Chapter 1

My name is Katniss Everdeen Mellark. I am thirty-two years old. District 12 is my home. I was a tribute in the 74th and 75th hunger games. I was a rebel against the capitol, known as their Mockingjay. I killed President Coin. Peeta Mellark is my husband. I love him. I have a daughter, Lila, and a son, Reed.

I recite this every morning as I prepare for my day. I will remind myself that I am alive, that there is a purpose for me to live. There is so much I could lose, on the other hand. However, it's not like I haven't lost everything before.

This morning is like every other one I have experienced in the past 15 years. I wake up from another restless, nightmare filled sleep just as the sun makes its appearance in the sky. I slowly push myself out of bed, stretch my sore limbs, and look down at the man I sleep next to. I can tell he sleeps just like me- curled up into a ball, hands balled up into fists, and jerky movements at the sight of our fears that replay over and over in our minds. Unable to look at his uncomfortable position anymore, I walk over to the window and look outside.

District has been completely rebuilt. Memorials stand in place of a few plots of land that once were covered by buildings. I requested there be a garden grown in place of my childhood home. Through the window, I can see people from the seam- I still call it the seam, though it is just a simple town- starting their own morning rituals.

I hear a groan, so I turn to see whether it is Peeta waking, or dreaming. He rolls onto his back, giving his arms to lash out violently, and then drop back to his chest. He is still asleep.

I tiptoe to the door and open it to reveal the silent hallway. Reed has just reached the age where he sleeps through the night, and won't wake until I am by his crib. Lila is most likely awake. She falls asleep at nine every night, and wakes at six every morning. It is 5:59 according to the clock that projects on the wall next to me. As I walk by her bedroom, I look in and see she is beginning to stir. Like clockwork. Tick tock. I move to Reeds room to see if he is awake. As predicted, he is fast asleep, but I know he will begin to cry for attention in the next hour.

As I walk down the stairs, the fifth board from the bottom level creeks. I pause, waiting for a noise or commotion, but nothing happens. I should know this by now. I am not in the woods hunting, but I am in my own home. Safe. It's an instinct now, I guess, because the second I heard the creek, my hand reached behind me for a bow.

The kitchen is quiet, like the rest of the house, except for a small vibrating sound from the corner near the table. I move towards it, hearing the sound increase. Bending down, my eyes meet two yellow ones, which blink in an annoyed fashion at being spotted. "Morning Butt" I say to the cat, which will not die.

Buttercup opens his mouth to hiss at me, allowing a tiny squeak to come out. I smile, knowing how much he wants to hiss at me, but knows better. "Glad to see we can still live under the same roof" I tell him, watching him look away and continue to purr.

Standing back up, I crack my back and stretch again. My skin, well, scar tissue, which covers 70% of my body, isn't as flexible as it used to be. Just as I let out a yawn, I hear Lila calling for me. Tick tock. I ignore her though, knowing she is fine and I need to start breakfast alone. Opening the oven, I find the loaf of bread Peeta baked last night. It smells just as fresh as it did ten hours ago. Removing it from the tray, I place it on the counter and place my nose an inch from it: cinnamon with cranberries.

I jolt up, realizing what today is. My heart starts pounding, sending sheets of sweat to my palms. For the past five years, time had meshed together. Spring quickly turned to autumn, and the winter was just a small time where the grass disappeared and cold snow took its place. Summer did not exist. Why? Because I didn't want it to. I did not want my children to know what summer brought for me and their father many years ago.

But the smell of cinnamon brought me right back to the day. Cinna. He kept his smile as I was placed on the platform to rise into the arena of the 75th hunger games. When I was behind the glass tube, he was beaten and dragged out, all while I stood helpless mere inches from him. The last time I ever saw Cinna was when the door was closing. I could see the fear and pain in his eyes. But there was something else. I now realize the look was reassurance that everything would be ok. For me at least.

"Mommy!"

Hearing my new nickname brings me back to reality. I look down at my hands, which are clenched, just as they were tonight while I slept. I can feel that I have not been breathing, and the gulp of air that I held in my mouth finally goes down my throat. My jaw hurts. Maybe I was preventing myself from screaming? It takes a minute for me to move my legs forward, and when I do, I feel like I'm walking on heavy sand.

When I reach Lila's room, she is standing on her bed. I can tell she had just been jumping, since her pillows and blankets are spewed all over the place. "Good morning Lila."

