crowd automatically starts ebbing back in anticipation, and a group of new graduates begins forming near the center, linking arms up under Abernathy’s direction.

I hear a muted whistle from the stage and twist to look up. It was Peeta. He’s moved to the far side of the stage and is waving someone around frantically, sending them earnest whispers. His face tracks the person’s movement, and I realize it’s Prim he’s communicating with as soon as she rounds the corner of the stage.

A moment ago I was grateful for our unspoken teamwork, but this feels like a slap in the face since it reminds me my world is falling apart tonight and Peeta is at the epicenter of it.

“Now, this year we’re going to do something a bit different! We’re going to add siblings into the mix and see if we can’t get the ring twice as big as the last one!”

I only half hear Abernathy. And that’s because I make the mistake of letting my eyes drift until they accidentally catch Darius’ again. The desperation I see in his face touches my heart someplace deep. He’s in pain. And now that I’m really looking at him, I recognize the same crushing weight of hope and fear I’ve been feeling all evening.

When did this happen for him? How had I missed it? It can’t be love, I know. It’s only that I’m a woodsy girl, and what other type of woman could a Peacekeeper possibly hope to risk breaking away with except one capable of surviving outside the reach of Panem’s long arm?

Prim does something with my bottle, grabs my arm and starts to shuffle me off.

I know I should be grateful for being rescued. I am grateful, both for her manhandling me and for what was no doubt Peeta’s idea to add in siblings. But I find I can’t break the eye contact with Darius, which is forcing Prim to pull me backwards.

How can I not empathize with a good man willing to risk his life to break free from the controlling leash of the Capitol? Haven’t I felt that same desperation all my life? The drive to survive and preserve my family by whatever means necessary? Isn’t that what had driven me to hunt beyond the fence to feed Prim and myself? Wasn’t that what had driven my dad there when I was a child?

My identification with that need rouses a pity so sudden and so intense that it pierces me like one of my own arrows.

 

__________

 

Chapter 4

My identification with Darius rouses a pity so sudden and so intense that it pierces me like one of my own arrows.

Darius’ expression falls the further Prim drags me away. I do the only thing I can, a mercy kill. I shake my head and mouth the words, I’m sorry.

His head ducks in shame, turns around and walks away.

Above him, Peeta is staring at me too. Or maybe he’s staring at Prim as she manhandles me away from what is danger for all of us. His expression is one I still can’t read, except that it is dark and serious.

The dance ring forms, and I’m held firmly in place on one side by Prim and on the other by someone I don’t recognize.

The music begins, driven by the fiddle. It’s a fast tune, a fast moving circle. By the time I’ve been forced to complete just one rotation of the dance, I’m crying, my head is spinning, and I feel like vomiting.

I can’t take it. Any of it.

I pull my arms free and stumble out of the ring, off balance as I leave the dance’s powerful momentum. But as soon as I’m sure I can keep my feet under me, I bolt down a dark gap between the two nearest houses.

And I run.

Even though it’s dark, I easily find my way over the grass and the dirt piles and the stray refuse of our poverty-stricken District until I slam into the fence that separates me from the freedom and comfort of the woods and meadows. My fingers claw and find purchase as I half sag against the chain link. It’s a good thing the electricity doesn’t happen to be on. I’d failed to check it before embracing it.

I’m sobbing. It’s an emotional hemorrhage I can’t hold back. But no one is around to judge me, so I don’t try. I sink to the earth on my knees, pressing my forehead the fence. I wish more than ever that my father was here, that I could wrap myself into into arms that both want me and are wanted by me.

All I can think about is Darius, and Prim, and Peeta. Somehow, they all feel related to one another. Not like family, but like puzzle pieces, or causal links.

I see Peeta’s worried expression in my mind following Darius’ bold suggestion. I can only assume he fears any trouble that it might cause for him and Prim. Could he marry the sister of a fugitive? Would he want to? Without question, if I committed an act of rebellion as crazy as running away into the woods with a Peacekeeper, it would stain the Mellark name badly, a Merchant name that requires the patronage of people who feed off the hind teat of the Capitol. Would it be too much of a risk for him to pursue Prim, the sister of a rebel guilty of an execution-level offense?

And what about Darius? The look in his eyes as I allowed Prim to pull me away, it was so broken. So hopeless. So desperate. Yes, Darius might not have to worry about his future meals, about starvation or working in the coal mines. But in return, the Capitol will see to it he lives, and most likely dies, alone.

I fear for him. If he really is ready to desert, I know he won’t make it on his own.

I think back year ago, to a day in the field when Gale and I saw two people on the run being apprehended by a Capitol hovercraft. How the boy had been killed, and the girl taken alive, screaming in terror. They weren’t District Twelve, so they’d made some progress on their own from wherever they’d started.

But they’d still been caught.

And no effort would be spared to recover a deserter from the Peacekeeper force.

No, Darius needs me if he plans to run. He wouldn’t make it more than a few days without me to help him evade, hide, and navigate. I may think very little of myself, but I know there is not another me. There’s not another person in District Twelve with whom any Peacekeeper could hope to find a path of their own making beyond the fence I currently grip between my fingers.

But Darius hasn’t just asked for my help to escape, has he?

He’s asked me for more than that.

I can’t help but feel a spark inside my belly. I wonder what it would be like to be on the receiving end of the desperation I saw in his eyes.

Maybe he’s been on the idea for a while, and I’ve been oblivious during our joking and making fun of one another, like Prim is when it comes to the looks Rory gives her. It’s hard to believe that somehow I’ve had any sort of effect on him. But I find myself holding my breath as I remember what he said.

Pretty.

Clever.

Funny.

Warm.

Brave enough to make a new life with someone.

No one has ever said anything like that to me. Well, I suppose Gale might count, but not really. His proposal was more along the lines of an awkward, “We’re a good fit and I like you. We should get married.”

I’m pretty sure, with the number of girls Gale had taken to the slag heap over the course of high school, that his ‘I like you’ had meant something slightly more than mere attraction, but how was one to know for sure?

There had been something so much easier, and earnest, about Darius’ praise of me. And had I heard right? He’d been waiting for Prim to age out of the reaping, so he knew I wouldn’t worry for her? Might he actually have been postponing a gamble with his own fate until he felt my sister would be alright, and that I would be alright leaving her?

That was more perceptive than Gale had ever been, and he’s my best friend.

Pretty, clever, funny, warm, brave.

No, no one has ever said those things to me. Not Gale. Not a single boy at school. Certainly not Peeta, who is apparently intrigued by girls blonder than me, and prettier than me, and younger than me.

In fact, no one has ever even thought them about me. And the one instance in which I’ve thought otherwise, actually forced myself to interact with someone because I liked him and believed it possible he could take an interest in me… Well, his designs on Prim are proof enough that my prospects in District Twelve are fairly limited.

Start a new life with me is what he had really said.

I hear the words, so powerful, no matter how hard I try not to. So I let myself cry a bit more, and hope that the intensity of the physical act itself will clear my thoughts.

When I feel fully expended several minutes later, I try to find a weakness in the fence, but there isn’t one. I’m a ways away from the place I normally slip through, so I resign myself and sit cross-legged in the dirt. My dress is ruined anyway, so what does it matter?

The breeze cools my skin where I’m covered in sweat, and kisses my face where tears have wet it. It refreshes me, and I close my eyes and try to center myself.

I inhale and catch the same scents from earlier. The dust. And the rain that is nearer now. But this near the woods, I also smell the sickly sweet aroma of grass and the floral scent of the daffodils I know grow along here.

I haven’t come nearly far enough away from the heart of the Seam to escape the music of Coal Dark, but it is faint enough that it plays second fiddle to the nature around me. The swaying, gentle rustle of leaves sings softly to me. There’s even a pleasing, melodic clinking from the fence as the wind plays against it. And the crickets are a symphony all their own.

A snap causes my eyes to fly open.

“Katniss?”

I twist. There’s no moon yet, so I can’t see who it is, but I know my sister’s voice anywhere.

“Prim.”

I manage to keep back the sigh I feel pressing inside me.

Unlike my dress, hers is still pristine, so she comes around and stands in front of me rather than sitting in the dirt. She pulls her arms around her stomach. I guess she finds the breeze chilling.

“Are you alright?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” It sounds unconvincing even to me.

“The way you ran off.” I don’t explain my actions, so she asks, “Was Darius bothering you? I know he likes you, but I never thought he’d try to… do anything about it.”

“Who told you he likes me,” I snap at her. Every person who knows it, or suspects it, puts Darius in further danger. And me. And her. And Peeta. I may have no romantic feelings for Darius, at least not yet, but I do consider him a sort of friend. I don’t want any of us hurt.

She takes a step back at the harshness in my voice.

“No one. It just seemed like something was going on right before the dance. Peeta told me to hurry and come around to get you. And after you left, he found me and asked me if you were alright.”

My eyes focus on her, even though it’s dark.

“Peeta asked you if I was alright?”

“No, Darius did.”

I sigh, disappointed. Though, what was I supposed to expect?

Prim continues, “I… got the sense maybe he’d tried to… to…”

After more verbal stumbling, I realize my modest little Prim is trying to find a delicate way of asking if Darius had propositioned me for physical intimacy. I burst out laughing.

“I don’t see how that’s funny,” she says, mortified.

“You wouldn’t,” I say, though I don’t mean anything by it except to tease her. “And he didn’t,” I emphasize.

“Oh.”

She doesn’t sound convinced, and from her tone I can hear how anxious she is really, “Peeta looked like he thought Darius was causing trouble.”

Peeta thought it might be a problem.

Yes, there is my final answer to the Darius question. Anything that can hurt Prim is unacceptable, including ruining her chance at romantic happiness by smearing the Everdeen name with an act of treason. And just the mention of Peeta’s name reminds me that whatever spark I felt at Darius’ words are nothing compared to the cruel wildfire still charing my heart to ash, each heartbeat a puff at the billows.

“We were just sharing a drink,” I lie. I can’t let her walk away from this conversation thinking there was anything unusual about my time with Darius. And I realize that as things take their course there will probably be opportunity to revisit the idea after it can no longer affect Prim’s marriageability.

In fact, it might even be nice to have more encounters at the Hob first, to see if Darius’ and my joking starts to carry more meaning naturally with time.

“I didn’t have anything on my stomach,” I add, “so I felt pretty sick pretty fast. And with you and Abernathy forcing me to dance in a circle, that was the last straw.”

“Oh,” she says again. But I can tell this explanation sits better with her.

My shoulders sag with relief.

“That stuff is nasty,” she says. Do I hear an edge of anger and not just simple disapproval from her? “I know you drink sometimes with Gale, but I wish you wouldn’t.”

I wonder how she knows that. I rarely drink. Almost never. And while it is true that it’s usually Gale’s home brew when I do, it’s never around her.

“Are you coming back to the dance,” she asks me after we’re both silent for a minute.

“I don’t see why I should.” I ignore the fact that I promised Peeta I’d stay. Darius has at least had the effect of making me feel a bit more of my own self-worth. And maybe that is worth not dragging my heart through the mud just to make up for those two burned loaves of bread. And after all, if Peeta gets his wife, isn’t that payment enough for them?

“There’s nothing there for me. And you’re doing fine all on your own.”

“Maybe.”

That quiet voice sounds like the little Primrose, not the grown up one.

“Is something wrong, Prim?”

She hesitates and then, “Nothing’s wrong.”

I hear the lie in it. I know it’s a lie because it’s the exact same tone I used every day for years after father died. The one I always used to tell her that nothing was wrong and that we were going to be alright, even though there were plenty of times I didn’t think we were going to make it through the month.

