There used to be five of them in their little family.
Mommy, Daddy, and their three blond, bouncing little boys. They were well fed, clean, law-abiding - the perfect town family. Or, at least, that was how they looked on the outside. Behind closed doors tempers were high, frustrations were plenty, and love was a precious luxury. But they were a family, more or less; and in District 12 family loyalty meant that even if you hated your mother or son or husband, you held fast to them.
And so they did.
Reaping morning was fresh and cold, but Payne tried to fend off the fear by serving a soft, still-warm loaf of bread to his family. Mattilde ate, of course, but said nothing. As much as she might have complained about her sons, even she wouldn't raise her voice at Peeta or Matza on reaping day.
The boys ate also in silence.
"Peeta Mellark." Who would have guessed it? Their youngest brother and son, gone. The odds should never have allowed for it, but through some cruel design the name was Peeta Mellark. The name Effie called. The name of the boy sent to die. The name on the tombstone the Capitol would provide.
Even Mattilde cried.
Challa shouted at her, telling her not to mourn a boy she'd never loved. She was shocked into silence, humbled by her oldest son's rage. He wouldn't dare to speak to his mother that way! But he did. He turned on Matza, haranguing him for not stepping up to take Peeta's place. It might not have been a fair accusation - after all, to become a tribute was to die - but he was far too angry to think of politeness. After all, they all knew Peeta's feelings for the Everdeen girl. It wasn't fair to let him face her, to kill her or die to let her live. But what could they do? Just keep moving. Keep moving on.
There used to be four of them in their little family.
They mourned him. They'd spent their days locked in their own rooms, crying in solitude. Crying together at meals, taking relief in the shared outpour of misery; but too proud to accept its refuge when they didn't have mealtime as an excuse. They spent their days at the television when it was required, seeing their brother profess a love they never thought would come to fruition. Seeing him painted and paraded and set on fire. Seeing him run for a knife as the gong shot.
Seeing him murder for the first time.
No one berated Mattilde for crying as he broke the neck of the boy from District 4. She may not have loved him as she should have, but it was still a shock to see the boy whose quiet warmth had been constant glue for their fragile dynamic so brutally end a life. It was a shock to see him band together with the Careers. By the time he stabbed the girl from District 8, they were almost numbed by the violent whiplash of Peeta's sudden savagery. Almost, but not quite.
Who was this boy?
Boy? Man? No one knew what to call him. He wasn't Peeta; that much they could agree on. But no one spoke of it or its implications. Peeta had killed. Peeta. If Peeta Mellark could kill, anyone could. Matza could. Payne could. The last façade of normalcy was as smashed and broken as District 4's neck. They were not a family. So what were they?
The Games ambled on.
That was how it felt - an amble. Their minds were not clear enough to really process the events of the Games, to feel them. It was a good thing, for if they had truly felt it, it would have driven each and every one of the four insane. But good can come out of pain, and sometimes even insanity. A bone snapped and wrongly healed had to be broken again to set properly. Their family had been a badly healed bone for many years. The beatings and arguments were hastily buried and never spoken of. Peeta's reaping snapped it cleanly into pieces. As he was away in the Capitol, the pieces began to heal.
Then he came back.
They should have been happy. They were, almost. But the happiness was buried under a deep, almost subconscious confusion. He was dead. Peeta was dead. He was! They had mourned him, after all. They had steeled themselves to the idea that the Mellarks would always be four. So how was he here?
The answer was that he wasn't, or at least not mostly.
Peeta had become a sort of half-entity. He was a ghost, or a memory. Something that maybe wasn't technically your brother or son, but at the same time was, beyond any argument. Peeta's place in their lives had been changed completely and try as they might, they could not bring it back.
There used to be four and a half of them.
They'd sit at the table, talking. Sometimes it was easy and friendly, but more often it was quiet and ever so slightly uncomfortable. Peeta no longer lived with them, of course. It was illegal for him to live anywhere but 'his' house. The house he'd been assigned by the Capitol was good and bugged like the rest of Victors' Village. So, they wanted Peeta to stay where they could make sure his every move was being recorded. So, Peeta never quite found his home back in the town. Challa was too angry and too confused. Peeta wasn't the same little brother he'd loved and joked with; and Matza was stalked by guilt.
And his parents… oh, his parents.
His mother wanted forgiveness, probably because he was now in public eye. If news broke that the mother of one of the beloved "star-crossed lovers" was abusive… well, she had reason to avoid it. His father was just so quiet. Of course, Payne had always been a quiet man, but it was worse now. Much worse. Some of the time he didn't even meet Peeta's eye. Peeta didn't know why; he couldn't get his father to open up enough to regret it.
Soon after that, however, it didn't matter.
