Wow, I just really want to thank everyone who has reviewed, alerted, or have favorited this story. When posting this I was so nervous about the reaction this would get, but you all are fantastic!
I would like to thank my lovely beta, Zacharoni, for checking this over for me, and for everlarkrecs for putting this story on their list!
Now, initially this entire story was going to be a one-shot, but it's now over 100 pages long and still not finished. So that threw things for a loop, and I've decided to just post in bigger chunks which is why scenes skip around a bit. I tried to show the differences with the lines, but I just thought I'd point that out.
Please tell me what you think, and enjoy!
~Terri
"I would have given anything to keep her little. They outgrow us so much faster than we outgrow them."
~Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper
Peeta would sneak out of his bedroom and into his sister's awaiting bed when Bara Mellark shut his door for the night. It was a ritual they had been doing for a few years now, ever since their father had told them it was time to make other friends, to branch outside of their little duo.
"You two never interact with other children," he had told them that night after Katniss' first day of school. "You need to make friends. This," he pointed between their clasped hands, "isn't healthy. We'll clear out the storage room down in the bakery, Katniss will get my room, and no more sleeping in the same bed. You're too big for that now." Katniss had started to tear up, the thought of Peeta not holding her in her sleep so frightening, and Peeta squeezed her hand in comfort. He wouldn't let anybody hurt her, not even their own father.
"Peeta, you're sleeping on the couch tonight," Bara instructed his children. "Katniss, you're sleeping in your own bed tonight. No more of this sleeping together business. It's time to be a big boy and girl." He had sent them off to bed thinking that was the last of this problem.
But it wasn't.
Katniss had a terrible nightmare that night, and Peeta had crawled into her bed, rubbing soothing circles into her back until she had calmed down, clinging to his nightshirt.
"Don't leave me, Peeta," she had whispered, fear slipping into her voice.
"I won't," he had promised, and he snuck into her room every night, keeping his promise, ever since.
She was awake when he came in, a candle lit by her nightstand so she could finish reading a chapter from her favorite book. Living in the Districts didn't provide much literature, but Katniss loved books on nature and Peeta had used half his birthday coins to buy her a fancy book on plants. It was such a nice book with its hard bound cover and fancily drawn pictures that both had wondered if it was straight from the Capital itself, a place full of mystery they used to muse over as toddlers.
"Nissy," he whined. "I don't want to read tonight." Peeta climbed into her bed and snuggled his cold feet under her covers. It was always warmer in her room than his. "Especially about boring plants."
She smiled but continued to read by the dim light. "I'm almost done with this chapter."
"We have to help Papa tomorrow. We have to be up early." He didn't say why they had to be up, and she was glad he didn't. Neither wanted to think of the dreadful Reaping anymore than they had to.
"Peeta Mellark," she snapped, using the tone that wretched Miss Brinx who helped Papa while they were at school used, "I am trying to read and you're bothering me. Don't make me kick your cold rear end out of my room."
He laughed and leaned over, giving her a kiss on the nose. "You wouldn't if you tried, dear sister," he mocked. "Who would you use as a pillow? Who would I steal the covers from? Madge Undersee?"
Katniss frowned, not liking his teasing now. "You're my brother which makes you mine." She didn't like sharing him with anyone.
He took the book from her lap and closed it, leaning over to put it on the nightstand and blow out the candle. "You need to learn how to share, Katniss. You are ten after all." She rolled her eyes and pulled him closer to cuddle under the blankets with.
They rested together- her head on his chest, listening to his steady heartbeat she found soothing, and his arms protecting her from any harm the night could bring. It was how they had always slept, how they had always protected each other from terrible dreams.
"Peeta?" Katniss whispered, surprising him for he thought she had fallen asleep.
"Yeah, Nissy?"
"Are you scared?"
He tried to figure out the best response to her question. Peeta could lie and tell her that he felt fine, maybe even throw in a joke about how he should be the one scared of the Reaping tomorrow instead of her, but that wasn't true. Peeta was petrified his name was going to be called. Every night for the past two weeks he'd woken in a puddle of sweat, paralyzed from his nightmares of being Reaped, and every morning he had to explain to his sister that everything was fine, that the sweat was from the early humidity outside, that she had nothing to worry about.
Twelve year olds should not have to worry about death.