“We can talk about it,” I offer. “If you want.”

I really don’t want to talk about it, actually, now that I think about it.

“No, it’s alright. But maybe you could walk back with me?”

It’s not a big request, so I get up and we start back together. Prim doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. In fact, at the snail’s pace she sets it’s going to take us at least ten minutes to cover the distance I probably made in two.

“Katniss?”

“Yes, Prim?”

“Have you ever been in love?”

I fall out of that same imaginary tree I did earlier, emotionally winded as I hit the ground. It’s good she’s set a slow walking pace back to the street, because it’s hard to think of what to say as my mind tumbles with how I’m supposed to deal with my own hurt and jealousy and somehow still be a supportive sister.

“Yes, Prim. I’ve loved someone,” I settle on the truth. I keep my voice calm, gentle. I try to channel away everything else and imagine I’m speaking to the seven year old girl I’d cradled in my arms after the mining accident, the little angel into whose hair I’d whispered comforts even though our father had just died and I had been hurting just as badly as she had been.

The one I swore to myself I’d do and suffer anything for to make sure she was alright.

“I don’t mean me,” she says as though I had misunderstood or was sidestepping her question. “Or our parents. That doesn’t count.”

“I know you didn’t mean that, Prim.”

She thinks on this for a long time.

“Who, then? Who did you love?”

There is absolutely no correct way to say, The man who is in love with you instead of me.

So I draw in a deep breath and say simply, “Just a boy, Prim. From a long time ago.” And then I release that same breath slowly.

“What happened?”

“He didn’t love me back.”

“That’s terrible!” She stops and stares at me. “Why didn’t you ever tell me!” We are close enough to the beginning of the street that some of the ambient light lets me get a shadowy idea of her expression. I’d laugh at how earnest she looks if it wasn’t so tragic.

“Come on, Prim,” I pull her close with my arm around her shoulders and encourage her to keep walking.

“It was Gale Hawthorne, wasn’t it? It had to be, with how much time you spent with him.”

Now I really do laugh.

“No, Prim,” I shake my head with conviction. “It most definitely wasn’t Gale. I think our roles were reversed in that regard.”

“You don’t care that everyone thinks so?”

Why ‘everyone’ should care about my love life escapes me. But, “No, I don’t really care what people think.”

She looks at me strangely.

“Maybe you should.”

“Why don’t you just tell me what’s on your mind, Primrose, instead of dancing around it.”

“Why won’t you tell me?”

“Because it’s embarrassing.”

“Why?”

I roll my eyes, even though she can’t see.

“Because it’s embarrassing to love someone and them not love you back. It’s like a secret you need to keep for yourself. Sometimes even from yourself. Because if other people know it, or if you think about it too much, it makes you feel weak and even more alone than you did to begin with.”

She looks at me, her beautiful face so serious and sad. I’ve never seen her pity me before, but I think that’s what I see in her expression now.

“What if someone loved you and you didn’t know it?”

Like Darius, I ask myself with sad sarcasm. But I can’t have anyone else knowing about that, so instead I say what I know will deflect her away from the affairs of my heart back to hers.

“Sort of like you and Rory?”

She stops again, and pulls herself out from under my arm.

“What you do mean like Rory and me,” she snaps with a fire I rarely see in her. I can almost hear my own capacity for irritation in its quality, so different from Prim’s typical gentleness.

“Well, you know… I’ve been trying to tell you for awhile that I think he likes you. I know you don’t like him in that way, but you’re always so friendly and open with everyone that it can be confusing to boys. I know you don’t mean to encourage him, but I think he may have a different idea. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up in the same spot I was.”

“That Rory will marry someone else, like Gale did instead of you?”

I’m not sure why the conversation is taking a wrong turn, but it is.

“Prim, I mean you’ll end up hurting Rory. I’m relieved that Gale married someone else. He wanted to marry me, not the other way around.” I know I never shared about Gale’s proposal with her. Neither he or I ever talk about it to anyone because we’re both too embarrassed. But I’d have thought Prim capable of intuiting what had happened. Maybe I’m better at keeping secrets than I thought.

“Alright.”

She seems calmed, but it still takes her a full minute to say anything. By now we’re making our way up the street, passing couples and little clumps of people here and there. The music that drifts to us is still upbeat and lively. The next break should be happening shortly. After that, the melodies traditionally slow so the couples who have formed can spend more time together talking and being close rather than sweating and trading off partners.

“Katniss, I think I’m in love with someone.”

I pretend to be happy, “Well that’s good, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think you’ll be happy about it. And I don’t think he loves me. Oh, Katniss, it’s Rory!”

Suddenly, she’s holding onto me and crying profusely. Add mucus to the list of things staining my dress. I don’t know how to respond, as the revelation fills me with both relief and dread, so I just hold her.

“You may think he likes me, but he wouldn’t even look at me straight in the eye this week. Every time we talked, and I tried to ask him if he was coming to Coal Dark, he made some excuse as to why he couldn’t.”

“That might be a good thing,” I venture.

She pulls back from me, furious. “How can that be a good thing?”

“Prim, he’s been through the arena.”

“I don’t care about the scars, or the hand.”

“I’m more worried about the mental and emotional damage. I’ve been going out to Victor’s Village these last several years with Gale. To get any ideas from Rory we could to help with training you and Vick, and eventually Posy. He’s not the same young man you used to know going out into the woods. He’s… older. His temperament is different. More sullen. Shorter.”

“I know exactly what it’s like,” she yells at me. I look around, glad that the music is still going. We’re far enough down the lane from the main crowd that her shouting hasn’t disrupted the flow, but it is catching some attention.

“I see him more than you do!” she yells at me. “And if you and Gale would stop bringing that damned alcohol by-”

“Wait, what do you mean you see him more than I do?” My voice sounds almost comical to me in its calmness, compared to her.

“I go see him, Katniss. Ever since last year. We have tea, and play cards, and sometimes go for walks along the fence line.” She’s still yelling, and I can’t tell if she’s unaware she’s making a scene, or if this is a Prim I’ve never seen that doesn’t care that she’s making one. Either way, this is entirely new territory for me.

I could actually hear myself blinking if it weren’t for the music.

“I know what he was like when he came back. Angry and closed off. I know how hard it is on him when the reaping happens and he has to take the tributes to the Capitol. I know how he wishes every time one of them dies that it’s him dying instead. I know the things they do to him there, in the Capitol, and you don’t even have a clue. They’re monsters, all of them! And you don’t even have a clue, Katniss!”

She’s worked herself up to screaming now, a wild thing I never thought she could be. I know she’s upset and hurting, and I feel badly for her, but I also find myself fighting an urge to smile. It’s the first time I’ve seen hot Everdeen blood stymie that healer’s gentleness of hers and I feel a rush of pride.

And anyway, some floodgate of deep emotion has burst in her so even if I wanted to, I don’t think I could stop it.

I notice that the music has stopped finally and that most everyone is staring.

“Prim,” I reach my hand out to touch her shoulder gently, but she pulls back.

“And you and Gale bring that stuff by, and when I find him afterward, he’s just in a stupor for the whole day. You just pick his brain for information and don’t even try to help him.”

Apparently Prim has known she’s making a scene, because she turns to face the revelers District Twelve like she is pronouncing the end of the world upon them.

“I love him!” she screams at them, face red and contorted. “And while all of you called him a hero and gobbled up the extra food rations his blood, tears and loss of innocence brought you, you treat him like he’s a leaper! Just like you treated Haymitch! All Rory did was get unlucky enough to come home alive!”

Her words leave every single person in the street silent. Some people nod. Others looks away nervously. A few heads even drop in shame, as though they felt she’d singled them out.

I see that up on the stage Peeta and Abernathy are talking furtively. I realize Peeta’s just probably received the same blow I’d taken earlier.

Abernathy waves the musicians to play again, and slowly enough that it’s clear Prim has made her point, the people in the crowd eventually return their attention to each other.

I’m proud of her.

“Prim,” I touch her shoulder again. This time she doesn’t recoil. “Prim, why don’t we go home? We neither of us need to stay here until the end of the night.”

“No,” she says with a pout. “I’m staying here. I told Rory he’s to be here tonight when the lights go out. I told him I’m waiting for him and he’d better not disappoint me. And even though he said he’s not coming, I’m going to keep my word and wait. Because even if he breaks my heart, at least when I see him next I can look him in the eye and call him a coward and tell him I didn’t pick someone else even though I could have.”

 

__________

 

Chapter 5

Prim walks away from me and disappears into the crowd, which splits for her like she was breathing fire.

At least her protest of love for Rory definitely frees me from my obligation to Peeta. Neither he or I may like her choice, but she’s made it abundantly clear she isn’t choosing anyone else.

I look down and catch sight of how truly disgusting my dress has become. I’ve nothing else to do with myself, so I decide to head for home and change.

White dresses and flowers were never destined to fit me anyway.

I’m nearly to my front door when I hear the heavy footfalls of someone running. My first thought is that it’s Darius, which would be unfortunate. My second it that it’s Gale, which might actually be helpful if I decide to go see Rory about Prim.

But instead, I can see by the cast of the porch light that it’s the very last person I want to see.

“Katniss!”

Peeta’s out of breath, his stocky, wide-chested build not meant for running. He might be able to throw me around as easily as a sack flour, but I could lap him twice in a mile race. I watch as he rests his hands on his knees and takes in deep breaths. He’s probably here to ask whether I think there’s any chance for him if Rory doesn’t show up.

I consider turning my back and stepping into my house. But I don’t. I wait for him to get his breath back enough that he can stand up straight.

“Katniss, are you going to find Rory?”

“No,” I try to sound like he’s nothing more than an unwanted bother, “I’m going to change out of this dress.”

“I can help.”

His thoughts are clearly firmly stuck on Prim and Rory. Call it bitterness, or desperation, but I can’t help myself.

“Peeta. I can handle dressing and undressing on my own.”

He rubs the back of his neck, furiously, and works through an embarrassed stutter that gives me a stab of satisfaction, “I didn’t mean… I mean, I meant… Not that I wouldn’t… Oh God, never mind.”

He turns in a quick circle, still rubbing his neck. His hand finally drops and slaps heavily against his thigh.

“I meant about Prim.”

Even in the dim light of the porch lamp, all I see is red. For Prim, and for me.

I come up to him so I can whisper, just in case my mother is near enough the door or window to overhear.

“Look,” I warn, feeling dangerous. “If you think I would back you over Rory now that Prim’s made it clear she loves him and not you, you’re in way over your head.” I shove his chest with both hands just enough to threaten his balance but not destroy it. “If you try to interfere and she gets hurt, I will bury you, Peeta Mellark. Do you understand me?”

“Katniss, you think…” He looks down for what feels like too long. He sighs and looks back up at me. We’re close enough that I see every crease on his face as he frowns.

“You think I’d hurt Prim?”

“Rye told me how you feel,” I accuse him. “And it’s fairly obvious without that that you care for her, Peeta. Always telling me to take bread to her when I come by with the squirrels for your father. The way you ask after her. The way you stood close and laughed with her during the break, watched her while she was dancing tonight.”

He wisely takes a step back and stares at our feet.

When he looks back up, I recognize the hopelessness in his eyes. It’s the same look I know has been in my own eyes tonight. The same that was in Darius’.

“And you were willing to support me in that?”

“Yes, I was. Because I’m willing to do anything, at any time, anywhere, to secure her happiness.”

Even if that means ripping my own heart out and roasting it on a spit, I feel like adding.

