AN:
This is set during Catching Fire from Peeta's POV during the days leading up to the announcement for the Quarter Quell and the hours immediately following. I've always kind of wondered what Peeta might have been doing and thinking during that time. Please R&R. The story cover for this piece is attributed to Matthew Venn on Flickr.
Suspecting A Storm
I was sitting in the kitchen when the front door flew open with such force that it hit the wall. I rolled my eyes. Bralin had always had about as much finesse as a sledgehammer.
"Hey! Bro…where are you?" Bralin came barreling into the room, five large loaves of bread under one arm. "Oh, hey!" he said putting the loaves on the table. "Just brought you something from home."
"Thanks," I said absently, looking over at the bread. I baked every day, but I expected Bralin's visit had less to do with the bread and more to do with getting away from the bakery.
"This place is dark Peet…why don't you open up some curtains or turn on a light?"
"Why?" I asked, looking around the room.
"It's like a tomb in here. What are you doing?"
"I don't know…just reading," I looked down at the book in my hands.
"In the dark?" he laughed, pushing the kitchen chairs out of the way of the window and yanking the curtains to the right and left. The light cut in, hitting me in the face and forcing me to squint.
"It wasn't that dark," I said sheepishly, realizing that I'd left the lights off again. I had to get used to being able to turn on and off the lights at my whim. It had always been an issue when I lived at home.
"Yeah, it was brother. What is it you're reading there?"
"Uh…it's a history book."
"Is it any good?"
I smiled at him wanly.
"Well…it's a history of the Capitol. And not the one that was required reading here for school. I swiped this one while I was there." I looked at the cover of the book.
"You? Perfect Peeta stole a book? I'm shocked!" he said, mock horror on his broad face. His blonde hair was sticking up in little spikes just like it had been my whole life. Bralin was four years older than me, and my earliest memories of him involved spiked hair and trouble.
Bralin's idea of a good time when we were kids was stealing things from the bakery. Bits of things really, since everything that we made in the bakery was weighed and measured, accounted for and kept within strict margins. But he was a great enthusiast of the little things; he'd been known to scrape the hardened crust from the bottom of the sugar canister and squeeze the last little bit of frosting from the cake decorating bags and tips before they had been cleaned, just to say that he'd gotten one over on the old lady.
That's what he called our mother.
That I'd been a party to his pillaging had less to do with the sport of it and more to do with the fun of being with him. Bralin knew how to have a good time, and as devious as he could be in his schemes to steal from mother, he was devout in his willingness to take full responsibility whenever we were caught. This meant that he had more than his fair share of beatings over the years, but he grew strong and impervious as time wore on. Taber, my other brother, older than me by two years, always joked that mother had been spoiled having such a big son first and she'd whetted her appetite for beatings on him. Taber said that he thought it frustrated her that she had to go easier on the two of us because we were smaller. It was true that Bralin was as big as a house, but Taber and I weren't small, and I never agreed with his account of mother's beatings. I always thought she went after the three of us with equal brutality.
"So what are you reading about?" Bralin asked distractedly, while looking out the back window of my kitchen.
"The last Quarter Quell."
"Why are you doing that?"
I leveled a look at him, arching an eyebrow.
"Oh…right…you're trying to get an idea of what they're going to do this year."
"I'm pretty sure I have some idea of what they are going to throw at us this year…I'm just trying to figure out how they are going to do it," I said, blowing out a breath and putting the book on the table. I stood up to stretch my back, wincing a bit when I walked to the sink
Damn leg.
"How do you know what they are going to do?" he asked, sounding confused.
I looked over at him and then scanned the walls and ceilings of my house.
Anyone could be listening.
"I need to get out for a bit of air. Wanna walk?" I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
"Sure bro…do you want your cane?" he asked in a sweet doting tone as he batted his eyelashes at me.
"Shut up, Bralin," I snickered, giving him a light shove toward the door. "Let's go…get out of my house."