"What's there to be scared of?" Peeta scoffed, deciding to lie to her instead. The truth was too painful to talk about, especially with Katniss whose steel grey eyes bore into his soul until he would cave to her every whim. Lying about his confidence gave him false hope, which was better than nothing.
"I know you're lying," she sighed, tracing imaginary patterns on his neck with her tiny index finger. "I always know when you lie to me." As good of a liar as he was, Peeta knew his little sister was his weakness. Damn her for knowing.
Peeta sighed as well, closing his eyes and imagining the Reaping ceremony tomorrow. "Yeah, I am scared." The ceremony was always the same, and he shuddered when he thought he heard his name being called. Katniss pulled him closer, pulled him out of his nightmare.
"If I could," she whispered into his chest, "I would hide you away so the Capital couldn't take you away from me. Ever." Smiling at how naive his sister pretended to be, Peeta asked where she would hide him. "I'd hide you in the woods, of course. No one would ever think to find a baker there."
"The woods?" he asked incredulously. "We've never been in the woods," Peeta laughed. "We'd get eaten by a wild bear!"
"Not if we shared the honey," she laughed along.
"We would both hide," Peeta assured her after a moment of thought. "We'd hide together."
"I like that," Katniss sighed, exhaustion starting to pull her under. "I don't know what I'd do without you," she muttered, already half asleep.
"I don't know what I'd do without you either, Nissy," he whispered into her hair. He couldn't fall asleep, his nerves were kicking into gear now, making him restless. Peering down at the warm blob that was his sister on his chest, Peeta wondered if it was at all possible to hide the two of them away from the world, where no one would ever find them, not even the Capital. It was a nice, impossible thought, but the thought lulled him into a dreamless sleep.
Sleep didn't last long, though, and both had nightmares of Peeta being Reaped and killed by Trackerjackers before the sun was up and the dreaded day had to begin.
When his name wasn't picked, they celebrated by eating a slice of yummy chocolate cake Papa had saved especially for them and life continued.
It wasn't easy being the only girl in the Mellark household.
There were things Katniss needed done that only a woman's touch could give, such as when Katniss started insisting she wanted her hair in braids like the other girls she saw in town. Bara had scratched his head, trying to evenly part his daughter's hair, and braided it into two messy braids, realizing braiding pastries was easier than hair. The first few tries were complete disasters with uneven braids, pieces of hair sticking this way and that, but he finally mastered it by the time she got to an age where she could do it herself.
Another thing was when it came to clothing. According to Peeta, their mother had always put Katniss in pretty dresses from when Cary Mellark was a girl, but when Katniss grew out of those pretty dresses, Bara Mellark had no clue what exactly to buy and what size to get. Girls had so many more options than boys and it was confusing to know what went with what.
Katniss often didn't wear clothes that fit nor matched when skipping on her way to school with Peeta.
These things weren't so bad, at least they weren't to Katniss, because she was grateful for her father's attempts, and Peeta gave her a few tips if anyone decided to make fun of her. These weren't the moments when Katniss wished that her mother was involved in her life instead of somewhere in the Seam with that coal miner, though.
No, it was when Katniss had to start acknowledging that boys and girls were different, and she was feeling things and going through things that Peeta had never had to go through.
Such as getting her period.
No one had ever explained to her the facts of life and what happened when puberty started, but one morning when she was getting dressed for her Saturday morning shift, Katniss saw red and brown drops lined in her underwear and started to panic. Blood meant pain and death, and surely it wasn't natural for this to happen, right?
She didn't know what to do.
"Katniss, are you okay in there?" Peeta asked, knocking on her bedroom door. Should she tell him? Would he know what was happening?
"Just a minute!" she shouted, shoving her ruined underwear to the bottom of her drawer. Katniss would worry about this later. Maybe she had played too roughly in a game and it was just an injury. Yes, that had to be it. Surely she wasn't dying, and this would never happen again.
But it did.
It stayed all week, and there was more blood than that morning, making Katniss want to cry, wondering if she was going to die. The thought of telling Peeta was tempting, but he would ask why she thought she was dying, and Katniss didn't know the answer to that just yet.
When the eighth day came around and she hesitantly changed into her school clothes, Katniss was pleased to see the light blue of her underwear, no stains. She wasn't dying, and that was a good thing because how would Peeta react to that news? He needed her.