I feel like shoving him again, just because, but this time hard enough to make him crash into the dirt. Or else kissing him maybe, in an angry protest against fate. But I don’t.

“I understand, Katniss,” he says softly. “I’ll wait.”

I don’t understand.

“You’ll wait for what?”

“For you… To change, I mean.”

“I didn’t say I was going to find Rory, Peeta. And even if I do, you can’t come with me. Didn’t you just hear what I said?”

“I can help,” he says, dropping his eyes again. “You won’t find him at his house, either, I don’t think. But I may know where he’ll be. You need me for this, Katniss. He’ll listen to me.”

“Why? Why would you try to put them together?”

He bites his bottom lip.

“Just let me help, Katniss, alright?”

The defeated softness in his voice makes my stomach hurt, and my chest.

Because it’s not for me. That’s the reason it hurts so damn much.

I try to remind my lungs to breathe in and out instead of sitting limply behind my ribcage, and I swallow, loud enough I’m sure he has to hear it. Common sense tells me that it’s not alright to accept his help in this. But it’s also hard for me to believe that the man in front of me, the man who was once the boy that took a beating to help me, is lying.

Because to me, Peeta has always represented goodness, charity, selflessness. A new beginning. Isn’t that what had first made me fall in love with him?

I feel my lungs finally restart and I suck in air hungrily.

“Alright, Peeta.” Because I don’t have the emotional reserve left to try and offer any sort of comfort for his pain, I add, “Thank you.”

I duck inside and change into my usual outfit of trousers, boots, and a blouse. It’s really too warm tonight to wear my hunting jacket, but I foresee the possibility of wandering beyond the fence tonight and I might want it then, so I slip into it anyway. Peeta is sitting on my porch step when I come out, his back to the door and his shoulders hunched. He’s found a flower weed and is slowly ripping it to pieces.

I step down slowly, and wait for him to get up. He’s sluggish, but finally rises. I let him lead the way and we start off on a pace that’s little better than the one Prim had set earlier. We head in the direction of Victors’ Village even though he said Rory wouldn’t be at his house, but I don’t question his leading.

At least the moon has started to rise, and it gives our feet a little light.

“Shouldn’t you be doing the music?” I ask him, uncomfortable with the silence as it grows long.

He waves the question away, “They’ll be fine without me. Everyone always is.”

I should just keep my mouth shut. I’m afraid that since this is the first time I’ve been alone with him, my heart might bleed through into my voice and say things I mean to keep to myself. But I want to talk with him.

“You shouldn’t say that.”

He looks at me for clarification.

“Prim and I would both be dead if you hadn’t given me that bread. Or, at least, we’d have been taken into a home.”

He laughs, but it’s bitter. “Don’t, Katniss. It was just bread. I should have found a way to do more.”

“It’s true, though,” I protest. How much should I bare to him? Maybe tonight, after everything that has happened, I should finally let myself really thank him for what he did.

I let myself talk slowly, partly to fill the time, but also because the language of trees is as slow and silent as their growth, and when it comes to something like this, I’m the same way.

“There wasn’t anything you could have done more. We were both only eleven, remember?”

I look over and wait for him to acknowledge me.

“But it was enough. It was everything, Peeta. I was at the end. How was an eleven year old girl supposed to take care of herself and her sister with her father dead and her mother as good as? The bread you gave me came the very moment I’d decided to turn myself and Prim into the authorities for care-taking. Do you know how horrible that would have been?”

He nods. Everyone knows.

“But after that filled our stomachs, I felt hope again. I started thinking that maybe I wasn’t fated to die or be helpless after all. That’s when I got up the courage to start going beyond the fence alone.”

Peeta stops walking and studies me in the low light of the moon.

“How come you never told me? You never talk to me.”

I shrug, “Well I wouldn’t, would I?”

“Why not?”

The answer is obvious to me, but too embarrassing to say aloud, so I don’t answer.

We pass through the gate of Victors’ Village. Rory’s is about half way down the lane, so we still have a few houses to go.

“Do you… Are you thinking about leaving with that Peacekeeper?”

I grab his arm and yank him violently to a stop.

“You must never, ever talk about that, Peeta. Do you hear?”

He looks over my shoulder instead of directly at me.

“I know that. I’m not stupid.” I’ve clearly insulted him.

“Good.”

When I let go of his arm, his eyes finally focus on me.

“But it’s just us here now. And I’d like to know. I’d really like to know, Katniss.”

I see disapproval. Condemnation?

I feel knots inside me, emptiness, cold, heat, pain.

“You didn’t talk to many people in school except for Gale Hawthorne and Madge. Certainly you never spoke to me. You barely say five words when you come by the bakery. So you’ll have to forgive me if you having an easy drink with a Peacekeeper who’s comfortable enough to ask if you’d go on the run as… as… lovers… catches my attention.”

“He’s not a Peacekeeper,” I shoot back.

Peeta’s mouth hangs open and he looks at me like I’ve got tree limbs growing from my ears.

“I just mean he’s a good guy, is all,” I say more quietly. “You know, not all Peacekeepers are there because they want to be.”

“Yeah, I get it, Katniss.”

He looks away and starts walking again, but this time he’s moving at a fast clip. I jog to catch up.

“Why does it concern you,” I want to know. If he is honest about giving way to Rory, then I don’t see why it should matter to him.

“It doesn’t,” he says curtly, not slowing.

I shouldn’t have asked. I don’t know why his disapproval should matter to me at this point anyway.

Although of course I know why his disapproval matters. Because I’m broken.

“Peeta-”

“We’re here,” he cuts me off.

And sure enough, we’re in front of Rory’s yard. Peeta runs up the little walk and mounts the steps two at a time before beating against the door with the sides of both his fists. There are lights on inside, though I don’t see any movement.

“Rory! Are you in there?”

He walks around the porch and peers in through the windows.

“I don’t think he’s here.”

I’m still standing at the edge of the yard as Peeta comes back. He lets his shoulder jam savagely against mine as he passes by and stalks back onto the main path. I’ve never seen this side of Peeta. The only time I’ve seen him look so determined and hostile was during his wrestling matches in high school.

It hurts me as much as a gut punch.

I match his pace as soon as I recover.

“What’s your problem, Mellark?”

He doesn’t answer.

I try pulling him to a stop, but he jerks his arm free and breaks almost into a run. I out-pace him without even trying and get in front of him. He stops rather than crash into me.

“Peeta!”

His blue eyes look black in the moonlight.

“Do you want to help Prim or not,” he demands, wiping harshly at the edge of his mouth with his arm when he realizes spittle has caught there in his anger.

I nod. Of course I do.

“Then, Katniss Everdeen, get out of my way.”

Chapter 2

Notes:

Okay, here are Chapters 6-10

Chapter 6

“Do you want to help Prim or not,” Peeta demands, wiping harshly at his mouth when he realizes spittle has caught there in his anger.

I nod. Of course I do.

“Then, Katniss Everdeen, get out of my way.”

He waits until I step aside before he moves forward. But at least this time he’s walking at a normal speed.

I drop back several steps and follow quietly. Before long, we are on the path of the last house in the lane.

When it had built Victors’ Village, the Capitol had been overly optimistic on the number of future victors from our District. As a result, there are an excessive number of houses compared to our paltry two victors, and like most of the other houses here, the one Peeta has led me to is dark and lifeless.

I follow him up onto the porch as he goes to the front door. This time he’s moving with a bit of slow caution. And this time he taps on the door instead of nearly breaking it down.

“Rory?”

Peeta looks through the front windows, cupping his hands against the glass to help him see better into the darkened living room.

He nods to me and comes back to the door.

“Rory? It’s Peeta. And Katniss. Please open up.”

“Go away!” I hear from inside.

Peeta leans his forehead against the door.

“Rory, please. Prim is really upset.”

“Gale’s already been here and told me.”

“Can we come in?”

“No.”

Peeta tries the knob anyway. It twists, and he opens the door just enough to put his head inside.

“Come on Rory, you don’t want to do this to her.”

Peeta slips in through the door so fast that I’m caught off guard as it latches behind him, shutting me out.

I knock gently. Peeta voice, muffled through the door, tells me to wait. Since this affects my sister, his excluding me upsets me. I try to open the door, but find Peeta has locked it.

A twinge of concern rushes through me. I wonder again if Peeta means to look like he’s helping Prim while all the while planning to tell Rory it’s the noble thing to refuse Prim’s love.

No, something in me can’t believe that.

The world feels off tilt again, and my thoughts tumble the same way they did when I was talking with Prim. I don’t understand Peeta’s angry outburst of a few minutes ago, or why he’s keeping me away from Rory. I could understand if he was transferring onto me anger he really feels towards Prim, or even Rory. But it felt so personal. He wasn’t just blindly raging. He was looking at me, almost into me.

He even wrapped my name in it.

My body tenses with a thought too dangerous to have. I try to snuff it out, forbid myself from entertaining it.

But it’s there, demanding my attention. And it won’t go away.

Me.

No.

To believe Peeta is mad because he is jealous over me, to believe that even for a second, will only bring me to the depths of despair once I’m able to think clearly again.

But rebelling, my memory flies through tonight’s encounters like a loosed arrow that I have no ability to call back.

Could there be a gulf between things I have assumed tonight and what has actually been happening? After all, hadn’t I been completely wrong about Prim staying close the stage to be close to Peeta? Equally wrong in interpreting her whispers and laughs with him during that first break as flirtation? There is no space in Prim’s perfect spirit to be false hearted to anyone, so if that was not romantic, was it just friendship?

And so since when has Prim been such easy friends with Peeta? And why? What circumstance has drawn them together such that neither of them bothered to let on?

My mind continues to race. I’m aware of Peeta and Rory talking in muted voices beyond the door, but I care more about this than trying to pick up what they’re saying.

Peeta had said Rye was a jerk. That much is definitely true. But enough of one that I can discount what he said as a lie or intentional misdirection? The image of his leer comes to me. Yes, I’m comfortable thinking him a liar.

And Peeta had dropped his guitar when Darius asked me to run away with him. He’d also made Abernathy start the dance and sent Prim to drag me away to it.

His eyes had demanded to know whether I truly remembered the gift he’d given me eleven years ago.

He’d left his music not to go find Rory, but to find me.

And Peeta thinks you don’t even know he exists.

Isn’t that what Rye had said? Why would Peeta even care, unless he… cared?

It’s impossible for me to think of myself as something desirable. But hadn’t Gale commented on my outfit? Rye had leered at me, twice. And Darius certainly seems to think I’m worth something. Is it really so impossible that Peeta might as well?

I graze my fingers over my arm and my shoulders where Peeta touched me earlier in the evening.

Is it possible those touches had lingered for a reason other than to keep my attention?

These are fanciful thoughts, too expensive to have.

But hadn’t Peeta had smiled just because I knew his name.

“Peeta!” I’m banging on the door before I realize it. “Peeta Mellark, I need to talk to you, now.”

The door opens slightly.

“Katniss,” Peeta’s eyes are warning me to keep my voice down. “I think Rory might appreciate your opinion on-”

I don’t care how delicate Rory is right now, or whether Peeta’s relationship with Rory is more nuanced than mine. I’ve know that little squirt since he was eight years old and getting in trouble for pulling girls’ pigtails at school. That includes Prim’s braids, now that I think about it.

And I want this little drama over with so I can talk to Peeta.

Alone.

I shove the door wider, forcing Peeta off balance until he has to move back and I can step in.

I spot Rory leaning against one of the walls. His head hangs.