We walked down the front steps. The weather was warm but there was a bit of a breeze coming up the row of houses that made up the Victor's Village. I looked down the road, wondering at the fact that only three of them were occupied. Seemed like such a waste…all that wealth on three victors. Not that any of it surprised me anymore.
As if reading my mind Bralin said wryly,
"Too bad only one house per victor. Be nice to be living in this perfectly nice, empty house right next door to yours."
I felt an old twinge of guilt that had started right after my return to twelve. My mother had expected the family to move in with me, for my father to give up the bakery and for all of us to live together under one roof again. My roof. When I had told her that that arrangement wasn't going to work for me I thought she was going to lose all good sense and hit me right across the face even though I towered over her by over half a foot. Instead she started screaming about how ungrateful I was, about how she and my father had always done everything for me, and that letting them live with me was the only way to repay them.
This scene had lasted approximately fifteen seconds when my father had stepped in and quietly but firmly admonished her for her behavior. Apparently he had not known of her plans to demand to live with me, and he had no intention of giving up the bakery. Bralin and Taber would continue to live at home with them and help run the bakery. I had earned my own home and there was no reason to think that I'd be sharing it with someone else.
As he'd spoken all of the words rang with the tone of truth, and yet the last ones hit me a bit close to the heart.
No reason to think I'd be sharing it with someone else.
As things stood right now I would be sharing my home with someone else; whether or not she actually wanted to live there remained unclear. Actually, if I was honest with myself it wasn't unclear at all. Katniss and I spent just about every day together and there was no doubt in my mind that a strong friendship had been forged, but I knew that she had someone else in her heart. Knowing Katniss, I was sure it was more complicated than that, but trying to force her on it would only result in pushing her away. I shook my head a little bit to get this line of thinking out of my head. If my suspicions about the Quarter Quell turned out to be true, the whole issue was soon to be pointless.
Bralin and I walked in silence for a while.
"So what did you want to talk about Peet?" he asked.
I'd been thinking about what I wanted to say for a while, and I knew that it was Bralin I wanted to talk to, so the words flowed freely.
"I've had a will drawn up, Bralin. I don't know how well it will hold up from a legal standpoint over the next few months because I'm convinced that things are going to get very ugly around here. Probably sooner rather than later. In any event, if the law does manage to hold I've arranged for my home and belongings to go to Katniss in the event of my death. If we should both be killed then I've left everything to you and Taber. Hopefully it will give the two of you a chance to get away from mother, even if it is just between shifts at the bakery."
"Both be killed? What are you talking about Peeta?" Bralin walked closer to me, towering over me in a conspiratorial way, which was good. It would be harder for anyone to pick up on what we were saying.
"The Quell, Bralin…they are going to draw us into the Quell."
"What? Why? They can't do that…you're victors…you are exempt."
I reached up and placed my hand on my brother's massive shoulder.
"I know…I know. Please calm down. I don't want anyone else to hear about this," I said quietly, looking toward Katniss's house. "I don't know anything for certain Bralin. But things aren't going so well in the other districts…there have been uprisings. And the president blames Katniss. He thinks that she started a revolt with the berries…that she acted in defiance of the Capitol."
He was standing there looking at me with furrowed brows, but he started to nod his head a little. That was why I wanted to talk to Bralin first without Taber. Bralin had a head for strategy after all of those years trying to elude mother. Taber would have gotten hung up on the idea that the love story between Katniss and I was a myth, not because he was dim, but because he was sensitive to the fact that I did indeed have feelings for Katniss that transcended the fiction, and he would have felt sorry for me. That was the very last thing that I needed right now.
"So why not just take her out? Why go after you too?"
I looked him dead in the eyes and said quietly and evenly.
"You should know by now Bralin…if they try for her it is the same as if they went for me."
He nodded his head, not because he agreed with me but because he accepted me at my word.
"They could do it quietly…an accident or an illness. We are out at the ass end of the country. Why are you so certain it will be the Quell?"
