I usually lurk in a different book world on this site, but I have fallen for the Hunger Games and I'm afraid my addiction to fanfiction has just been reignited. Enjoy!

She races the halls. She had to get to his classroom. She had to pull him out before everything got away from her. She had to protect him. She knows this. Her mother taught her this. Family always comes first. Why does she have to save him though? No one understands.

There are no sirens. Actually, the halls are empty. She's the only one in frenzy, but she has good reason. She slides to a stop in front of the room that leads to his classroom. She throws it open and glides in. The teacher sighs as if she already knows why she's there. She nods to a boy at the front of the class room. His curly head stands and he turns to his sister as the emblem lights the screen.

"Let's go Gavin," she snaps feeling completely out of control. Why? She's perfectly fine. There's no threat. It's just school there's nothing even really going on. But she has to get him out. He can't see this anything that has to do with the Capitol, the old Capitol.

"Primrose—,"

"Gavin go," she points a shaking finger toward the door and Gavin gathers his things before leaving the class with his head down. When a kid snickers it only takes a stab with Primrose's eyes to shut him up. Then Primrose turns and follows out her brother slamming the door to the room to rattle every kid inside. Her satchel digs into her shoulder with its weight, but she ignores it as she speeds past Gavin in the hall. He shoulders his pack a little better and hurries after her. "I'm getting you home and then you're staying home for the next couple days."

"Primrose why?" Gavin asks confused. He struggles to keep up his feet kicking up rubble from the reconstruction of the school after the revolution. It's still not finished really, but no one seems to care. They work as little as they can get away with while keeping the school open and keeping their paychecks. The parents don't care either. It's better than what they ever got. This was how Primrose and Gavin got used to school, so they don't care either. They don't know anything different.

"Gavin, let's just go," Primrose pushes open the front door to the school. The ladies don't even stop her. Their position in town is too high for really anybody to have any say. Not mayor, no their father refused that position when he became eligible, so did their mother. Her parents are more legends than anything. Sometimes, it's annoying, but other times it gets her everything she wants and Primrose takes it to her advantage willingly.

Gavin doesn't understand it at all. He remembers from class the teacher talking about these things called Hunger Games. The teacher always had looked at him when she talked about them waiting for him to have a reaction. Games? Like the ones my mom always says we are playing out at that little house in the woods. Those are the only games he has ever known. So he just follows his sister.

He's sure of one thing. Gavin has inherited his father's sporadic outbursts and his mother's worry. If worry could smother Gavin wouldn't have made it to the age he was at. Primrose is the only thing he will call her and he knows she prefers it that way. Her friends always called her rose and she didn't mind that but when her friends said it around their mom she would shudder and their father would tell them that the nickname was not acceptable. They acted like it was a terrible word that got their mouths washed out with soap. Their mother called her Prim, but that seemed to upset their mother in a whole different way. She got this deep sadness that swirled around her sucking everyone in and then smiled through it no matter what. Primrose has three personalities though and Gavin knows them all. She's tough around guys and her friends. Around Gavin she's protective to a serious extent. Around her parents she was the perfect child even though they punished her for nothing really to keep her in line. Gavin is ignored for now.

Right now, looking at his sister's bobbing dark hair as she pushes through the snow, she's in Gavin mode. A "neighborhood" dog walks up to her side and she lays her hand on it's scruff since it's so tall. That dog was Primrose's and Gavin was fully aware though their parents wouldn't allow any pets inside. The dog is large and its ears stand tall. In the warmer month he always was good to blend in because he was made of black and tan fur that lays slick against its body unless Primrose is trouble. When that happens, you hope you're not around. The only time their mother ignores the dog is when they are outside of the fence where the dog can be considered wild.

Gavin slides his hands into the pockets of his jacket and pulls his shoulders up to try and cover his ears with the collar of his jacket. Their house is so far away from everything, and they're the only ones who live there. It's a nice house, one of the nicest really, but there's a certain hatred his mother has for it. Their father acts indifferent except for in the summer when they go to the meadow to play. Then he gets this dark expression until their mother forces him to hold her; that's the only time he relaxes in the meadow.

Primrose turns sharply to Gavin and he freezes in his tracks dropping his shoulders in shock for a moment. "They can't do this, not to you," she says and the tears that fill her eyes make her look just like their mother except for her blue eyes that pierce him like the icicles that hang from the rooftops. It scares Gavin. He doesn't want to be sad like his family. He wants to have hope. Why are they sad anyway? He wonders everyday. They're important. The people that are only a few years younger than his parents practically bow at their feet. They rule all and could care less always stuck in a sadness that goes on forever.

