Hello, everyone! Wow, I don't think I've been on FF for two years or so, and I've missed it! I had to relearn how to do all of this since it's been so long. I've previously done all HSM stories, but after reading the Hunger Games series, I was on a total high from it and wrote this right after. I wrote this story about a year or so ago in two weeks. I don't know what took me so long to post it on here. This story is what I would do if I was writing the fourth book, so if you haven't read the books or seen the movie and would still like to, I would NOT read this. This story has direct references and all that to the first three books.


Rekindling

Part One (The Watchers)

Chapter One

Peeta appeared in the hallway after coming through the front door. Haymitch was sitting next to me on the couch, drinking some kind of dark liquid as the kids played on the rug in front of the fireplace. They looked up when Peeta stumbled into view and the ice in Haymitch's glass clanked against the sides as he sent me a wondering glance at the sight of my husband. A dark streak of blood was slashed across Peeta's forehead and he gestured for me before stepping back into the hallway, out of sight from the kids.

"Kids, Uncle Haymitch is going to watch you for a little while, so stay here," I said, getting up from the couch.

Haymitch started to protest, saying something about not wanting to be alone with our mini replicas. He stayed put on the couch, though, once I sent him what I knew was a deathly stare.

"Why's Dad bleeding?" Rosemarie asked, temporarily stopping her production on the wall she was building with her brother's toys.

"You know how clumsy Dad can be," I said, bending down to brush her hair out of her face before leaving the room.

Peeta was standing in our bathroom when I made my way into our bedroom, closing the door behind me. I knew the kids were far enough away from the room not to hear us, but even that didn't keep me from whispering as I found him. The water swirling around in the sink was red with blood and Peeta's attempt to stop his head from bleeding wasn't working.

Our eyes met when he looked up into the mirror and he instantly started to reassure me that it was nothing.

"You don't have to worry," he said, grabbing a towel from the counter and pressing it against his head.

"I wasn't going to," I said, grabbing his hand from the towel so that I could get a better look at it. His eyes scanned my face after I gathered bandages and antiseptic from under the sink and started cleaning him up. "What happened?"

As I disinfected the scrap on his head, he didn't answer. Even when I not so carefully pulled a piece of bark from his skin, he didn't say a word.

"You're not going to tell me? Can't be that embarrassing."

"I'm just trying to figure out what I saw," Peeta finally said, thanking me too as I taped a clean white piece of gauze on his forehead.

"Well, tell me first when you've figured it out."

I didn't need to stick around, since his head was no longer a problem. I figured Haymitch was probably near a panic attack by now, definitely if one of the kids expected him to entertain them. I passed our bed, going for the door when he said my name.

"Katniss," he said quickly, now in the room. I stopped at the door and looked at him, seeing the almost tortured look on his face.

"What's going on?" I asked, walking back to him.

He brushed my bangs to one side and trailed his hand until it rested on my neck, right where he could feel my pulse. My eyes narrowed at him, seeing the quick rise and fall of his chest.

"I think I was being followed," he explained.

On his evergreen t-shirt were bits and pieces of forest ground, which I started to pick off of him.

"Who'd be following you back home? You were coming from the bakery, weren't you?"

Peeta stopped my hand with his other as I went to brush off a leaf from his chest. He squeezed it slightly.

"Katniss…"

"Spit it out, Peeta. Haymitch is probably a wreck since I left him with the kids."

"This is going to sound crazy, but I think…"

"You think…" I waved my hand in the air, trying to speed him up.

"I think I was being followed by a Peacekeeper."

I pushed away from him then, making sure that his hand resting on my neck fell first. The room spun slightly as a million and one things circled in my head. I let out a slight laugh, maybe thinking he was trying to make me crazy.

"Not funny, Peeta."

"Katniss," he said sternly. "I am not joking. I saw the outfit. It's hard to miss since its stark white."