"Morning Mommy!" She says with a smile, jumps to the floor and rushes over to my hip. Wrapping her arms around my thigh, I rub her back in slow circles. A minute passes, and she won't let go.

"Lila, can I have my leg back?" I ask her.

"Nope." She answers, letting out a tiny giggle.

"Please?" I ask again, bringing my hands to her arms.

"Nope!" Lila says again, but her giggles get louder.

"Well, I think we have a problem here. See, I need to finish making breakfast so we can eat, and then go play outside. But, if you don't want to play outside, then I guess we will just stay here forever." She still holds on, knowing I will give in either way. "Or I could just tickle you."

I feel her arms tense, so I move my hands to her back and start to tickle her. She laughs loudly and let's go. I continue to tickle her, enjoying the sound of her laugh. But it's not her laugh- it's Prim's. I knew from the moment she was born that Prim had returned to me, only with dark hair like mine. Her eyes are a replica of her father's. And that's it. Even my mother, who has only seen her a handful of times, cannot get over how much Lila looks like Prim. That's why I think she doesn't visit more often. Well, that's what I tell myself anyways.

Finally freeing myself from my daughter's grip, I smile and rush downstairs, knowing she is following to retaliate. I hide behind the couch in the living room, as she slowly climbs down the stairs. She knows where I am, since I always hide here, but she pretends she doesn't see me. After a minute of looking around in a circle, she turns towards the couch, smirks, and dashes around to my side, sliding into my arms. We both laugh as we tickle one another. It's moments like this that I forget about the past.

A few minutes pass and we are both out of breath. I sit her up and kiss her forehead. "Ok, I think we just woke up the rest of Twelve. How about you help me finish making breakfast." It's not a question, she will help me. She loves to cook and bake- just like her father. As we enter the kitchen, I notice that Buttercup has moved from his corner to sitting on the windowsill. He is still couched in a defensive manner, but his ears are perked as Lila enters the room.

"Morning Buttercup!" She says in Prim's delighted tone.

Buttercup jumps to the floor and rushes over to her side, rubbing against her legs. He looks up at me for a moment, as he does every morning after he sees Lila, and I can tell he is saying 'thank you' for bringing her back to him.

As the two greet each other, I move back to the bread, pick up a knife, and begin to slice it. My name is Katniss Everdeen Mellark. District 12 is my home. I am preparing breakfast for my husband, Peeta, whom I love, and my children, Lila and Reed. I repeat this in my head as I cut into the bread. As I focus on what I am doing with my hands, I need to distract myself from what I am actually doing. I am using a knife, a weapon, to break up a loaf of bread, cinnamon bread, like Cinna.

"I think we need more eggs."

The deep voice seems to come out of nowhere, until I look to my right and see Peeta has joined us in the kitchen. He is looking into the basket where there should be a full dozen eggs, but it is empty. "Sorry, I was going to get some last night but I forgot."

"No worries." He walks over to me, kisses my lips and smiles. "I can run t the bakery and get some." Peeta looks over his shoulder at Lila, pouring a can of tuna into Buttercups dish. "Should I take the loud one with me?"

"Sorry, did we wake you?" I ask, placing the knife back in the holder.

"I was already waking. And stop saying sorry." He rubs my cheek with his thumb and moves over to Lila. "Want to go to the bakery with me? We need eggs."

"Ok!" She says with a smile, and dashes upstairs to change.

Peeta smirks as he watches his daughter. It amazes me how good he is with children. I never say him with his siblings, or anyone younger than 12 for that matter. He is a great father- I'm glad the only skills he got from his mother was the baking part.

I turn on the oven and let it heat up before I place the bread inside. I look down at the bread again and sigh. "You did this on purpose, didn't you?"

"I did it in his honor." He answers, knowing exactly what I'm talking about. It took us years to openly discuss what happened to us. When Peeta and I reconnected, we agreed that in order to make things work, we needed to tell each other everything. This was especially needed for Peeta, who was still struggling (and still struggles) with the real and not real aspect of his past. Dr. Aurelius suggested we both take ten minutes of our day and start from the beginning- he suggested we use the day before the reaping as our foundation.