Gavin says nothing and ducks back into his jacket like a small turtle in a massive shell. He protects himself from the cold and his sister's tears. He will not be sad. He walks past her and up the walkway to his home. The warmth rolls out in a massive ways smacking against him, but he walks against it and shuts the snow out with his sister still outside. The house smells of bread and fresh rolls. There's laughter in the kitchen and for a moments Gavin's heart soars. He loves to hear that sound.

His mother's happiness. It's so rare really he's not sure how to take it, but he doesn't have time to take all of it in. Primrose walks in behind him and heads straight into the kitchen without even kicking the snow from her boots on the tile. Gavin hears her voice say a few sentences; it's not even a conversation his mother walks into the room he's in.

"Hi Mommy," Gavin smiles and hugs his mom. I'm okay! He screams with the embrace trying to help her calm down. Primrose is the one that is overreacting. All they were going to do was watch a history video. They were going to finally watch these Games that everyone is always talking about. Even some kids his age rumor about how dangerous they were and how they still happened behind his parents knowing.

They were games! Gavin doesn't know; he doesn't listen in class, especially not history. The past is what haunts his family. He refuses to learn about it. These games though, that's what he is interested in. It has to do with him, or his father maybe. Maybe that's why their father has a false leg and in turn their mother is sad. He just wants answers; answers his sister has kept once again, he thinks he'll never get them. Their mother only hopes that's true.

"I want to learn about it Mom," Gavin finally says and then clamps his hand over his mouth. This isn't right. He should have never asked his mother. She can tell by the look on his father's face and the glare that Primrose is giving him. This isn't his place. His mother already has nightmares. How could he do this to her? What kind of son was he?

"We'll go out to the lake tomorrow, and I'll tell you." She's not even upset. It shocks everyone because all she does is kiss her son's forehead and sends him upstairs. No, he won't be going to school for days maybe not even weeks. Gavin knows it too, but he doesn't fight against it. Whatever he gets to hear tomorrow is huge. He'll sleep through the rest of the day just so he can get up early with his mother and father tomorrow. Primrose is going back to school and she's got tears in her eyes because of it. Their father wraps her in his arms and she lets him hold her as they watch Gavin and his mother go upstairs.

Katniss kisses her son's forehead. She shoves the fear to the back of her mind. She knows the toll she is on Gavin. When she's supposed to be the strong one her eight year-old son ends up taking the role. "Goodnight Gavin."

"It's only afternoon Mommy," Gavin points out with a gleam in his eyes.

It makes Katniss smile for some reason. "You're very right Baby. Good afternoon." She moves about the room drawing curtains and closing the windows tightly. The snow helps, but the rest of the sunlight is soon gone. She has to tell Gavin tomorrow though. She has to open those curtains. She has to shed light on all the things she wished she could forget.

Katniss leaves the room tugs the door closed. The breath she takes is nothing. It swirls inside of her with promises of relief. It lies though. In moments it returns to the world as a personal poison and dies around her in the oxygen. She blinks back the tears at a phantom pain in her head. Specifically, she can almost feel the explosion from the first games that left her deaf in one ear. There's no proof of that ever happening. Only the second games linger on her skin. The games that were never really finished haunt her.

Peeta is proof that the Games were never completed. They are both proof of the last Games. Primrose knows about their participation in those vile acts of putting people in line. When everything they did should have protected them for life they were thrown back into terror. Now it's under her skin. Katniss can't even fight it off or kill it; it simply drags across every nerve she has. It wakes her up at night in fits of screaming and sweating and crying, but that only happens when Peeta has left their bed. He always wanders away and she wonders why, but she doesn't act. It's his way of coping, constant motion. That's as far as her guess goes.

Katniss steels herself and then walks back down to the first floor where Peeta is giving Primrose biscuits for her to eat. They are the cheese biscuits that Katniss loves so much. She smiles at her husband and he smiles back in a practice of sharing emotions. I'm okay right now, it reads. Their quiet conversations are never caught.

"You should head back to school Prim," the nickname stirs something inside of her, but she holds it back. It's the correct name for their daughter. The nickname came with it. When people called her Rose it drove Katniss absolutely mad. Who are they to name her daughter for that wicked man? No one should ever be cursed with the name that scars history. It's automatic shame. Most of the adults in the district know that. Why don't they warn their children?

"Yes ma'am. I'm just eating something before I go, by now they've probably paused the Games for lunch," Primrose doesn't look up from her biscuit. The cheese seems to interest her. It's almost as if she's trying to decide which spots bubbles during its baking. "I don't want Gavin to know," she suddenly says and looks up at her father before she looks to Katniss. "There's no recovering from what he'll see. He'll recognize you guys especially once the interviews happen. They'll have your name everywhere."

Girl on Fire, that name was so fitting and it made her skin tingle. She shakes it off closes her eyes for what seems like a dramatic blink. "Which Games is it?" Katniss manages the question in a calm voice. She can't destroy the happiness Peeta had managed to stir in the house. Even with talk of the Games. Why did it seem like the Reapings all over again? It's not though. She doesn't have to go anywhere, and neither does her daughter. They are safe.