They showed him the footage of his District as it burned. He saw his own house go up in flames. Only one of his brothers staggered out of the bakery, disfigured and on fire, but he collapsed almost immediately. He was probably dead long before the wall of their house collapsed and fell on him. They showed Peeta other footage, too: the Undersee's house surrounded by Peacekeepers on a suicide mission. They stood in a ring, guns pointed at every exit. They made sure the mayor and his family suffered, burning and screaming. Peeta saw Madge's face through her bedroom window, trying to scream, but collapsing in a fit of coughing and choking before smoke obscured the view. Peeta saw people blister and die in the streets. People he knew; his school friends, Challa's fiancée. But none of it really registered after his family's death.
Peeta Mellark was alone.
It didn't make sense. How could they be dead? They were the constants. He was the tribute, the victim, the one who was supposed to have disappeared a long time ago, letting Katniss come home. But, somehow, he remained while his family was gone. The only one.
There used to be one of him in his little family.
It was beginning to look like one was all he'd ever be. Peeta doubted he'd ever be able to fall in love again. After the Games, it felt like he'd been numbed in certain parts of his heart. He was pretty sure that ever learning to love another girl the way he'd loved Katniss was one of those parts. The only girl for him was, now more than ever, Katniss Everdeen. And Katniss wouldn't even leave her house.
And then one day, she did.
It wasn't like the sun had come out once the storm had ended. It wasn't like seeing a flower blooming after a harsh winter. By all rights, the hard part was over now. The Hunger Games were abolished. Snow and Coin had both been toppled. He was recovering from the hijacking. No, seeing her out again wasn't the signal that hard times were ending. It was more like maybe now he had a reason to be glad they'd ended.
Healing took a while.
It wasn't long after that that they began to sleep together again. It was the old, platonic way when they both just needed someone they knew wouldn't mind being woken by their midnight screams; whose screams might actually break them from their own nightmares. It was still a start though, and almost immediately Peeta's mind began to clear. There were still the fake memories he needed to sort through, but it was easier with her there. Everything came into sharper focus. He needed her.
He wasn't sure when exactly it was that Katniss began to need him, too.
He knew when she told him, of course, but somehow he doubted that was the exact moment. It felt like a waste, even if she had known only a few weeks or days or seconds before. Any miniscule amount of time was time they could have spent being in love. He wondered about it, but didn't ask her. Things were mending between them, quickly, but neither of them was strong enough yet to rub salt in old wounds and divisions between them. They needed the therapy of pretending to be perfectly happy before they could find the strength to face the idea that they weren't.
And then she took his last name.
That was the day that gave Peeta his soul back. He smiled again, as big and bright as before, and finally meant it. It was perfect. Of course, perfection never lasts long, but even when things were not so perfect Peeta never for a moment regretted her. Their little family was not always perfect, but it was always a gift.
There used to be two of them in their little family.
Peeta wanted children. He'd never really stopped; even in those painful years when healing was slow and filled with nightmares. He hadn't brought it up for a long time and when he did she vetoed the idea. Firmly. It was funny, but a year after their wedding - and even with the Hunger Games gone for good - she had still avoided sleeping with him for fear for their unborn children. He'd done his best not to mind. It was frustrating, of course, but his wife was a still-healing person. And if she wasn't ready it wasn't his place to pressure her.
When she finally said yes, when they finally came, he thought he would never be happier.
It had seemed like the final chapter in the dream he'd thought was impossible. He soon found out that he was wrong. Every time he woke up to the squeal of excited children leaping onto Mommy and Daddy's bed because they were just so excited to be with their parents it made his heart swell. Every time Prudence frowned over a math problem and he got to help her, it left a glow in his stomach. Every time Larq dragged him outside to see a stick or a rock or a snail, it hit him again how lucky he was. Despite the high price, Peeta Mellark was the luckiest man alive.
Of course, little children grow.
He gave his daughter away to Zayne at her toasting. The glow in her eyes reminded him so much of the feeling in his stomach whenever he looked at her, Larq, or Katniss. And Peeta realized that once again, he'd been wrong when he'd assumed the birth of his children had completed his happiness. It was that moment, when he saw that not only was he happy, but the rest of the world had happiness within their grasp as well. Life and love were not over yet. Not even close.
There used to be four of them in the little family.
They used to just be Mellarks. Now they are Mellarks, and Alvelaines, and Rockburroughs, and Glasses, all proudly claiming Katniss and Peeta Mellark as their predecessors. "Auntie Prue" looks on, her toothless mouth smiling. It is exactly as it should be. The war heroes were persecuted in their own time, but now they are properly revered.
It lets her smile, and it is for that smile that she is known.
She's very old, everyone knows. She can't be very comfortable, fragile and arthritic as she is, but she's the happiest woman in the world. As Prudence surveys a family that has changed and suffered as deeply as the society that gave it birth, she sees the world her parents fought for.
The world that is healed.