"There are no more Peacekeepers, Peeta. For the past fifteen years there hasn't been a capitol."

He sent me a pitiful glance, which I instantly resented. Bits of his blonde hair were stuck together with sweat and I suddenly had an urge to shake an explanation out of him. Scream at him until he told me what was going on.

"What do you know?" I asked.

"A few months ago, when Gale came to visit from two… he said that there might be a few former Capitol citizens wanting to get their old lives back. You know, like the riches and power. He said that maybe since we're the ones who fought the government, they could target us."

My hands clasped into fists and I could feel myself shaking with anger.

"You've been keeping this from me?" I asked, almost spewing the words.

"I didn't want to worry you if there wasn't something to worry about," he said, stepping closer to me.

"And now there is?" I pulled my arm away from his grasp when he reached for me and put my hand up, not wanting him to come any closer to me.

His silence was my answer and the key to open the floodgates to my wrath.

"You promised me that you wouldn't lie to me ever again, Peeta. You lied to me for the last time in the second Games."

"I haven't been lying, Katniss."

Peeta shook his head, clearly thinking he was in the right.

"You kept something from me," I said quickly, tightening my arms over my chest. "Same thing."

"Gale told me not to tell you anything until he knew for sure… but tonight reminded me."

I was suddenly mad at Gale too, hating him for taking my husband aside and giving him information that should have been given to the both of us the second he got a whiff of danger.

"This can only mean one thing," I said, feeling the vomit starting to come up my throat at the thought.

"What?"

"We're back in them. The Games. Aren't we?" I asked.

He looked at me like I was crazy, shaking his head again.

"Of course not! President Snow is gone, Katniss. The Capitol is collapsed. We're not in danger of being shoved into a fishbowl of an arena."

"We can't know that for sure. Not when there are Peacekeepers following you home from work."

"Katniss, calm down. Everything is going to be okay."

"Don't tell me to calm down!" I shouted.

Peeta cringed at the volume of my voice. I knew the kids had to have heard me and that Haymitch was now probably being bombarded with questions, so I covered my mouth with my hands.

"I'm going to call Gale tonight, okay?" Peeta said, not daring to try to comfort me by stepping closer. "I'll see if he's willing to come out tomorrow to talk with us. As a precaution."

"A precaution," I repeated, glaring at him. "You should have told me, Peeta. You should have told me so that I wasn't so caught off guard. You know I hate feeling so vulnerable."

"You don't have to feel vulnerable," Peeta said, taking the slightest step forward.

"Peeta!" I writhed, almost boiling over completely. I had to blink excessively to keep my emotions from pouring out in the form of tears. "We have kids."

He slowly sank down in a rocking chair that rested next to the bed, his eyes on mine. I knew he was thinking about all the times we stayed up rocking our kids in that chair.

"Everything is different now," I said, feeling my voice crack. "We can't go off and fight battles anymore, Peeta. We're as stuck as our parents were when we went off to fight in the Games."

"Don't compare us to our parents, Katniss. That makes…"

He trailed off at the idea of our kids being in the position we once were when we were younger. Although they weren't even old enough to be left alone, they were the only things we had… and they were our enemies' targets if what he was saying was true.

"I'm going to talk to Gale," Peeta told me again, as if that made so much of a difference.

"What's he going to do? He's been in two for years."

I couldn't look at Peeta anymore rocking in that chair. I turned for the door and didn't let the pleading sound in Peeta's voice stop me from leaving. I knew I wasn't being fair to him, being mad and all about him keeping this secret from me. I'd probably do the same thing if I had gotten the news from Gale, but there was so much more at stake if what he said was happening. I could lose everything if Peacekeepers were after us. If I lost my family, I lost everything that mattered… and there wouldn't be a thing left to live for.

At midnight, I wasn't sleeping, too wide awake with uncertainty to let sleep take me. Although, I knew that with the reminder of our past, I would have dreamed of the arena and President Snow, maybe even about my own kids' names being drawn from that crystal reaping bowl by Effie's pale hands.