"The first one you guys were in…this year is all about the beginning of revolution." Their curriculum was group scheduled for the years. They all learned the same things. They teachers just had to teach it at the understanding level needed. It made spreading the required education easier, plus, everyone stayed on the same page for the year and then they are all given the same test. "We'll start revolution and probably see the other games next years. With winter already here there is no way they'll get to it. Summer vacation is coming up too soon."

Katniss lifts the corner of her mouth with the strings of a lie. "At least you'll finally get to see it for yourself. Our description is only so much." To have them still watch the Games disgusts Katniss. Keeping the children aware is good. That way they'll never do it again. When was it okay to start showing children the sight of kids killing kids? Never. It was never going to be okay.

"Sure Mom," her daughter drops the roll and grabs her satchel. When the door opens that dog is sitting out there. She slams the door behind her. Katniss listens to her feet hitting the steps and the creaks they make and then her footsteps are lost in the snow. Katniss turns to Peeta who offers her one of the cheese biscuits he has made. They're still hot from the oven and if you left them on their sides to long the cheese would shift in its top.

"She'll be fine," Katniss mutters taking a seat at the counter pulling off pieces of the roll letting some of the steam roll out. Peeta sets everything his has down and moves around the corner to his wife. Taking hold of the swivel chair's arms he spins her around to face him. She looks up at him with this fear that does nothing to him. He knows how to handle her fear. It was almost normal to him. They had fallen in love through fear; therefore, fear was no stranger. "She'll be fine, right?"

"Katniss she's just like you if she couldn't handle herself you would have kept her home," Peeta assures her. He takes one of his hands off the arm rest he had hold of and moved the hair from Katniss' face. She never seems to take her hair out of the braid. Even now, the braid seems to hold on by a thread because of how loose it is.

With a careful and cautious hand, he pulls the rubber band from her hair. As it falls to the ground Katniss' eyes soften. Peeta runs his fingers through her hair and it let's go of its form like Peeta wished Katniss would. Maybe one day she could just let go and then he would have Katniss back. His Katniss had died with her sister's death and had been severed with her mother's retreat form her. Peeta wants to bring her back, so for the moment all he can think to do is press his lips to hers.

The warmth of him ignites her. He spends so much time in the kitchen with an oven that runs on fire that he seems to run on is as well. The heat thrills her and she kisses him back. It's comfortable. It's not forceful or desperate prove itself. Peeta has her wholeheartedly and all he has to do is love her, and he does that just fine.

Katniss feels like she must prove herself though. There was no way she had ever deserved him. He was the one who was level headed, and when she asked why he would stay with her when has nothing to offer he jokes about having a life debt to her. She saved him and now he's obligated to stick around. Katniss hopes that's really only a joke. She needs him. She deserves someone like Gale, but he abandoned her long ago and leaves her messages on their phone.

When their phone does ring they let it ring. Katniss remembers a time when she would have answered because it would have been Cinna. She would jump like a giddy child if it had been Cinna, her friend. But now, it's only Gale, her traitorous friend. Katniss convinces herself that he calls to brag and it's not worth it. Gale was never one to apologize. When Katniss suggested Peeta rip the phone from the wall he countered with the fact that when it rang it only meant Katniss was being missed. She liked the idea of being needed, and even though Peeta says Gavin and Primrose need her, she doubts it. Peeta would be more than capable of holding onto their children. She's not actually needed anywhere anymore.

Within their kiss, Peeta has managed to get Katniss on the counter where she let him ravage her neck. But after a few moments Katniss stops him. Gavin is in the house and they are not children anymore. They're parents. "I love you," Katniss whispers wholeheartedly tangling her fingers in Peeta's hair. He loves when he looks this way. It's the only time she can ever see the wild in his eyes that he wears so well. When they kiss with passion he lets go of being a baker. With the passion comes instinct, and his instinct is to hold her and protect her from everything. Even her sadness fears his love and backs away form her mind.

"I love you too," Peeta sighs and then the instinct is gone. The wild still shines in his eyes, but he has his control again. Even though his hands are on her thighs he can tell she's not think of anything close to the passion of the moment he had been in. She was stuck on Gavin and what they were going to tell him. "We're leaving before sunrise tomorrow aren't we? Just like a hunting day?"

The all knowing of his mind makes Katniss smile and she leans back grabbing a cheese biscuit. She takes a bite and then seems to consider her answer. She looks at the biscuit and then the ceiling. When she looked back to Peeta she's looking at his impatience. "Yes, we're going hunting tomorrow, telling our son the story of the Games, and we're taking you and your noisy feet."

Sincerely,

wisegirlindisguise