I’m aware of how delicate he can be, how his moods can change because of the traumas he’s been through. I’ve shed private tears after late evenings spent with him talking through his experiences in the arena. Prim might think I only ‘pick his brain’ when Gale and I come see him, but half the time we’re only there so he’ll have someone to talk to. So that we can remind him he did nothing wrong by surviving. So we can comfort him when he feels the blood on his hands isn’t washing off.

Just because I protect his privacy and don’t talk about it with Prim, apparently just like Prim doesn’t talk about it with me, it doesn’t mean I don’t care for him.

But I do have one advantage over both Peeta and Prim. I’ve been the big sister figure in Gale’s and my bizarre little sibling-family since our fathers died in that mining accident. Perhaps because of all the time Rory and I spent out in the woods together, with me yelling at him for moving too loudly or leaving too many signs of his presence or failing to set a snare right, so far since he’s been back he still lets me treat him like a little brother.

I point my finger towards the open door with all the fire I know his mother would if she were standing here instead of me.

“Rory Hawthorne, you get your ass over to that dance and kiss my sister, and I mean kiss her passionately, when the lights go out or I swear by every last every last chunk of coal in Twelve that I’ll tan your hide so bad you’ll wish you were going back into the Games. You understand?”

I hear a mortified choke come out of Peeta from behind me.

Watch and learn, Peeta, I think.

Rory’s head lifts. I can see by the faint light of the moon coming through the windows that his eyes are watery.

But I also see hope there.

“Katniss,” he is all he says, but I can hear how raw his voice is.

Hawthorne boys don’t actually cry. I know this because I’ve tried over the years to prove otherwise, usually with the application of physical pain and even once with the cutting of a potent onion. But I’m sure Rory’s been sitting in this dark house alone struggling not to.

“Rory,” I say more gently, and go over to him. I rub my hands up and down his arms and he not only lets me pull him into a hug, but returns it tightly. I can feel the harsh rise and fall of his breathing against my chest, and the pounding of his heart, as he struggles through what must be an emotional arena for him.

Yes, Peeta and Prim have no idea. They’ve never killed anything in their life. Rory, Gale and I, we have that bond. We’ve taken life, and stained our hands. Maybe I’ve never taken a human life, but Rory knows I appreciate how much it matters.

“Please,” I whisper into his ear. “She’s made her choice. You might think it’s putting her first if you deny her, but trust me, you’re not. You’d just be putting your guilt before her joy.”

I pull back and hold his face in my hands.

“And more than all of us, Rory, you deserve to be happy. Let it go.”

He sniffs. His voice is still gravel when he talks, but even though he’s only eighteen he already has Gale’s deep voice.

“I don’t want to ruin her life, Kat. Four kids have died under my mentoring. Four. If I go on living, do you know how many that will become? Dozens and dozens. How will I live with that? How could Prim? You know it would tear her up to watch me struggle through that, I know you do. You’ve told me as much. But have you stopped to think what it will do to her just to be related to that? She’ll feel like it’s her losing those kids every time.”

“I know,” is all I say, because I do know. Because it’s exactly what I worry about, too. “But she’ll feel it anyway, because she loves you. Even if you’re not together.”

I wish I had more complete words. Prettier words. But I’m not white dresses, flowers, or apparently poems either. So I do the only thing I can think of to soothe him.

I kiss him on the cheek, and hug him again, and determine I’ll hold on until he is strong enough to go to her.

“Rory, please trust me. You’ll help each other. That’s what lovers do, husbands and wives. They take on the world together. Don’t let the Capitol take that from her or you.”

After a very long several minutes, I finally feel his muscles relax.

“Alright?”

I feel him nod.

I don’t waste time. I hook his arm and walk with him out the door and down off the porch. I hear Peeta close the door and follow behind us.

“You’re so much more huggable than Gale,” Rory attempts an awkward joke after a bit, once we’re through the Victors’ Village and back out onto the lane heading for town. I make a point to laugh. He and I are still arm in arm, and I let myself bump into him in a friendly, easy sway as we go.

“Why? What’s he do? Bark at you?”

Rory chuckles, “More like growl. But… You know, Kat, even he thinks Prim and I shouldn’t be together.”

I hesitate mid-stride, but then recover. Gale’s response is not unexpected, and not even entirely unwelcome. He’s trying to protect Prim. And me, from seeing her hurt. And he’s a Hawthorne on top of it, so it’s his job to encourage stoicism in his younger brothers, along with a healthy dose proud self-sacrifice.

“I’m sure he was just trying to support you in doing what you thought would be best. But ignore him. That’s what I always do.”

Rory looks over at me.

“You mean like you refused to marry him?”

“Something like that,” I say.

I feel my cheeks redden because of Peeta, who’s within easy hearing since he’s walking only a few arm lengths off on my free side.

I look at him sideways to see his reaction, but he doesn’t look like he’s paying attention to us at all. His shoulders are sagged and his hands are shoved deep into his trouser pockets.

Rory apparently isn’t done pulling on my braid, metaphorically.

“He says you’ve always loved someone else. Maybe as long as he’s known you.”

“Rory,” I warn.

“Peeta might know what Gale’s talking about,” he whispers, but it’s intentionally loud enough for Peeta to hear. He leans his head forward, looking from me to Peeta and back again.

I shove a finger into his ribs and he emits a yowl, but then only laughs.

“I’m going to kill you,” I mumble to Rory in a heated, if empty, threat. But at least it’s playful Rory on the way to see my sister, instead of the other one.

Peeta clears his throat, “That would make Prim very unhappy.”

 

_____________

 

Chapter 7

“I’m going to kill you,” I mumble to Rory in a heated, if empty, threat. But at least it’s playful Rory on the way to see my sister, instead of the other one.

Peeta clears his throat, “That would make Prim very unhappy.”

Heat climbs my neck, because Peeta had been paying attention.

“How is it you and Rory are friends, anyway,” I ask, trying to change the topic and gather information.

“Rory gets fresh bread from the bakery every day,” Peeta says. “I sometimes deliver it, and when I do I usually stick around to talk.”

“About what?”

“A lot about Prim,” Rory says. “Peeta is… sort of our interpreter.”

“Interpreter?” Once more I realize how much in the dark I am about the life of my sister. I feel like I’m back in high school, and as usual, I’m the clueless one.

“Prim and I argue sometimes.” He laughs, “Mostly because I’m a jerk and she’s strong-willed. But Peeta’s the one who can usually make us both see reason. They visit when Prim insists on going to get the bread those days Peeta can’t bring it.”

I nod, finally seeing the invisible triangle that exists between the three of them.

“They talk an awful lot about you too, I’ve gathered.”

“Rory!”

This time the warning isn’t from me.

My heart may have just stopped beating. Or maybe it’s no longer anchored and is fluttering around loose behind my ribs.

I slow Rory by pulling on his arm. Peeta makes it several steps ahead before he realizes what I’m trying to do. He stops, but I wave him on.

Reluctantly, he keeps walking.

“Rory,” I say into his ear, once Peeta is far enough ahead I’m confident he won’t overhear me.

“Kat?”

“Does Peeta like me?”

“Of course he likes you,” he says, once more intentionally loud so Peeta hears.

I see Peeta hesitate in his step and then turn around. He’s wearing that same expression as when Prim pulled me away from Darius, except right now it’s cast in the glow of the moon instead of festival lights. I stop walking because I’m unsteady from both relief and dread.

“Rory, go find Prim, alright?” At least my voice sounds in control.

If he makes a face, I can’t see, because I’m looking only at Peeta.

Peeta’s head turns to follow as Rory walks by him, until he’s for sure beyond ear shot, and then looks back to me. His hands have come out of his pockets and are balled at his sides.

Neither of us tries to close the distance between us.

“I’d really like to know, Katniss. About… that thing.”

Well, it looks like we both have questions, don’t we?

“What was it you were going to ask me at the festival tonight?”

He shakes his head in refusal, “You first. Rory’s the fifth boy I’ve seen you with tonight, the third I’ve learned that you drink with, and the second you’ve held and kissed without having to think twice. So I think I’ll have an answer, please, before I say anything more.”

That might actually be my answer, if the racing of my heart and the funny feeling in my belly is any indicator. I try to listen to his words again, in the memory of my ear, to make sure I’m not misunderstanding. There was no Prim in those words, just me.

I feel weightless, buoyant. Like a hawk effortlessly soaring on a thermal, or like when I have prey in my sights. Not arrogant. Not smug. Just perfectly calm. Perfectly confident. With perfectly clear vision.

I started the evening, maybe my life, shy and closed off. But in this moment, with Peeta fixed on me with dark eyes, I feel myself growing into something different.

How unexpected. I am the me from beyond the fence.

I don’t even shiver as the thought crosses my mind to lead him to the hole in the fence and through the woods until we come to the meadow together.

Peeta can’t read my eyes well enough yet. He’s still agitated. He stomps over and takes my arms in his strong hands.

“Please, Katniss.”

“What were you going to ask me,” I demand, so confident now that I don’t even need to see his eyes. Instead, I’m studying the contours and shadows of his face in the moon’s glow. I shouldn’t be so cruel, but after what I’ve experienced tonight, I find the uncertainty I see there intoxicating.

Intoxicating, and something else.

I hear his breath catch, like a deer’s does the moment it realizes I’ve notched an arrow and will release it when it pleases me.

“Tell me, Peeta.”

My arms are still pinned in his hands, but I lean forward and press my mouth to his neck. He shudders. I hover for a moment, expecting him to smell like fresh bread, but instead he smells just slightly of sweat. I shouldn’t be surprised, since there isn’t one of us in District Twelve immune from the kiss of tonight’s humidity. But on Peata, it’s not unpleasant.

I do the same thing again, my mouth and his neck, except that this time I also lick the salt of his perspiration off my lips.

His hands tighten like clamps around my biceps.

“Katniss…”

I laugh quietly. Maybe I should sound more serious than I do, but it comes to me that tonight has been a joke on both of us. And so long as it ends well, ends the way I’m seeing it in my mind at this very moment, it is a joke I can stomach.

I press another kiss, this time to the line of his jaw and say against his skin, “Tell me, and I’ll tell you anything you want.”

And abruptly, he’s kissing me. And not gently.

I try to bring my hands up, and he lets my arms go free. I press my palms against his chest where I’d shoved him away earlier, and then pull his shirt to bring him closer.

Peeta Mellark is very cooperative.

“What were you going to ask,” I pull away once we’re both out of breath. I’m smiling, but he looks serious.

“If I could court you.”

He obviously still can’t read my eyes, because he’s concerned when I don’t say anything.

“Katniss, may I court you?”

My smile falls away at the same moment I feel the edge of my bravery ebb. I am Katniss of the Seam once more, not of the woods.

But though I am no longer fearless, I’m no less determined.

“No, Peeta. We’re past courting.” I think of a joke, a play on words because he’s a baker, and bread makes toast, but his eyes are still so intensely unsure I would feel wretched for making light.

So instead, I take his hands and tell him to come with me. He must be too afraid to say anything for fear of changing my mind, because we make it to town without him saying a word.

I lead us to my house and tell him to stay on the porch while I go inside for a moment. He grabs my arm and looks at me questioningly.

I whisper, “We’re going to find Prim and Rory and you’re going to help me make sure when the lights go out they’re together. But we need some supplies first.”

“Supplies?”

I don’t tell him what I mean, mostly because I’m too embarrassed. Instead, I just shake his hand off my arm and slip in through the door.

Where I pull up short.

By the dim light of one oil lamp, I see my mother standing near the back of the room, arms crossed, and looking crestfallen.