"The president will want to make an example…to the districts."
"If they separate you?"
I winced because he had hit on the thing that I was the most afraid of…that they would somehow get her into the Quell and not me.
"I have to believe that the Capitol audience would not accept that as an option," I said, shrugging my shoulders.
Again he nodded, forever strategizing. We started walking again. I felt better, lighter, though I knew that unloading this burden on Bralin wasn't entirely fair. In part I wanted to talk about it because it worried me, but I also wanted a member of my family to know about the will. I couldn't trust anyone else with the information. Better to not tell Katniss anything at all. At best I would only cause her to become more angry and unpredictable, at worst I would be pulling the pin on a grenade and she'd try to launch the district into a revolt, however hopeless that course currently seemed.
"I guess I'll have to hope you're wrong Peet," Bralin said after a while.
"But you don't think I am?"
He was quiet for a while as he walked.
"If it is as serious as you say it is in the other districts it is hard to imagine that they aren't going to make some kind of move…if the president blames Katniss then I'd expect her to be his target."
I nodded my head.
"Yeah…that's pretty much how I had it figured."
"And you're certain you have to be involved?"
I shot a look at him and he just raised his hands and nodded.
One week later…
I watched the television feeling oddly disconnected. Images of Katniss in wedding dresses filled the screen but I could barely see them. I felt angry and sick when I looked at her. Not because I loved her less or because she was not beautiful, but because this was not what I wanted our life together to be.
When I'd heard that she was being photographed yesterday I'd had to fight the urge to go into my house and lock the door. Despite Haymitch's faith in my prowess when it came to public affairs I wasn't sure that I'd be able to keep up the ruse if a camera crew showed up to interview me about the wedding. Marrying Katniss was something that I wanted, albeit under different circumstances, and the fact that it was being turned into a farce was frustrating. I knew I had to keep it together for everybody's sake, so I'd opened the door to my house to make myself available. Fortunately no one came. Apparently in the Capitol the brunt of the attention focused on the bride when it came to weddings. In all honesty I didn't know how Katniss could be holding up under all of the pressure…knowing the things that she did about the other districts, seeing what was happening in ours…how was she going to maintain the visage of a happy bride?
But somehow she did…the photographic evidence was being televised for the entire country. I had gotten up to get a glass of water when I heard Caesar announce another event for the evening. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I stopped and turned. I didn't move for the entirety of the president's speech. The words 'existing pool of victors' had barely left his lips before I was out the front door of the house, making my way to Haymitch.
When I arrived at his house I didn't knock, I just walked in. I found him right where I expected he'd be…sitting on the floor in his kitchen, wresting a cork from a bottle.
"Ah…good you're here," he said, his voice flat. "What can I do for you Peeta…I'm pretty busy."
"I'm going into the Quell, Haymitch."
He narrowed his eyes at me.
"I'm pretty sure you've been through a few Reapings so you should know how they work…there is a bowl, and they put the names in it. This year there will be two names, yours and mine. One of the names will get picked. It might be mine," he said and returned to wrestling with his bottle.
"If it is yours I'll volunteer. My question is…what will you do if the name is mine?" I focused all of my will on him, and he looked at me with anger flashing in his eyes.
"I'll volunteer," he said through his teeth.
My anger flared and I grabbed the bottle from his hands. He was quick to try to snatch it back, but not as quick as me.
"I want her to live, Haymitch," I yelled. "Maybe you want that too, I don't know. I just don't know if you can make that happen from inside of the Game."
"Can you?" he asked, his eyes flashing in challenge.
"I'll die trying…can you say the same?"
Something happened in Haymitch's eyes, and all at once I realized that I'd misjudged him. He would die trying to save her too.
"Okay," I said, forcing my anger away and reaching for reason. "I am younger and stronger. We can win the crowd with the love story. I don't have any experience being a mentor and trying to get sponsors…it doesn't make any sense for you to go in and leave me out."