When doing laundry that week, though, Peeta asked where all her underwear was. Katniss tried to lie and tell him that they were too little on her now, but he didn't believe her.
"You're still too little, Nissy," he teased, scrubbing one of Bara's shirts in the washing bin. "Come on, I have other things I need to get done after this. Give me your clothes."
She bit her lip and shook her head. "No. They're too little on me, Peeta. I need new ones."
"We can't afford new ones," her brother sighed, scrubbing harder on the grease stained shirt.
"But I'm growing," Katniss argued, already starting to feel bad about lying to her brother, and for trying to trick him into buying her new underwear so she wouldn't have to reveal her secret. "I need clothes."
Peeta sighed again, squeezing water out of the shirt and handing it to her to hang on the clothes line they had set up by the ovens. "I guess we'll have to talk to Papa about it," he muttered at last.
Smiling, Katniss leaned down on the stool she was standing on to reach the clothes line and gave him a peck on the cheek. "Thank you!"
Bara reluctantly agreed to spare a few coins to get her new underwear, and Katniss felt so guilty because those coins could have gone to something more deserving that she was extra kind to Papa for that entire month⎯ she even forbid Peeta from sleeping with her for a few nights before it became unbearable because she knew that would make Papa happy. She never enjoyed owing people, and she owed her father for buying her the underwear and because she had deceived him.
Katniss kept her secret, and Bara and Peeta remained oblivious of how she had almost died from whatever had happened to her last month.
Everything was fine again. Her life was back to how it was before this all happened.
Except it came back.
All this week Katniss had felt off. Peeta joked how she was becoming a lot more girly than she used to because the smallest things were setting her off such as Peeta's stupid teasing, and all she wanted to do was make crowns of flowers for him because the flowers were pretty and made her happy.
She also felt pain in her lower back, and wondered if she had bumped into something at all this week for this uncomfortable feeling that continued to persist until Katniss started to cry from the pain. Peeta had been so alarmed and she had been so angry because he had walked in her room when the door was closed. It made her so mad that he didn't respect her privacy.
The blood came soon after, and this time she knew she was dying.
There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Katniss Mellark was going to die from an unknown disease that caused her emotions to run crazy, her body to be in a lot of pain, and for the blood to slowly drain out of her until she was nothing more than a bag of skin and bones.
Maybe they would name the disease after her, she mused when the acceptance of her death came. The Katniss Mellark Disease had a nice sort of ring to it.
When the blood grew heavier, Katniss knew it was time to say goodbye, dig a hole in the backyard, and die.
She wrote a note to her father, telling him that she was now dead, and that she loved him and the yummy bread he made. Katniss explained that him and Peeta better be careful because she didn't know how contagious this disease was. She left him her bedroom so he wouldn't have to sleep in the bakery's storage room anymore, and told him where he could find the broken stirring bowl she had broken years ago. It was best to get all lies out of the way before she went.
Peeta's letter was harder to write because she was so bad when it came to her feelings, and the thought of him being alone made her extremely sad. She told him that she loved him, but if he wanted to die with her she had coughed on the paper so he would catch it. "I don't want you being lonely," she wrote. Katniss left him her plant book in case he did decide to live without her, though.
Later that afternoon, when Katniss was packing up her things, Peeta rushed into her room, not bothering to knock which annoyed her, and asked her what was going on.
"I'm dying," she replied simply, packing her thread bared quilt she'd had since she was an infant. Do dead people get to decide what they're buried with?
"What do you mean you're dying?" Peeta demanded. "What the hell does this stupid letter mean, anyway?" He threw the crumpled piece of paper onto the bed. What a waste, Katniss thought, frowning.
"It means I'm dying, and I want you to have my plant book if you want to live, too."
"Dying from what?" he spat. "Why is this the first I'm hearing about this?"
Looking down at her box of few belongings, Katniss chewed on her bottom lip, contemplating whether or not to show him the blood. He looked so worried, and Katniss didn't like seeing Peeta worry. She decided he deserved to see the cause of her death.
She walked over to her dresser and pulled out a pair of ruined underwear. "This is what."
He looked confused on why his sister just handed him a pair of her underwear, but closer inspection showed there was blood on it, and Peeta threw the disgusting undergarment onto her bed.
"Katniss," he bellowed, "that's disgusting! How long have those been in there?"