Had she heard us?

No, she’s staring at a blanketed lump on the bed Prim and I share. A patient?

“What’s wrong,” I ask, and go over immediately.

“Katniss?”

It’s Prim. Prim is under that blanket.

I pull it back enough to see my sister’s crown of golden hair. Her face is to the wall, away from me. And from the way her voice had cracked over my name, I’m sure she’s been crying.

I sit down on the side of the bed and put my hand on her shoulder.

“Why aren’t you out at the dance waiting for Rory?”

“Because he isn’t coming.”

“Of course he is.”

Our mother is standing over us, looking at me for answers, which I don’t bother to give. I think it’s pretty self explanatory at this point.

“Gale told me he isn’t.”

“Prim. Peeta and I went to see Rory after Gale did. He walked to the dance ahead of us, and he’s looking for you. Everything’s okay. He was even in a good mood.”

Prim’s head comes out from under the covers in a way that reminds me again of Prim the little girl.

“Peeta talked to him?” She sounds hopeful, and sniffs.

Great. I’m the one who got Rory moving, but it’s Peeta’s name that brings her comfort. That hardly seems fair.

I’ll have to find an enjoyable way to punish Peeta for that later, a thought that makes me smile.

In fact, both the Everdeen girls have men out there ready to make them smile.

I slap Prim on the hip.

“Come on, get up and make yourself pretty again.”

I yank the blanket off of her as though I’m trying to help her, but I greedily bundle it into my arms and step out of the way as our mother helps Prim up and starts fussing over her hair.

With them distracted, I find a burlap sack and hurriedly stuff in the blanket, a water flask, and some cheese. Enough for two people to satisfy themselves overnight in the meadow.

Just as I’m about to slip back out onto the porch, mother’s voice drifts over to me.

“My beautiful little Prim, I told you it would work out with you and Rory.”

I turn on my heels and see she’s kissing Prim on the forehead as Prim wraps herself under her mother’s arms. A deep current of resentment swirls inside me, from so many places.

I clear my throat.

“You knew? About Prim and Rory?” And to Prim, “You told her. Not me.”

Both of them stiffen, and Prim pulls away from her arms.

It’s not that I hate our mother. I’ve let go of a lot of the resentment I’d harbored for years for how she’d pulled away and failed to provide for us after father died. How she’d left me to be Prim’s mother. I’d eventually come to accept she had been mentally injured, with no one to act as healer for her, the town healer. It’s a scar now for me, but no longer an open, festering wound.

But for Prim to have kept me in the dark while telling her…

I feel betrayed.

“It’s my fault,” Prim says. “I made her promise not to tell I’d told her anything.

When Prim comes over to me, I’m conscious that the sack I’ve just filled is hanging from my hands, between us. I’m inclined to put it behind my back, but for the moment, I care a bit less about what either of them think. If Prim can grow up tonight and make her own decisions without me, then I can return the favor.

But then she hugs me and of course I melt.

“I just knew you’d try to discourage me. Or him. Because you worry so much over me.”

I pull the burlap sack out from between us and put my free arm around her. The breath of her new wave of crying is warm and wet against my neck and tickles as it disturbs my hair.

“You know, I do care about Rory,” I whisper to her gently. “I just care about you more. I can’t help it. It’s my job. Or it was my job.” I add with an affectionate chuckle, “Though I guess you’ve made it loud and clear to all of Twelve tonight that you’re capable of handling that yourself now.”

She laughs and sniffs back the rest of her cry.

“And it’s not me that brings over that liquor you were yelling about earlier. It’s Gale. He thinks he’s helping. But I’ll talk to him about it.”

Her arms squeeze me in thanks. She leans back a little and stares at me. In the flickering light of the oil lamp, for just the briefest moment, I see both young and grown up Prim at the same time. My chest constricts, and I feel a small pool in one of my eyes. I give her the best smile I can, but it’s bittersweet.

“He’s kind of a lug. Gale, I mean,” Prim says, clearly trying to lighten the mood now.

A bark of laughter escapes me. The crinkle of my eyes pushes one tear out from that pool and down over my cheek. She wipes it away gently before leaning in to whisper so mother can’t hear.

“I’m glad you didn’t marry him.”

“Me too,” I squeeze her and then we separate.

The mention of marriage pulls my thoughts to the man waiting on my porch. The man probably wondering what the hell is happening in here.

“You’ve messed up your face with crying again, little duck. Go fix it and I’ll be outside, alight?”

She smiles at me and I briefly meet mother’s eyes from across the room. Eyes wide with that familiar uncertainty she has whenever she looks at me.

It’s a page of both our lives that may never fully turn. I’ve come to accept it.

I don’t linger. I step back outside.

To a sheepish looking Peeta.

“Gale told Prim Rory wasn’t coming,” I say as I hand him the sack. “I’ll bring Prim along in a minute. Go find Rory. Make sure he stays put.”

Peeta nods as he rummages through the contents of the sack I’d just foisted on him. Under the porch light, I see as he looks from me to the sack to me again. I can tell he wants to grin, it’s teasing at the corners of his mouth and has completely taken over the edges of his eyes.

“Supplies,” I explain, somehow managing not to fidget.

I plant a kiss on his mouth, but only for the purpose of liberating the grin from whatever is snaring it. Disbelief maybe.

It does the trick.

“Katniss.” He’s not whispering. I make a face at him to be quiet, and nod towards inside the house.

“Katniss, where are we going?”

I slip my arms around him and smile against his lips as I graze them.

He rewards me with a groan and a sigh.

“Katniss, I think I’m in love.” But the way he says it, even to my ears, there is clearly no thinking about it.

I laugh, but manage to keep it respectably quiet.

He puts his arms over my shoulders and sways me to the hint of music that drifts from where the festival is a few streets over. We kiss again, and it somehow feels like we’ve been kissing all our lives. It’s relaxed and peaceful and right. New and old all at once.

“Tell me where we’re going,” he says again, this time while nibbling my ear.

That is a new sensation for me. My eyes drift closed and my mouth sags open.

I think I feel some of that poetry I thought didn’t have shoot up through the dirt of my surly nature. But I hold it back because Prim will be outside at any minute.

“You’re going to find Rory so my sister has a happy ending tonight. And then you’re going to go buy some toast from that baker’s table.”

“Mmmm hmmmm.” I can feel him nod slowly in agreement as his lips find the spot just behind my ear. I’m not sure how I’m still standing.

“But where are you taking me after that,” he whines, teasing. The warmth of his lips as they glide down along the side of my neck makes me knot in several places at once.

“Peeta,” I hear myself whisper, and he chuckles at how affected I am. It’s good to feel his laugh against my chest and belly.

“But where are you taking me,” he insists, and I realize he’s taunting me, parroting my earlier insistence that he tell me what he’d meant to ask at the festival.

He trails his tongue from the exposed skin just on the inside my collar all the way back up to my ear, something definitely not chaste and which bares the delightful promise that Peeta Mellark may turn out to be unpredictable.

“You promised you’d tell me anything, Katniss,” he tilts my chin up with his nose and presses slow kisses along my throat.

I moan and my legs press together just so I don’t fall apart. Those lips are meant to be pressed against me for the rest of my life, pressed everywhere against me.

“Tell me,” he says, still kissing.

I feel that poetry. Something about him and his tongue moving against my throat makes me surrender it, although it also makes it hard to concentrate.

“Someplace where there’s fireflies, and stars, and moonlight, Peeta.”

“Anything else?” he murmurs.

“And rain-washed grass and hooting owls and a breeze that will cool our skin after you’ve said my name a thousand times.”

He pulls back suddenly and looks at me with eyes that look drunk and on fire. There’s no slack in his body, and I almost think he looks a bit dangerous.

“Take me there.” Whatever it was I said, his voice is nearly a growl and it makes my body go as taut as his. “Take me there now.”

I nod once, everything else forgotten. Or, maybe, nothing else matters.

 

_________

 

Chapter 8

“Katniss?”

Behind me, Prim clears her throat.

Peeta’s made me forget I’m still on my front porch. That Prim was on the other side of the door worried about her own future.

I try to spin around, embarrassed, but Peeta doesn’t respond as quickly. It takes a moment for him to come out of his haze and loosen his grip.

Prim’s looking at us curiously, with a hint of a frown around her eyes. How much did she just overhear?

…and a breeze that will cool our skin after you’ve said my name a thousand times.

Oh my God. How much did she hear?

I briefly wonder if running away would be too undignified.

“Peeta,” she says, acknowledging him. There’s a protective edge in her voice, like I would have if I’d caught her with any of her suitors.

“Prim.” He’s behind me and I can’t see, but his voice sounds low and cautious as he acknowledges her back.

I watch her eyes lower, and I can tell the moment they settle on the burlap sack still in one of Peeta’s hands. I bite my bottom lip as her frown deepens. Disapproval?

I know I’m the older sister, but I can’t help the feeling that the roles have been reversed.

She looks up at me, but then looks away as though I’ve misbehaved. Instead, she stares at Peeta.

“Katniss tells me Rory said he’ll be at the dance.” Her voice is cool.

I’d forgotten that Peeta was their ‘interpreter.’

“He will be,” he confirms.

“You talked to him?”

I sense that Peeta nods behind me.

“We both did. And…” He coughs, “Katniss was pretty persuasive.”

“What did she say to him?”

I’m uncomfortable that they’re speaking around me, about me, as though I’m not here.

“I think her exact words were that he should-”

“Peeta!” I squeak. I turn on him, “Don’t you dare.”

I don’t need my sister hearing that I told some boy to kiss her ‘passionately.’

“Peeta,” she says, voice low and dangerous.

He gives me a shrug of apology. How can a grown man be more afraid of delicate little Prim than surly, arrow-wielding me?

“She told him to… uh… kiss you and… make you happy.”

“Oh God! Peeta! ” I whine, and slap my hand over my face as I turn back to Prim. I separate two of my fingers so I can peek at her expression. I’m vaguely aware my foot is tapping on the porch with nervous energy.

“Is that so?” Prim doesn’t wait for an answer, but moves a finger between us with the strict demeanor of a school teacher. “And this?”

Peeta clears his throat and I feel him push me slightly in the back, hoping I’ll volunteer.

I don’t. Instead, I cross my arms. Since he just ratted me out about telling Rory to kiss Prim, he can wither under my little sister’s gaze the same as me.

“From the way I just saw you kissing my sister-”

“Hey, she kissed me first,” he argues. Loud enough for my mother to hear if she is anywhere near the window.

I try to elbow him quiet, but he deflects it with ease. The minor victory seems to spur him on to greater crimes.

“In fact, she was sort of all over me,” he whimpers with a pathetic timidity that is clearly put on. “Before I had the chance to say anything much to her, really. And I just… I just didn’t know what else to do, Prim, except let her have her way with me.”

“You!” I try to turn on him, but he grabs my arms with his strong hands and holds me firmly in place. His fingers press into my muscles, dancing a rhythm like he’s playing a slow tune on his guitar.

I hear and feel the slightest breath of a chuckle tickle the skin at the back of my neck.

I do believe Peeta Mellark is playing a game with me, holding me as his human shield, and embarrassing me, as a way to tease me.

Which is unacceptable.

Which is why I lean back into him with my hips in just exactly the right way to make him gulp.

There are worse games we could play together.

I feel a smile pull crookedly up my face, and my arms cross as my hands come up and rest over his.

I feel as though I should be ashamed, behaving this way in front of Prim. But oh well. I’ve sold my soul, and the warmth of its new master is solid against my back and shoulders.

