This cut scene takes place during the events of ch.12.
When I dash into the house, the first person to greet me is actually Sae. She's carefully pulling out a roasting pan full of mini-cheesecakes baked in ramekins that I know are a particular favorite of some of the folks in town who don't like to fuss with pies, even during the holidays. She smiles at me and opens her arms to me as soon as she sets the piping hot pan down, and I enter them gratefully. It took a while for Ms. Sae to warm up to me—for the first couple of years of my life here, she watched me and Delly like hawks, I'm sure because she thought that any moment I was libel to pick Delly up and snap her in half. But when it became apparent that I was still having serious trouble with my grammar, even after learning to speaks English through my dad's gentle guidance, she was the one who sat down with me at the kitchen table and drilled proper verb and noun usage into my head. She's also the reason why I'm still, to this very day, so reluctant to swear. Ms. Sae hates swearing.
"You need a haircut, sweetheart," she says, tugging lightly on one of the curls above my ears.
"Can we maybe not make it clear that you're the one who cuts my hair still after all these years when my girlfriend is here with me?" I say, blushing slightly. She wipes her hands on her apron and sighs heavily.
"Yes…your father mentioned her. You really ought to have let him know, you know," she says.
"I know, I know. I just…where is Dad, anyway?" I ask, looking into the living room quickly and not seeing him there, either.
"He helped Delly take your suitcases upstairs. I suspect he snuck into his room to look out his window and make sure you're giving the girl the proper tour," she says before pouring another batch of the cheesecake mixture into a new set of ramekins.
As if on cue, Delly and Dad descend the stairs, whispering quickly to one another as if they don't remember how sharp my hearing is. They startle when I say obtusely, "Yes, it's the same Katniss from the river that night. Can we maybe not mention that around her, please?"
Delly hangs her head, and Dad scratches the back of his. "She seems…nice, Peet," Dad says slowly.
"Sit down, the both of you, will you? I need to tell you something and I don't want you to make a big thing of it," I say, gesturing towards the small table in the breakfast nook. I toss an apple back and forth in my hands for something to do while I sort out the thoughts in my head.
"You could have mentioned you've been dating her in any of those texts you've sent the last couple of weeks, you know," Delly says, her voice heavy with guilt already. I roll my eyes.
"And missed getting the lecture from you in person, Dell? Why would I do that?" I groan.
"You don't need to be snippy with her, Peet. But why didn't you tell us? Any of us?" Dad says sternly.
"Oh, cripes, Ezekiel, he isn't 10 years old anymore," Sae says with a shake of her head. "He's entitled to keep things to himself if he chooses to."
I scan through the front of the house into the field beyond. I see Katniss move from the stable to the pig pen, where she wiggles her hand playfully to the piglet that stumbles towards her. I probably shouldn't tell her what ultimately ends up happening to the pigs we keep, I suppose: she might be too tender hearted to know why our bacon is so good.
The words tumble past my lips before I can stop them. "Listen—Katniss knows."
I hear three collective breaths sucked in sharply through three sets of teeth.
"Excuse me?" Delly hisses.
"Katniss knows, Dell," I say, turning towards my best friend in time to see her eyes go wide. "She knows everything about me."
"Oh, Peeta," Sae says slowly.
"Why the fuck would you tell her?!" Delly sneers.
"Language, Delilah!" Sae snaps.
"No, Nana, this is serious. Peeta, what the hell?" she says, standing up and rounding on me. Even at nearly a foot shorter than me, she's still relatively intimidating.
"You told me not a month ago that she and I weren't 14 years old anymore! What the hell with you, Delly?" I say, quirking my head to the side.
"Yeah, when you were pining over her from afar, not when you're blabbing the biggest secret you could possibly blab ever in your life!" she says, poking my chest hard.
"How…how did this come about, Peeta?" my dad says drily, clearly trying to diffuse the situation a little. He's rubbing his temple roughly though, the way he always does when he's beginning to get nervous.