"What if I don't want you to die either?"
That really caught me off guard. He continued speaking.
"I could teach you everything I know about being a mentor. If sponsors know that you are advocating for your lover, they will be falling over one another to give you money for her. I know all of the other Victors who will be in this thing with us…that will give me an advantage on the inside. I get the numbers down to just Katniss and me, she puts an arrow through my heart, and I die a hero for Twelve and an honorable mentor to you both. You'll name a kid after me." He reached back and grabbed the bottle from my hand. He ripped the cork off with his teeth and took a huge pull on the bottle, all the while looking at me in a self-satisfied way. "Not to mention Peeta…if it came down to it I think we both know that Katniss putting an arrow in you will never happen."
"And if someone is intending that she not survive the Quell?" I asked, looking around the room and implicating blame on anyone who might be listening in.
"Not too much either of us would be able to do in that case Peeta," Haymitch said solemnly.
I knew Haymitch well enough to know that I was sunk. It would come down to the luck of the draw then.
"Fine," I said, quietly. "I'll be back tomorrow. Tonight is your last night drinking so enjoy it. I won't have you going into the Quell while you're trying to dry out. You quit tomorrow." I turned and walked out, slamming the door so hard that I broke both lights on either side of the door.
My next stop was Katniss's house. Her mother, who looked like she had been sobbing, greeted me at the door. She started again when she saw me, reaching out a hand to me. I took it in mine.
"This is beyond cruelty," she whispered, her voice shaking.
"Is she here?"
"She ran out right after it was announced."
I nodded.
"Is Prim holding up?"
"She ran into her room and slammed the door. I haven't been able to muster the heart to go check on her yet."
I gave her hand a squeeze.
"Do you want me to do it?"
She nodded her head. I walked into the house, ascending the stairs. I knocked on Prim's door. I heard shuffling and then the door flew open. She looked a bit disappointed. I figured she wanted to see Katniss. But she threw her arms around my waist and buried her face in my chest.
"Oh, Peeta! I am so sorry that this is happening to you again," she cried. "Why are they doing this?"
I stoked her hair, trying to think of something to tell her that was true without burdening her with the whole truth.
"We've all grown up knowing that the Capitol is cruel, Prim. This is just more evidence of it."
I knew that it wasn't enough, so I added,
"You know that I am going to do everything I can to make sure that she comes home, right?"
This made her cry harder, which wasn't my intention.
"They won't let you both out again."
"No."
She wrapped her arms tighter around me.
"If she lives what will she do without you?" she asked, her voice catching on the last two words.
This caught me slightly off guard, and for a moment I felt a lump form in my throat. But I knew that this wasn't the time for sentimentality.
"Your sister will survive. She'll miss me, but she'll move on. What choice will she have?"
"What about you? If you won, would you move on?"
She was looking up at me, and I met her gaze, willing myself to be the grown up.
"I would…in time. It would be hard, but in the end I wouldn't have a choice either."
I kissed the top of her head.
"I have to go now. I have to see my family."
She loosened her grip on me. I was half way down the hall before I heard her voice, small and frightened.
"Just make sure it doesn't come down to the two of you Peeta…I'm afraid that Katniss wouldn't come back from that, and if the roles happened to be reversed neither would you."
A chill went through me. I nodded at her.
I walked down the stairs. Mrs. Everdeen was still standing at the door, her hand on the doorknob. I placed a hand on her shoulder and she put hers on top of mine.
"I'll be back tomorrow," I said quietly, moving past her.
"Peeta," she called out the door after I'd descended the steps on the front porch. I turned back.
"Give your family my…I don't know. Just tell them that I'm sorry for what is happening to you and your family."
"I will Mrs. Everdeen."
I turned my back and started walking. The reality of what was happening was starting to hit me. Even though I had been prepared by my suspicions, I realized that there had been a part of me that had wanted to believe that I was wrong…that we would be all right.
I was so embroiled in my thoughts that I almost walked straight into him.