For a moment, she just glares at me. I bite my lip, a bit hurt by her reaction. But in the end, if I’ve promised to let her go tonight, she owes me the same.

It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, dismissing my sister’s feelings. But maybe it’s time to put mine first.

So I shrug a shrug that means she’ll just have to accept it.

“Finally!” Prim squeals, making me startle. Her disapproving frown gives way to a huge grin.

The entire thing has been an act for my benefit, I realize. The disapproving sister, the meek suitor. A shared tease of me, between these two people who before tonight I had no idea had had a conversation together, much less were apparently caring friends.

How much more have I missed in Prim’s life because I was busy trying be a parent instead of just a sister?

“One of you was going to have to break, sooner or later.”

Peeta lets go of my arms and wraps his around my shoulders. And then he presses an audacious kiss against my temple, making the smack of it as loud as humanly possible. Every inch of my skin, from my feet to my ears, burns.

I groan. Apparently, Peeta Mellark is going to be unpredictable and insufferable.

I’m unprepared as Prim lunges forward and hugs me too.

Because my back is still held against Peeta, the effect is that I find myself sandwiched between two people who say they love me.

I’ve never felt so exposed.

Or so at home.

It soothes away the irritation I feel from their teasing of me.

“Katniss, I’m so happy,” she says, before finally letting me go.

She looks at each of us, hopeful and excited. “So Rory really will be there?”

“Yes,” I say, as Peeta at the same time adds, “Definitely.”

Peeta’s arms lower around my own, and he sways us a little.

“You’re getting toast at the bakery table,” Prim assumes, beaming.

I can feel Peeta nodding against my cheek.

It catches me off guard. It must reflect on my face, because Prim shakes her head at me like I’m a little child.

“I saw you shove that blanket into the sack, Katniss. I’m not stupid.” She presses a finger to her lips, abruptly thoughtful. “Wait here.”

She disappears into the house and then comes back a few moments later with our own sad Everdeen excuse for a bread loaf. And a match box.

“Just in case they’ve already sold out,” she says.

 

_________

 

Chapter 9

Once I recover from how matter-of-fact Prim was with the bread for our toasting, the three of us start back toward the festivities. Prim politely walks ahead so Peeta and I can hold hands.

The music is still playing, and grows louder as we near. For this last phase of the evening, it’s moved into slower refrains.

I can tell it lacks Peeta’s contribution and I squeeze his hand. He looks at me in question, but I simply smile and shrug.

When we turn the corner, the lane is no longer filled to capacity with people. The numbers have lessened and many of the older people, and those with little children, have left to turn in for bed.

And there’s another change. The swath of dirt in front of the stage is no longer roiling with dance circles. Instead, it’s couples pressed close, arms around each other, heads resting on shoulders.

With Peeta attached to my hand and not his guitar, I fantasize about the opportunity to dance like that before the lights go out.

But we’re here on a mission first. To find Rory.

Though the crowd has lessened, it is still a mass of bodies and faces. We push up one side of the street, each of us scanning the crowd.

I keep an eye out for Gale as well, in case he’s decided to meddle again. Although, by now, I suspect he’s home passed out on his liquor in anticipation of tomorrow’s shift in the mine.

When we stop near the stage, Peeta exchanges a glance of concern with me, and Prim looks tired.

“We should split up,” Peeta offers. “Meet back here in ten minutes, maybe.”

Just as I nod in agreement, I see Peeta’s eyes catch someone behind me. When I turn, it’s Abernathy.

“Well if it aint the belle of the ball,” he scowls in his whiny, graveled voice.

“Sorry, Abernathy. I-”

He puts his palm up, and Peeta quiets.

“Whatever, Mellark. The damage is done. Just get your ass back up there and finish the night.”

I squeeze Peeta’s hand, silently reminding him he has every reason to refuse.

But I needn’t have worried. He very purposefully lifts his hand, the hand holding mine, and stretches out a finger to scratch his nose. It’s designed to show he has another commitment.

I manage not to sigh in relief as he covertly winks at me.

Abernathy’s lower jaw pulls to the side, considering.

“I get it, I get it,” he says finally, projecting a mix of empathy and sarcasm that I think only he can pull off. “You two lovebirds want to end the evening together. And that’s fine. But there’s still another quarter hour. You get up there for the next two songs then you can call it quits.”

Peeta bites his lip and looks to Prim, feeling an obligation to her as well. I see him open his mouth to speak when she beats him to it.

“Have you seen Rory, Haymitch?”

“Oh, hello Prim,” he nods to her. He’s suddenly, and uncharacteristically, pleasant.

Haymitch? Hello Prim? Since when is Prim on first a name basis with Abernathy and he her?

I curse under my breath. At this rate I’m not going to be surprised if tomorrow I learn she’s been running for mayor and I’m the last one to know.

“As a matter of fact…” He flicks a long lock of blond hair out of his eyes with effected grace and then cranes his neck towards the far side of the stage. “If I’m not mistaken, that boy you laid all your business out with for us to see is sittin’ on that there porch behind the liquor table.”

Prim is off like a shot. Peeta’s hand tightens around mine. We both share the same fear, that Rory has been drinking.

“You want me to come with?”

Peeta looks at me and ignores Abernathy.

“No,” I say, letting go of his hand. “You go ahead.”

I turn to Abernathy and, well, I’ve always wanted to do it, so I poke him hard in the chest. “Only two songs, got it?”

He throws his hands up, grinning. Apparently, he is impressed with my temper, which only annoys me and makes me scowl.

Abernathy laughs and grabs Peeta by the shoulder.

“I see what you were saying about her,” he says confidentially but so I can hear, clearly goading me. “I’ll bet she’ll be a real-”

“Haymitch!” Peeta interrupts before Abernathy can say something both of us will regret.

Abernathy only laughs harder, and actually winks at me when I growl at him.

The music dies down, though, and before I can get revenge, Abernathy pushes Peeta up the steps by that shoulder he’d clapped onto.

The other musicians part to make way for him, and after a quick discussion amongst themselves, he’s seated with his guitar and the music comes alive. This time it’s a slower tune. Melancholic almost. Peeta’s playing is less thump and strike and more a series of slow riffs that sound like a wild thing weeping up to the moon.

It makes me want to cry.

Instead, I head over to where I think Prim went, hoping I don’t have a reason to.

I spot her and Rory right away. To my relief, they are both smiling, and I can’t smell alcohol on him.

“Rory,” I say, nodding.

“Kat,” he smiles. His remaining hand is clasped over the stump of his other wrist, across his stomach. Prim has her arm tucked through the crook of his elbow.

They both look very happy, and exchange doe-eyed looks that make my eyes roll.

Prim laughs and shields her mouth as she whispers something to him. Whatever she’s telling him about me and Peeta, it takes awhile.

He makes a show of raising his eyebrows at me, nods appreciatively, and then looks playfully shocked before whispering back to her.

She giggles.

I can’t take it.

“Alright, alright. Enough,” I laugh. It’s enough for me that they’re together and happy. “You two going to be okay without a chaperon?”

I fix my gaze on Rory, not Prim.

I might be running off into the woods tonight, but if he is anything other than a perfect gentleman with my little sister…

“We’ll be just fine,” he beams. “There will be no reason for blood tomorrow, Kat. I promise.”

“Damn right,” I lean in to give Prim a hug. For good measure, I give Rory a hug too.

But while I mean to walk away, I stand in place and stare at them for a few moments too long, until it turns awkward. Because the dirt lane beneath us has put my feet into chains and I can’t move.

Because this is the moment I have been dreading all day.

Letting go.

Prim coughs politely, and I snap awake.

“Right,” I say, self-conscious and a bit sad. I struggle to swallow over the lump that’s in my throat. Still unable to move, I nod them away instead.

And I watch as they leave me and disappear into the crowd.

“Katniss?”

I register that someone is saying my name, though I think it might have been said a few times before I turn around.

It’s Darius.

My heart falters, and my stomach knots with dread.

He looks desperate.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Don’t,” I say, looking around frantically to see if anyone is watching. To see where I can go to avoid this.

But he keeps talking.

“I shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t have said those things. I know it. I just thought…” He looks down. “It doesn’t matter. I’m just sorry.”

“We can’t ever talk about it, Darius. Ever,” I tell him sternly.

But when he looks up he’s so wretched I can’t be mad.

He nods, and we allow ourselves a moment of eye contact before we both shift to look like we’re crowd gazing instead of talking about treason.

My panic ebbs away as the silence stretches between us. Until we’re a bit more like the friends we were yesterday.

In that silence, I hurt again, for him. For his lot in life. Maybe it’s the mournful dirge that’s still drifting from the stage, the perfect articulation of sorrow being produced by Peeta’s fingers and heart and soul that soaks the air around us, but I feel Darius’ emptiness more, now, than I did earlier.

Or maybe it’s because now I have my own joy to compare it to.

“Darius…” I start off cautiously.

I know it has to be said about me and Peeta, even though I don’t want to twist the knife. But I’m not sure how to say it without sounding cruel, so the words don’t come.

I stare down at the dirt and kick it while I think.

“Mellark?”

My head snaps up. I’m sure my face speaks the question for me without words.

How did you know?

“I should have seen it sooner,” he says.

He also kicks the dirt.

“You always,” he chuckles, “always show up whenever he’s playing music. Always hang out at the edges, watching him like a predator.”

Predator?

“And the way he dropped the guitar earlier? And then got that song going so fast so you’d be swept away. And then when you left after Prim made that big scene… He scrambled off that stage like it was on fire, right in the middle of a song.”

If I had been worried Darius might be hurt or hold a grudge against either me or Peeta, it doesn’t seem likely now. The more he talks, the more his familiar smile returns.

“Made quite the scene, actually. He was in such a panic to chase after you he knocked into two of the other guys before he made his exit.”

I find this exciting, though I try not to show it. My belly goes heavy and empty again, and I have a brief flash of memory of Peeta catching up to me, out of breath just as I’d gotten home. And then another flash of him tracing his tongue along my neck there less than an hour later.

“I should have seen it, really,” Darius continues, thankfully unaware of the images flashing through my mind’s eye and the flesh memories that are giving me bumps.

“Even when you were both still in school, when I’d occasionally see you two pass in the street, he’d just look at you. That look never changed, really, over the years. Except to mature.”

My ears perk up. He’d noticed Peeta watching me all these years?

Yet another person who knows more about me than I do.

I start to laugh, and he looks at me strangely.

“What did I say?”

I wave him off.

“Nothing, Darius. It’s… It’s too hard to explain.”

“But I’m right, aren’t I” he asks, after turning his head and looking at me with attentive eyes. “I saw you two holding hands a few minutes ago.”

I sigh.

“Yes, Darius. You’re right.”

He blows a slow breath out between his teeth. I can tell it’s disappointment.

But it isn’t bitterness.

We look back out at the crowd for a minute, not saying anything else, but letting the silence heal things a bit.

The song changes, still slow, but with fewer flats and somehow more hopeful. The flute and the fiddle take preeminence, dancing with each other in harmony.

This is the second song. The last song he owes Abernathy.

I can hear Peeta, his sound deep and full in contrast to the other instruments. He’s teasing low bass notes from the strings, and grinding out an agonizingly slow, rhythmic beat against the hollow body of his guitar.

I sway with it, anticipating that music being translated into something else entirely. My body seems to be done with flutters and knots and is now just tight and thrumming.

Maybe he senses my thoughts have gone far away, or maybe it’s simply that enough time has passed the awkwardness has dissipated, but Darius clears his throat.

“Well, Katniss Everdeen, I’d better get back to my duties.”