She was stunned. That was how he was going to handle the cause of her death? "I'm dying! Who cares how long they've been in there!"
"You ain't dying," he argued.
"Am so!"
"Are not!"
Their argument managed to grab Bara's attention from below and when the man went up to inspect on his children, he was shocked to see Katniss on top of Peeta, looking as though she was choking him. The boy grabbed both hands before she could strangle him, though, and they continued to wrestle.
"Kids," their father shouted, demanding to know what was wrong. "Have you forgotten we have customers downstairs? What are you two fighting about?"
Katniss kicked Peeta off her and stumbled over to her father.
"I'm dying, Papa," she weeped, clinging on to his apron.
"What? What's going on here?"
"Nissy found blood in her underwear," Peeta explained, pointing over to the cause of the fight. Bara peered down at his daughter's discarded underwear and a slow smile crept up on to his face before he started to laugh.
"Why are you laughing?" Katniss demanded, not liking how either boy in this house were treating her. "This isn't funny! I'm dying!"
"Oh, my little Pumpernickel," Bara laughed, picking up the eleven year old girl with ease. "You're not dying."
Katniss looked confused. "But I'm bleeding," she confessed embarrassingly.
Telling Peeta to go man the bakery, Bara sat his daughter down for a talk he had hoped would never come but now here it was. "Katniss," he started, wondering exactly what to say. "Katniss, you're a girl."
Her right eyebrow raised at that in judgment.
"What I mean is," Bara continued, wishing for the billionth time Cary had never left their family for reasons like this, "you're a girl and girls have different...ingredients than boys."
"Ingredients?"
"Yes, like how we don't add raisins to rye bread, or why we don't add chocolate chips to sugar cookies. Different ingredients." The girl still wasn't buying it. "Girls go through this thing called a...a..." For the life of him Bara couldn't remember what it was called. He patted his sweaty face with the sleeve of his shirt, feeling uncomfortable and out of place with this discussion. "Girls get a thing called a...red oven."
"What?" This conversation was making little sense to her. "A red oven?"
"Yes," her father continued with more confidence. "Now, this red oven is only ignited every month and that's why there's blood." He patted her knee, thinking he had covered everything she needed to know.
"But...why?" Katniss persisted, not pleased at all with her father's explanation. "Why does it come? Do all girls get this red oven? Will it come forever?" She had so many questions to ask, but Bara just flustered out of the room, telling her she needed to help him and Peeta down in the bakery.
She feared her father would never tell her, but later on after closing, while they were eating dinner, someone knocked on their door, and Bara opened it to the cruel Miss Francis Brinx. Katniss flinched out of reflex when the woman walked in, remembering when Francis had hit her after spilling the bag of flour in the bakery kitchen the other day, and Peeta whispered how she wouldn't dare hurt them with their father in the room.
"She's not going to hurt you."
"Why is that mean witch here?" Katniss snapped back when they saw their father take Francis' coat.
Peeta didn't get a chance to respond before Bara and Francis Brinx walked into the kitchen and took their seats at the table.
"So," Francis began, taking a sip of the soup they were eating, "Katniss, your father tells me something has happened."
Katniss hated the way the woman said her name, like it was something dirty and disgusting. "Something has," she muttered, squirming around in her chair.
"Speak up, girl. Can't hear a thing you're saying."
"Yes, Miss Brinx," Katniss said more clearly, through gritted teeth. "Yes, something has happened."
The woman nodded and took another sip of soup, complimenting Bara on his skills in the kitchen. The Mellark children looked at each other with unease because it was no secret Francis Brinx wanted into their family, and it was no secret she hated them both because years before they were born Francis Brinx and Cary Vincent were both sweethearts to Bara Mellark. But Cary's family had won his parents' affections with money and Francis Brinx was left for spinsterhood. The woman had it in for any of Cary Mellarks' children with a hard iron fist for she had managed to get a job at the bakery for when they were at school.
"I tried to tell her, Francis," Bara explained while they were finishing their meal. "I don't even know what it's called, and Cary would have known but-"
"Don't talk about that Seam whore in front of your children!" Francis exclaimed. She lowered her voice, but the children could still hear. "Especially since one of your children is one of those Seam bastards." Katniss nor Peeta knew what bastard meant, but it didn't sound like a compliment.