I didn't tell Haymitch a thing when I came back from patching Peeta up. Haymitch didn't ask either, which further emphasized his desire to know nothing about anything at all. Haymitch was getting to the point in his life, old now and always drunk, where he knew he wasn't going to be around much longer. And I knew from my constant visits with him that he wanted nothing more than to drink his way to a better place, although he didn't believe in better places anymore. Not even after seeing the Capitol taken down and living a decade and a half in peace. I guess Haymitch was the only one being realistic about our world.

Embers in the dying fireplace twinkled in the heaping pile of ash and charred wood. I was sitting in one of the kitchen chairs, which I had dragged into the living room so that I could sit with the front door in view while keeping the bedroom doors and kitchen in my sight as well.

I knew behind one of those doors were Peeta and the kids. He fell asleep with our daughter Rosemarie and son Rye tucked under his arms, their heads resting in the crock of his arms. He had a good grip on the both of them when I checked on them last, which was only ten minutes earlier. Clearly, even though he didn't want me to worry, he himself was unsure about what laid ahead.

When I heard the squeak of a floorboard I instantly sat up, tugging on the string of my bow, which I had removed from my bedroom closet the second Haymitch left the house. My body was still as I held my breath, concentrating.

"Don't shoot," Peeta whispered, grinning the slightest.

I lowered the bow onto my lap when he was in full view and sat back against the chair, not looking at him.

"You're really guarding the house with that thing?" Peeta asked, walking slowly over to me.

He glanced at my grip on the bow and a slight flash of recognition washed over his face. After a second, the look passed and his arms loosened from their tight cross over his chest. I knew he hated seeing me with the bow now that we were so many years away from the Games, and even now he still had moments when he wasn't sure if I was good or bad, the person he knew or the person the Capitol once told him I was.

"Just a precaution," I said sarcastically.

He knelt down on the floor next to me and then swung his legs out in front of him, leaning back on his hands.

"You should be with the kids," I said.

"You should be in bed," he said back, just as quietly.

"I couldn't sleep," I told him, heavily blinking because even though I wasn't in bed, I was so tired I could barely open my eyes back up each time I blinked.

"Everything's going to be fine," Peeta said for the hundredth time since he told me there may or may not be Capitol people running around looking like Peacekeepers.

"You know just as well as I do, that you have no way of ever knowing that."

He didn't say anything, but placed one of his hands over my hand that was gripped on my bow. My hand loosened slightly at his touch and I looked down at him, feeling my strength, which I'm usually so good at keeping, evaporate. Peeta was the only person who ever saw me completely lose my cool, my strength, my sanity.

"I won't let anything happen to this family," Peeta said, looking me right in the eyes as he said it. "No one is going to touch them, Katniss."

I bent over and kissed him for a long drawn out minute, letting my hand that wasn't holding the bow and arrow run over his shoulder. My heart felt as if a trackerjacker had just sunk its stinger right in the center of it, puncturing and ripping it apart because even though I knew Peeta would protect me and our kids with his life, we could only protect them as long as we had information of what was coming. But now, as we kissed in our barely lit family room, we knew nothing about what tomorrow would bring.

Peeta stood after we pulled apart and slid his arm under my knees, lifting me up from the chair. I kept a hold on my bow and arrow, which I dangled next to me while my other arm went around his neck.

"Time for you and that bow to take a rest," Peeta said to me, kissing the side of my forehead.

"The kids…" I started.

"Will be there in the morning," Peeta said, carrying me to our room.

He lay next to me once he sat me down on my side of the bed and held me even though I wouldn't let go of the bow. He didn't keep telling me everything would be okay as I cried, burying my face against his soft t-shirt so that the rest of the world was blocked out. He simply kept telling me how much he loved me and that nothing in this world would ever change that.


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Much love,

unknownbyhim22