“Night, Darius,” I whisper, and give him a gentle smile.

My feet and my heart feel a bit lighter, and despite the distracting heaviness in my belly, I follow them both as they lead me to the other side of the stage.

I look up and remind Peeta with my smile that he owes me more than a dance tonight.

 

_______

 

Chapter 10

As soon as the song is done, Abernathy takes the stage.

“Alright, ladies and…” he waves his hands unenthusiastically, “…you other people… the last song of the night starts in five minutes. Now, and it’s just me, but I suggest you find that special someone while the lights are still on before you find yourself going off with a not-so-special someone in the dark.”

The crowd groans, but breaks off to mill around. In contrast to earlier, there are very few raised voices and peels of laughter. Now, it’s a quiet hum of lowered voices, nervous snickers, and whispered conversations.

I’ve never been in the middle of it before, so far from my normal post along the outskirts where I could silently watch Peeta pack up the bakery’s table. Here, in among the lovers new and old, it feels different. Not so much excitement, as it is a sort of bashful tension.

It’s tangible, like somehow it’s clinging to the heavy humidity. The air literally feels pregnant with it.

The thought stops my heart.

I’ve thought about this. Had to think it through well before tonight, well before I committed to the idea that I might approach Peeta. Had to search my own soul for its limits. And the reality is that the idea of Peeta’s children has been secretly pulling on my heart.

Even though I’ve just spent the last six years worrying about whether Prim’s name would be picked for the Games, and even though it struck absolute terror in my heart when Rory was reaped, it would be a lie to say that in the last year I haven’t wondered what Peeta’s children would look like if they were also my children. If I didn’t admit that images come more frequently, unbidden but not unwelcome, of smiles and curly locks and giggles and frowns over school assignments.

When I was younger, facing not just my own reaping but the possibility of Prim’s, I swore I would never bring children into a world so cruel. But somehow they’ve come to mean something different now that I’m no longer one of them. They’re a future. A hope. A promise. A joining.

Maybe it’s lust. Maybe it’s a biological drive. Maybe it’s a desire to completely belong to Peeta. Or maybe it’s the joy of seeing Prim all grown up, and knowing it was worth every moment of fear and worry and struggle I went through to see the woman she’s become. I’ve gone through the odds. He’s a merchant. I’m a good hunter. Any children we have won’t need to sign up for additional entries in the Games just to get the extra food the Capitol offers as an incentive. And a child’s first eligible reaping age is twelve. Rory survived because we’d spent only a few years training him. I could do a lot with twelve years.

And I can’t discount that something about these woods and the meadow and this land makes people stronger, smarter, if they’ll only embrace it instead of living like cowed sheep inside that damned fence.

I don’t mean it’s acceptable to have children under the fanciful idea they’ll survive the Games if their name is drawn. But the reality is that I want a life with Peeta. I will have that life with Peeta.

And I also know without asking that he’ll want children. Peeta and I have barely talked at all before tonight and certainly not about that. But I’ve seen him grin and go out of his way to entertain the little ones who clap and dance to his music when he plays in the square. And though I generally can’t afford things from his family’s bakery, I sometimes look in through the window and have caught him slipping a free cookie to a child and literally bask in the glow of their joy.

And why not? It makes sense he would want children to dote on, to help heal himself by proving they could be raised with love and not bruising. Because though his mother was abusive, he didn’t turn into one of those angry, hostile men like others I’ve seen who suffered too much from their parents’ belts and voices and fists. Peeta hasn’t just risen above it, he’s always been above it. Maybe I’m only making that assumption, since we’ve barely talked before tonight. But in my heart I feel we’ve shared silences that held so much more than words.

I am persuaded that he has always been the boy with the bread. That he’s just like that bread. Warm and nourishing, despite having been burned in the fire.

But as I watch Peeta pack up his guitar, the burlap sack slumped on the stage next to his chair, I realize the fear remains even though I’m determined to conquer it.

Peeta shuffles his guitar case over to one of the other musicians for safekeeping before going over to Abernathy. The older man puts his hand on Peeta’s neck in a gesture of familiarity as Peeta leans in close. Their backs are to me, and I can’t make out their hushed conversation over the loud ruckus of the vendors trying to hastily pack up tables on the other side of the stage before the lights go out.

The noise makes me realize we missed the opportunity to buy toast. I could have done it, after Prim and Rory walked away. But buying toast in front of Darius probably would have been bad form. And the last person I wanted to see again tonight anyway was Peeta’s brother.

I’m suddenly as thankful for Prim’s foresight as I was embarrassed by it earlier.

Finally, Abernathy slaps Peeta on the back in what is clearly male congratulations. This only adds to the nerves I’m feeling. And even though the breeze from the coming rain has cooled the air, I feel drops of sweat form at my temples and wipe them.

Peeta heads for the steps at the back of the stage without looking my way and in a minute or two, too soon, he’s in front of me with a smile that would normally melt me. Right now it only causes me anxiety.

His expression changes when I don’t smile back.

“Katniss?”

I look down when I feel pain in my hands. I’ve been wringing my fingers so harshly I’m surprised I didn’t break one of them. He drops the sack on the ground to take my hands and soothe them in his.

“What’s wrong?”

He must catch my eyes dart down to the burlap, because his shoulders sag.

“We can wait, Katniss” he says quietly, reading my mind. “I know how hard it was on you to watch Prim every year in the reaping. And she’s told me you don’t want kids because of it.”

He downshifts his eyes to stare at our hands, maybe because he’s too afraid to let me see the disappointment in them. He tries to sound like it doesn’t bother him, but I can hear it in the slight falter of his voice. I can hear the sound of his hope being quenched.

He doesn’t realize that the way his voice betrays his own heart’s longing is only making a fire grow in mine. Or that just like Prim apparently doesn’t tell me everything, I haven’t told her all of my secrets either.

“We can still find ways to enjoy the night and… wait until we can make sure nothing will happen.”

It’s such a naive thought that I find it endearing. He’s a baker, but I’m the daughter and sister of healers who deliver babies routinely. He may not realize it because men don’t talk about those sorts of consequences, but there’s no guarantee you won’t have children if you have a life with someone. The herbs we gather ourselves simply aren’t reliable, and the Capitol is too interested in population regrowth to distribute medications.

No, in Twelve, if you make love, certain results are likely to happen eventually.

A rush of breeze over my sweating skin works with the idea of that future to give me gooseflesh. It wars against my fears, convincing me in whispers that it’s stronger.

When he looks back up for an answer, his eyes are so blue. So earnest. So alive and fearful and caring. The eyes of a good father. Eyes like my father’s, in many ways.

They catch the smile I feel teasing at the corner of my eyes and I see them light up with a hesitant hope.

I pull my hands free from his, step into him, and loosely circle my arms around his neck. His arms come around my waist, but he still looks at me with that uncertainty.

Poor Peeta, he still can’t read my eyes.

I press my face against his neck just as the musicians are starting up again. Vaguely, I hear Abernathy say that tonight’s song is a special request for a certain pair of “lovebirds.”

“Would that be us,” I ask, intentionally keeping my voice low, almost a growl, as I lift my lips to his ear and press my chest harder against his.

I’m rewarded with his involuntary shudder and a loud swallow. But he manages to keep his voice steady, even teasing.

“It would be.”

It is not the slowest song of the night, but it is leisurely and smooth. And there’s a man with a low, raspy voice singing words to it.

If we were to meet the meadow
Where the breeze and the rain kiss
Would you turn away my love
Or let me taste your lips

If we were to meet by the river
Where time and water smooths stone
Would you say no to my love
Or let me take you home

If we were to meet in the night sky
Where the fireflies glow bright
Would you deny me my love
Or wrap around me tight

If I were to ask you to marry
Ask you to give me your hand
Would you break my heart my love
Or gladly make me a man

The words affect us both. It’s palpable. And our breathing is shallow.

“Well,” Peeta asks after having to clear his throat to speak just the one word, the question he already knows the answer to.

“Peeta,” I say, not trusting myself with what’s in my heart. Something about the fact that we’re pressed body to body, in public, with already at least four people knowing we have agreed to a joining, makes my chest feel like the only thing keeping it from bursting is the warm, solid pressure of Peeta’s pressing back against it.

His arms tighten around my waist, urging me to say more. I realize that the song is near its end and the lights will go out at any moment. I always imagined that Peeta, the one who is so natural with words, so charming and full of wit, would be the one to say the things that need to be said between us. I’m not sure how it is that tonight he’s said so little and I’ve said so much, why it is he seems to need me to say more.

But if he wants me to, I will. Because for him I will give anything. My future. My life. And yes, even my words.

“Peeta,” I lift my mouth again to his ear, aware that my body has started to tremble. We stop moving to the melody so he can support me. The singer finishes in a long, yearning note, and in a fit of timing that rises my skin, the moment that note ends…

… the world goes dark around us.

Peeta’s grip around me becomes iron. My breath and voice are shaky, but in my mind I find the words we both want to hear.

“Tonight, Peeta. In the meadow, under the tree… Come inside me and take root there.” His chest begins to heave rapidly, causing my own body to move with the force of it. If his grip was iron before, it is painful now, and it’s not just his palms holding me, but his fingers digging into my hips, pulling me hard against him. I can feel, there, very clearly the effect my words have on him. “Take root there, where I’ve wanted you for so long. Leave part of yourself to grow there. And kiss me, and hold me, and tell me you love me.”

“Katniss…” His voice is a shattered whimper and in the dark his lips crash off center against my closed ones, pressing hard and long and desperate.

When he finally pulls away, we’re both needy for air, and I start to grow aware of the noises around us. Other couples. Breathed names. Smacking lips. Moving tongues. Groan and moans and questions and promises.

I hear the sound of Prim’s laugh, a lilt of happy music, float to me from somewhere. But I’m too overwhelmed by Peeta to be able to track the direction it comes from. And I don’t care.

I kiss him, not closed lipped, and then pepper kisses down his jaw and neck and onto his shoulder. When I open my eyes, they’ve adjusted some from the loss of the artificial light and I can make out the shadows and curves of his face once more in the moonlight. I’m breathing every bit as hard as he had been during my words, and I grunt something to him about the sack that makes him grab it, and my arm, and yank us off down the road.

I complain when I realize he isn’t heading for the fence.

“I have something to show you, first.”

He’s in a hurry, and we practically run as he ducks us across a few streets and then down one that leads closest to Victor’s Village. When we’re at the last house of the lane, he pulls me to a stop. It’s a somewhat large house for a Seam home, and one that looks to be in a bit better shape than most, but a Seam home nonetheless.

“It will be close to Prim,” Peeta says, his eyes dark pools in the moonlight.

I’m having trouble understanding what he means, and I shake my head in question. He drops the sack and hops onto the porch with enthusiasm, and then runs his fingers along the top of the door jamb. He comes away with a key which he shoves into the lock. He pushes the door open and then comes back to me, looking at me with a mix of hope and expectation.

Does me mean for us to live here?

“I don’t understand,” I say, because even though I think I might, it’s so unexpected I’m not certain.

His expression stiffens.

“For us. If you want it.” He looks down, embarrassed. “We’ll have to live somewhere. And there’s no way I’m living with my wife, with you, around my family. Will you look at it, before you decide you don’t like it?”

A home.

I’d been too busy trying to build up the nerve to just talk to Peeta before tonight, much less consider the idea of where we might live if he actually liked me enough to court me and then some day later decide he wanted to really like me.

I step up onto the porch and peer into the door. Of course I’ll like it. I’m from the Seam. Whatever standards he has, as long as it isn’t falling apart, any house can be a home to a girl from the Seam.