"Mellark," he said, his voice guarded.
"Gale," I said back, looking in his eyes. He had the hollow-eyed look of someone who had been very ill, and I knew that he was still suffering from the whipping. That he was required to work in the mines didn't help.
"Where is Katniss," he asked.
"Don't know. I was just at her house but she wasn't there."
"You don't think she'd try to leave now?"
"Without Prim and her mother…not likely," I said, looking past his shoulder. I wanted to get to my family. "She'll come home when she's worked some things out. You should go wait with her mother and sister." I said all of this as congenially as I could, but inside I was a torrent of emotion. I was going to try to save her life, and if she survived she'd be coming home to him. I felt a bitterness that I didn't realize I was capable of, but I swallowed it.
"Right," he said. He started walking past me and I made to walk too when he grabbed my forearm. The grip was tight but not threatening.
"If we made a run for it would you come?"
I knew he was only asking because he figured he'd have better odds of getting Katniss to run if she knew I would go too. He wouldn't make eye contact with me and I was struck by how hard it must have been for him to make this gesture. He couldn't see beyond his own pride to imagine that I might perceive it as an act of kindness, that I'd be capable of looking past his more selfish motives.
What a pair they make.
All I could think was how emotionally exhausting it must be for both of them to try to communicate their feelings to one another. I might actually feel sorry for them if I didn't have my own stake in the situation.
"It's too late for that now," I said, keeping my tone agreeable. "I have to get home to talk to my family." I pulled my arm away and started walking. I didn't look back.
Things at my parent's house were pretty chaotic. My mother was yelling about rules not being upheld and that something ought to be done. My father was sitting quietly in his chair. He'd risen to shake my hand when I'd walked in. He held my hand in his grip for a long time before pulling me into an embrace.
"It's all right, Dad," I said quietly.
"No…it's not," was all that he said as he released me and walked back to his chair.
Bralin and Taber were both pacing around the room like caged animals, looking from our querulous mother to our silent father and then finally to me. I knew that Bralin had told Taber about my suspicions by the way that they were both looking at me.
"Obviously you've heard," I said and my mother finally fell silent. "Things are going to be pretty busy for me while I get ready for this so I won't be around a lot. Bralin, Taber…you'll help me with training?"
"Of course," Taber said, and Bralin nodded his assent.
"But you won't win," my mother said, "you'll try to save her again, just like last time." Her tone was acerbic, as if I'd done something wrong, as if this new atrocity was somehow my fault. I felt anger flare, but more strongly I felt pity for her. That she couldn't show kindness to her child during a time when he might need her…how shallow and miserable a person she was.
"Yes, mother you are correct…I won't win. I'll do everything I can to save Katniss."
"For what? You'll lose your beautiful house and all those wonderful things! You are strong…you are well liked in the Capitol. You could beat her! And then you could come home and everything here would be waiting for you. They may even give you more for winning the Quell. Another house even." She looked hopeful and slightly insane.
"I'm leaving now," I said, shaking in my rage. "I'll see you tomorrow?" Bralin and Taber nodded. "Father, I'll be back in a day or two." I turned and left without another word.
The walk back to my house was brisk, a necessity to calm my anger toward my mother. By the time I arrived at my front door I felt exhausted but I wasn't ready to go inside. I sat down heavily on my front steps staring out into space. I caught movement in the corner of my eye and I looked down the street to see Katniss stumbling back to her house. Clearly she'd been with Haymitch judging by her uneven gait.
Great. Now I'll have two drunks on my hands tomorrow.
I knew I was being unfair to Katniss, that the guilt that she was feeling must be killing her. She deserved a break. But for one selfish moment I couldn't help it.
I was mad at her.
Not for the berries. I knew that we'd been backed into a corner on that and she was just smart and gutsy enough to risk it all to survive.