We would sit across from one another, and speak, for ten minutes about what we remembered happening. Some days were better than others. Once we both started to discuss the third day of the first hunger games, our ten minutes turned into five, since we both began tense and agitated with memories. It didn't help that we would then go to sleep that night with the horrid thoughts. It took a year for me to finally discuss what I had seen happen to Cinna. When I actually said the words, Peeta reached across to me and took my hand, listening to every word. Ever since that day, he remembered to make a point of baking cinnamon bread. Not to upset me, but to remember the man who, in many ways, saved my life.

He hadn't baked the bread in five years. Walking up to me, he broke off a piece of bread, and fed it to me. "He would be happy for us. And happy to have a name sake."

Reed Cinna Mellark. Before I gave birth to him, Peeta and I bickered back and forth on who we should name him after. We both agreed Reed would be his first name, for the plant that formed down by the lake years after the bombing of Twelve. I saw it as symbolic, and Peeta said he wouldn't take that away from me. So figuring out what his full name would be was difficult, since we both lost many great men in our lives. We finally decided to see who he looked more like- my father, or his- and he would be granted their name. But when he was born, he bared a tiny birth mark over his heart. The doctors said it looked like a 'smudge', but Peeta and I could see the wings and knew it was a Mockingjay, just as I had situated over my heart in the rebellion.

Lila came bounding down the stairs , stopping at the entrance as she looked at Peeta and I. "I'm ready!" She said with a smile, flaunting her clothes, happy she could finally dress herself.

I smiled at Peeta. "Thank you." He kissed my cheek and made his way over to Lila.

"Reedie is calling for you." She told me, grabbing her father's hand and heading towards the door. As they left, I let out another sigh. Opening the oven, I popped the slices of bread inside, and headed upstairs. Opening his door, I saw Reed standing in his crib, a smile plastered on his face. "Hi mumma!"

"Hi Reedie!" I walked over to him and lifted him out of his barricade. I nuzzled my nose into cheek and took in his scent. For someone who never wanted children, I can't get enough of him. "You are wide awake this morning, aren't you."

"Yeah." He mumbled, swinging his legs against me to let him down. Placing him on the floor, he waddled right over to a pile of toys. He took out a stuffed bear that Haymitch bought him when he was born. Well, Effie bought it, showed it to Haymitch, who nodded in approval before he passed out again. Walking back towards me, he showed me the bear and smiled. "Play!"

"Ok, we'll go downstairs and you can play with him." Picking my son back up, we headed back to the kitchen, where I placed him in an enclosed corner, where he kept some other toys and books. Buttercup watched him from the other side of the bars. He was more fond out Lila, since she is identical to Prim, but he has no problem with Reed. Except for when he pets him the wrong way, or grabs his tail. He's definitely my son.

An hour goes by before Peeta and Lila return with the eggs. Reed and I have relocated to the living room, and watch as they enter the house, Lila skipping with the bag of eggs, and Peeta with an exhausted look on his face. "Everything ok?" I ask him, taking the bag from my energetic daughter.

"More vandalism." He answered, rubbing the base of his neck. I could see in his eyes that it was either at the bakery, the garden, or the meadow- also known as the graveyard. "On the bakery doors. Benito said he's going to take care of it."

"What did it say?"I asked, wanting to run down there myself and see.

"Mock, mock, mock, mock, mock." He said with little enthusiasm.

I looked Peeta in the eye, knowing there was more to it, but knew I shouldn't ask. "I'll cook the eggs." He said, taking the bag from my hands.

We finished our breakfast with laughter. That's how Peeta and I have been handling these tought situations- keep our children laughing and smiling. We don't know when we will tell them about our history. It is fact that they will learn about the hunger games and the rebellion in school, but that isn't for a few more years. After Peeta leaves for the bakery, I dress Reed and bring him and Lila outside for some fresh air (mostly for myself). I let them play in the dirt until they are covered in soot, and huddle them inside for a bath.

At 11'o'clock, I put Reed down for a nap, and settle on the sofa with Lila, a book in her hands. It's the one my father and mother started and Peeta and I continued, with the wild flowers. It was Lila's choice, and I have no problem teaching her. However, five pages in, the telephone rings. I stand up to answer it, assuming it's my mother or even Annie, about to go off in another tangent about her teenage son Finnius. "Mellark residence."

There's a moment of silence before I hear a huff of breath. Then a voice spoke, one I haven't heard for 15 years. "Hello Catnip."