So long as there’s love there.

I reach my hand behind me and he’s there immediately, holding it. For his sake, and not because I really care at the moment, I make a show of poking my head in and looking around in what little light comes in through the windows.

But really, I just want to hug him.

I know he’s a merchant boy, but I am still curious how he’s come into possession of a home. I don’t have to wait for the answer.

“It’s… Well, it’s my idea. But Prim and Rory thought it was a good one. Rory agreed that he’ll help me with the down payment, if you like it.” He adds quickly, “It’s only a three minute quick walk from here to where Prim will be.”

He pauses as I spin and stare at him.

I hadn’t thought about that either. About Prim living with Rory out at Victor’s Village.

And then there’s the three of them talking about me, and my future, behind my back again.

“It has to stop,” I say sternly.

I can just barely see that his shoulders sag.

“This thing that you three have going behind my back. I get that you all mean good by it, but I have to know I’m the one you’ll talk to from now on when there’s something that concerns me.”

He nods.

“You will be. It’s just…” He shrugs, “Well, I’m scared to death of you, and they both know you, so it was… easier, to try and build my courage up talking with them. Try to get to know you a bit through them, since you wouldn’t ever talk to me yourself.”

I bite my lip, hurt.

“What do you mean you’re scared of me?” Images of his mother hitting him, the bruises I’d see him with occasionally at school. He isn’t drawn to me because somehow he sees me like his mother? Like he’s trying to find a version of his mother he can please?

I feel suddenly ill.

“I’m not your mother,” I choke, and then go to the edge of the porch to spit the bile that’s just surged up my throat.

His hand is on my back, moving gently in a circle.

“No,” he says, with the most certain tone I’ve heard from him all evening. “You are definitely not my mother. My mother would let her own child starve, if it was weak, before she’d put herself out. My mother would belt her son for dropping a tray of cookies because he burned his hand, and would angrily chase away kids without money who did nothing worse than smile in the window at the things that were too sweet for them to afford. She certainly wouldn’t swallow her pride enough to dig through trash cans to save them, be brave enough to go beyond the fence alone and hunt to feed them, be loving enough to devote everything she had to providing clothes and supplies and the occasional nice thing for them at the cost of her own childhood. No, Katniss, you are not my mother. You are her opposite.”

I’m not sure why, but I’m crying a little. When I turn around, he scoops me to him.

“Is it enough,” he asks. “The house. Is it enough?”

I nod, pressing my palms against his chest. “You’re enough.”

He grunts, and in a swift motion, he picks me up in his arms and steps back towards the door.

“Then, Katniss, let me carry you across the threshold.”

I feel suddenly shy again, and wipe away the tears I’d cried. I feel more self-conscious than I have all night.

“I’m sorry I’m not some beautiful girl in a beautiful white dress for you, Peeta.”

He looks at me with surprise.

“You are the most beautiful girl in Twelve,” the words fall off his tongue with the same confidence as the speech about me not being his mother. With the same self-assurance I’ve always heard him speak with in school or when he’s talking to people in the bakery or in the square. “Probably the most beautiful woman in all of Panem, in fact. And, well, I did get to see you in a white dress tonight. Briefly.”

His grin and the warmth behind it makes me feel easier. Makes me inclined to believe I’m at least a fraction as attractive as he claims.

“You mean you liked the disaster dress,” I joke.

He bobs his head back and forth, comically considering.

“Well, I liked it before it was… ruined. And just think,” he raises one leg out dramatically over the threshold and then steps us inside, “at least I’ll be able to tell our kids how beautiful their mother looked in her crown of flowers and white flowing dress the night of our toasting.”

I laugh, “Be sure to leave out the part where it got covered in dirt, liquor and snot. Better they don’t know so they don’t ask too many questions about how their father swept their mother away into the meadow and had his way with her the very first night they kissed.”

“You’re going to kill me,” he groans.

“Alright, alright, put me down.”

He does.

“Peeta,” a question has been nagging at me.

“Yes?”

“Early on, when Rye told me, implied, you meant to court Prim. He said you were planning to ‘pluck a dandelion’ tonight. He said it with a strange sort of intent, like it meant something. I assumed he was referencing Prim’s hair, but…”

Peeta chuckles and scratches the back of his neck.

“It’s kind of embarrassing, actually.”

“Good, then I really want to hear it.”

“So… I draw? And, I kind of sometimes… sketch you. And there’s usually dandelions in the pictures. Rye found one my sketch books once and has been teasing me about it ever since.”

I feel my heart flutter at the idea that Peeta Mellark was sweet enough on me to draw me.

“Why dandelions?”

“Because… well… In school. When I’d see you across the yard at recess, or around the track field once when we were in high school? Whenever I’d think I’d caught your eye, you’d always just look away from me and if there were dandelions around you’d pick them so you could pretend not to notice I was looking. I just came to associate the two of you.”

I feel the air leave my lungs.

I’d picked those because I’d come to associate dandelions with him. Because after that bread he threw out for me, I’d seen a dandelion and realized that I wasn’t without a means to make sure Prim and I survived. The little gold flower had become a symbol to me of hope, of life.

I don’t tell him this though, I just bite my lower lip and feel overwhelmed.

“Here,” he says, and looks around like he’s lost something. He steps back outside and returns with the sack. From it, he pulls a little bundle of dandelions and presents it to me. He must have plucked them from someone’s yard right after he got off the stage.

I take them, and I’m a bit more moved than I think he expected.

“Katniss?”

“I’m fine,” I say, and bring the little bouquet up to my face. “They’re perfect. Thank you.”

I spot an old glass jar covered in cobwebs sitting in the kitchen window and go over to it. The little wildflowers fit into the neck fine, and spread out naturally as though they are part of one, larger blossom.

“Bring me the sack.”

Peeta steps up beside me, arm gently brushing against my arm, and puts the sack on the counter for me. I find the flask and pour some water into the jar so his gift will be alive for us tomorrow.

I stare at it for a minute, this arrangement, somehow in my mind the representation of us, of this, of everything. And I can’t help it. I push up to tip toes and peck a kiss against his cheek.

I hear him exhale and give a half laugh, clearly pleased that I like them.

“Come on,” I say, “You’ve shown me the house you want to spend our nights in. Now I get to show you mine.”

“It’s all I’ve been able to think about since earlier,” he says, and I can tell from the intensity in his voice he’s telling the truth.

Within ten minutes we are to the hole in the fence I use to pass through for hunting and on our way.

Even though Peeta has the grace of a bolder, we manage to cross the fields of high grass and wildflowers painted white and black in the moonlight, and then through a little break of woods, before ending out into my meadow. And now that we’re here on the edge of it, even though a bank of rain clouds is starting to fill part of the sky, there’s still plenty of stars, sounds, and smells to enjoy that I hear him intermittently gasp with admiration.

I let him soak it up for a few precious moments, but finally, I take the sack from him and head for a tall willow tree on the meadow’s far side. Under its canopy, I toss the burlap sack and its contents against the trunk and start to strip.

I hear a loud exhale and his hands stop me after I’ve only made it through my jacket.

“I’ve been waiting for this a long time, Katniss. Slow down and let me savor it.”

I shiver and swallow. I have a fire in my blood that is screaming to be fed right now, and on top of it I am nervous and shy. Being fast and frantic is about the only way I can imagine making it through this without being completely embarrassed. But his eyes are intent, so I just nod.

He slides his hand behind my neck and kisses me slowly. Somehow, he manages to lower us to the ground and the kissing becomes more intense.

“You love me, Katniss,” he asks after we’ve been entangled for I have no idea how long.

I peel away my shirt and he doesn’t try to stop me this time.

“Do you love me, Katniss,” he stops my hands when I try to tug at his shirt next.

I nod.

“No one else?”

The moonlight doesn’t quite reach us under the willow, and I can’t read the details of his face. He voice is serious, though. Almost urgent.

“No, no one else.”

“Not Gale Hawthorne?”

“No, Peeta, not Gale.”

“Not that white shirt?”

“No, Peeta, not him,” I say, frowning.

He lets my hands go and helps me pull his shirt off. I scoot on the ground until I’m facing him with our hips pressed together. I kiss along his shoulder and let my hands roam over his chest, tugging at the few thin hairs I find at its center.

He starts to ask me something more, and I cut him off.

“Shut up, Peeta,” I complain. “I can’t think about anything except this right now.”

How can he?

He chuckles and his hands ride up my sides and touch the same places they were a just few moments ago. But without the fabric of my shirt, it is an entirely different experience. I reach back and unclip my bra. His hands unfurl as I stretch to pull it off over my head, and then tighten around me again as I lower my spine back to its normal shape.

“Can those fingers play more than a guitar, Peeta?”

“I’ll have them play you, if you’d like.”

I grunt, and just like that he’s touching me all over like a house that’s caught blaze, pressing, clamping, scraping his nails teasingly across my skin. Helping me free of the rest of my clothes, and then squeezing, kneading, tapping little rhythms up and down my spine and along my shoulders and on my elbows.

Once he’s finally laying on me, the weight of him pressing me down into the grass, he lifts himself onto his forearms.

“You have no idea the torture it’s been tonight, Katniss. Torture. Out of nowhere, you turn up at the end of the street washed in the colors of the sunset. So gentle and perfect and motherly with Prim. Laughing with the people stringing the lights. Hovering around the edges of the dance in that white dress with those flowers in your hair.”

He growls and dips down to kiss me once before lifting himself again.

“Do you have any idea how hard it was not to stare at you instead of the guitar while I was playing? Or the torture of seeing you drinking with Gale. And then drinking with that Peacekeeper and standing there right under my nose while he asked you to run off with him?”

I can tell from the way his body tightens on top of me, and the way he presses himself into me, the exact measure of his frustration.

“And then holding that little boy on your hip like he belonged there!Kissing him and waving his little hand through the air in yours? God, Katniss, you have no idea how difficult a night it’s been on me. I’ve felt like I was dying so many times.”

“Yeah,” I ask, feeling a thrill that the soul I’ve been so desperate for is desperate for me.

“Yeah,” he says.

He runs the fingers of one hand along the line of my naked skin from thigh to shoulder.

“I liked your white dress. But I like you dressed like this too,” he murmurs as he presses a series of soft kisses from my throat down to where my heart is pounding under my breast.

“I’m sure,” I can’t help but roll my eyes and laugh.

“Me too,” he says, and then comes back up to kiss me. When he pulls back, he has a smile I haven’t seen before. It’s boyish, peaceful, and yet searingly hungry. “I have loved you since I was five years old, Katniss Everdeen.”

This makes me feel like I’m something magical. Something precious. As though, impossibly, some value of his worth he measures by me.

“Make love to me, Peeta.”

*

I curl against him and under his arm, flushed and with lungs heaving. The cascade of nighttime showers rolls in and waters the meadow around us as we recover. I listen to it make a melody in the willow’s canopy and in the grass and earth just outside the tree’s reach. Peeta, with his calloused finger tips, taps the rhythm of it against my skin.

____________________

Chapter End Notes

Alright, so first of all, credits for music and lyrics. Lyrics are mine. This story was inspired by this video of Simeon Baker, an awesome Peeta-esque looking percussion, lap-tap guitar player: https://youtu.be/wDZ7ZeKUlHQ This is his website where you can buy his album (I did): https://simeonbaker.bandcamp.com/album/simeon-baker-ep

 

Also, check out https://dandeliononfire.tumblr.com/myff for my other Everlark things. There are some shorts there not on Ao3.