I was mad at her for not loving me. If she had loved me then her intentions with the berries would have been real. She would have been eating those berries because she couldn't live without me. There would have been no need for the lies, for all of the games that we'd played with the media for the past year. We could have come home from the Games and started our lives together. We would have been a footnote in the history books…the star-crossed lovers.
I allowed myself to feel bitter and angry as I watched her stumble up her front steps, oblivious to my presence. The front door to her house opened, and she was pulled into Gale's waiting arms, disappearing from my sight. Bitterness flowed through me like poison. The door closed behind her. I sat for what seemed like hours, letting the anger course through me and then out of me. As it did I started to think about my next move, how to play things to our advantage, how to put our little team in the best light. By the time I was finished I had figured out how to make Katniss into the most sympathetic person in the history of the Games. The audience would love her. They would be falling over one another to save her. Once I had my plan I felt calmer and more in control.
I stood up and walked to the front door of my house. As my hand fell on the knob I had a memory of the first time I'd walked into this house.
Katniss had been with me. The presentation of the house was being filmed so of course she was expected to be at my side. I walked up the steps, my footfalls heavy since I wasn't used to my artificial leg yet. Hers were silent, as always, and she drifted like a specter next to me. People were shouting questions behind us. Many of them were holding cameras and microphones, but no one had followed us up onto the porch. When I reached the door I turned the knob. The door was locked.
"Damn," I said quietly.
"What is it?" she asked, looking over her shoulder at the crowd. She looked like she wanted to knock down the door to get away from them.
"It's locked and I don't have the key."
"Effie didn't give you one?" she whispered.
"No. Did she give one to you?"
"Yeah. Here…try mine," she sifted through the pockets of the elegant jacket she was wearing and fished out some keys.
"What makes you think they'll be the same?" I asked, eyeing her incredulously.
"Don't know. Just get the damn door open," she said through her teeth. Her eyes looked a bit wild, like she was going to snap at any moment.
I had no hope of it working, but as the key slid into the lock and the knob turned I was rewarded with a soft clicking sound and the door swung open. She made a sound in her throat like a little cry, and even though I was angry and hurt I couldn't help but feel sorry for her.
I turned back to the camera crews.
"Give us a minute, guys," I said, winking to impart a feeling of conspiracy, like we were trying to sneak away for a moment. Some of them looked mad and some of them looked touched, that us two kids wanted a few minutes alone together.
Katniss walked into the house and I followed and closed the door behind us. She kept her back turned to me, but I could tell that she was breathing heavily.
"You know that they are expecting you to go down in a minute to be presented with your own house," I said, keeping my voice even.
"I know," she gasped, lightly. "I don't know how I'll be able to do it. I'm exhausted. They are sucking the life out of me."
"Oh come on," I quipped, walking to the front of her, "you've survived worse. This is nothing."
She looked a bit exhausted and her face was drawn. She was still too thin from the Games, and dark circles had formed beneath her eyes. She looked so much older than she had just a few short months ago. And now, according to Haymitch, she had the weight of the Capitol's disapproval bearing down on her.
"For you it's nothing…for me it is hell," she whispered.
"Do you want me to go with you?"
Her eyes rose to meet mine, something that had been happening with less and less frequency over the past couple of days.
"You'd do that for me?"
"Of course," I said. "What are friends for?"
Her eyes lingered on mine for a moment, but then shot away. I saw uncertainty and guilt in them.
"Come on Katniss. We're in this together." I walked back to the door. I waited until she was by my side before opening it. We walked out together into the twinkling of camera flashes.
"I'll get you a copy of the key," she said quietly.
Both of our houses still opened with the same key. For some reason that fact always brought a smile to my face. That we had that kind of trust. And friendship.
A/N: These vignettes will not be a scene by scene retelling of Catching Fire, but rather an attempt to capture moments from Peeta's POV. I will try to post chronologically unless I get a great plot idea and have to back track but I'll try to make that clear. If anyone has ideas for scenes where they are interested in seeing things from Peeta's POV please feel free to share and I'll try it out.