I stare Delly down until she sits back down at the table and launch into the entire explanation; Katniss's meteor rock necklace, how I went to her apartment to explain why I was being so cold, hearing her cries as her muggers attempted to put a bullet in her spine and take disgusting advantage of her. I leave out the extended, passionate sex against my apartment window, though—Dad wouldn't be able to stomach that knowledge, I'm sure. When I finish up by explaining that we've been dating ever since, their facial expressions are the exact copies of their original reactions. Sae is impassive. Dad is shocked. Delly is pissed.
"She could blow everything," Delly says under her breath, tears glinting in her eyes. "She could blab and get you taken away from us. God knows what the government spooks would do if they knew—"
"She wouldn't do that, Delly. She knows how important this is. And I trust her, okay? If I trust her, you trust her, isn't that the deal?" I say imploringly. It was an agreement we'd come to as children, sealed with a pinkie-swear: if I ever outed-myself to anyone, it was because I trusted them implicitly. And since I'm the harder one to put any trust in people to begin with, Delly agreed to divert to my expertise in the situation and go along with it. She looks positively petulant when I remind her of this, and swipes at her eyes angrily.
"Peeta…you promised you'd be so careful," Dad says sadly. I feel about six-years old the way he looks at me when he says it, and my head hangs involuntarily.
"I couldn't let those guys hurt her, Dad, Mockingjay suit or no. I'd never have forgiven myself. She needed help and I was there. But she saw the bullets and…well, how else did you want me to explain that?" I say, my voice crackling.
"You did a very brave thing, sweetheart," Sae says, placing her hand on my shoulder. "We're all just—you know how much we all love you."
She shoots my father a quick look and Delly an even longer one. I swear I see both of their resolves break down under the intense gaze of Sae's amber colored irises.
"It took a lot for her to be willing to come out here. But she wanted to do it—for me. So please: I need you to be nice to her. Especially you, Dell. I need you to trust that I knew what I was doing when I told her the truth and that she isn't going to sell me out. She's not like that. She's…she's a better person than that. So just…please, okay?" I beg them all quietly.
It's a second before Dad clears his throat and gets to his feet. He opens his arms and I wrap mine around him gratefully. Having him on my side is everything. I glance over his shoulder at Delly, who's staring at her boots. When she looks up at me, her eyes are still glossy.
"God, I sort of hate how much we used to pinkie-swear," she says with a huff, but folds herself against my chest anyway. I smile into her hair.
"Yeah, well—those are binding, you know," I remind her.
"Always," she agrees.
I hear Katniss's footsteps before I spin around and scan through the front of the house again to see her tentatively approaching the front porch. She shuffles her feet for a moment before stepping up the first creaky stair and I look at my family once again.
"Please?" I ask again.
All three nod solemnly, and I know when the screen door squeaks as she enters the house, they'll welcome her with open arms. I know because they know how hard it is for me to trust anyone but the three of them with something so crucial.
A few moments later, though, when my father puts his arm around Katniss's shoulder and leads her into the living room to show her the truly embarrassing pictures of me as a child, I swear I feel a collective weight lifted from the three of their shoulders. I feel my own shoulders relax a little when Delly strikes up an easy-enough conversation with Katniss a minute later, and then more when Sae puts her to work slicing a watermelon into wedges. The look I catch on my father's face confirms it: four people guarding one secret is stressful. A fifth doesn't exactly ease the burden entirely—but it seems to do something.
A/N - Meggie and I wanted to thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for getting Flesh and Bone to 200 reviews this week. That number is huge to us, and we are so, so grateful you are enjoying this story so much. It means the world to us.
We are currently slowly-but-surely back at work on ch.14 and beyond, but we are attempting to each get a couple of chapters under our belts before we resume our regular posting schedule. Thank you for your continued patience - we're so excited for you all to see what we have planned next for Super!Everlark!