Bara cleared his throat and told Peeta that Katniss and Miss Brinx needed some alone time. Peeta looked reluctant to leave his sister alone with the woman they deemed a witch, but he had no choice. Giving one last squeeze to her hand, he left Katniss alone with her.
"How old are you?" Francis asked.
"Eleven," Katniss muttered, looking down at her bowl of half eaten soup. This woman stole her appetite.
"Speak up, girl," Francis snapped. "And your eyes need to be looking at me when you answer a question." She sniffed with distaste at the girl's poor manners.
Katniss sighed, wishing Peeta were here to at least hold her hand, but he wasn't and it was time she fought her own battles. "I'm eleven, Miss Brinx," she spoke up. "I turned eleven last May."
"Ever heard of a period?"
"The dot at the end of a sentence?" Why were they talking about grammar?
Francis rolled her eyes in annoyance at how naive Katniss was being. "No, you dolt. A period as in when you bleed." It had a name?
"Papa said it was called a red oven."
"Well, he was wrong, and a man. Men know nothing about women," she told the girl. "Nothing except doing bad things to them later on."
"Peeta's a boy, and he knows me pretty good."
The scowl deepened on Francis' face, and Katniss got the feeling the woman would rather be eaten by a pack of wild dogs than to be sitting across from her. Katniss couldn't quite blame her for the desire.
"You and your brother are sickening, and it doesn't count." Katniss didn't ask why Francis Brinx thought her and her brother's relationship was sickening. She knew she'd get yelled at if she did. "Boys are only ever after one thing, Katniss. Do you know what that is?"
Katniss thought about what Peeta and some of his other friends did when at their home. They would eat any scraps of leftovers that Bara would offer, and talked a lot about how hungry they were all the time. "Food?" she guessed.
Francis rolled her eyes again and told her to stop being such a smart-aleck. "Boys are after sex. Do you know what sex is?" Katniss shook her head. "It's how babies are made, and babies are made from an egg."
"Like a bird?"
"No," Francis gritted, tired of the girl's innocence. "Women have eggs; boys have semen. Together they make a baby, but when the egg passes women bleed."
She didn't know there were eggs inside her. How little were they? Were they big?
"Do boys bleed, too?"
"No, boys do not bleed because it's a woman's burden to carry. Now, take these." She pulled out a small bag full of rags ripped up into strips from the carpet bag she had carried with her to the table. Katniss stared into the bag, confused. "It's so you don't ruin your underwear," Francis explained. She took a rag out and explained to Katniss how she was to use the rags for her monthly burden.
The whole ordeal was uncomfortable, and Katniss was relieved when her father and brother came into the room to announce it was getting late and that Francis better be on her way.
"If you need my help with the girl again, Bara," Francis told their father, "please don't hesitate to fetch me."
"Thank you so much for doing this," Bara smiled, helping Francis into her coat.
"Of course," Francis replied stiffly, shoving her hands into her woolen gloves. "Even a Seam bastard deserves to know how her body works when her worthless mother is nowhere to be found. A girl needs a woman's guidance."
"Well, thank you," Bara said again, ignoring the insults. "I'll be sure to contact you if Katniss needs any more womanly help." She nodded her goodbyes toward the children and left.
Closing the door, Bara smiled down at his daughter. "Ah, my little Pumpernickel isn't so little anymore, now is she?" Peeta snickered at her darkened cheeks and she hit him out of embarrassment.
"I don't want to be a woman," Katniss argued, folding her arms across her chest in frustration. "I want to be a boy, like Peeta."
The boys laughed and Peeta threw his arm over her shoulders, giving them a gentle squeeze. "You're too pretty to be a boy, sis."
They didn't understand how upset this whole period thing was making her.
When Peeta came into her room for bed that night, Katniss was brushing her hair in the tiny mirror she kept by the window, thinking over everything that Miss Brinx had told her about what it meant to being a woman. It didn't sound fun at all.
"You're awfully quiet tonight," he commented, jumping onto her bed before situating himself in his normal spot against the wall. "Did Miss Brinx put a spell on you?" he teased when she didn't bite at his first comment.
Katniss stopped the comb and looked over at him in confusion. She wanted to tell him how maybe things were different now that she was considered a woman, but she didn't feel any different. Besides the uncomfortable feeling the rag was causing, Katniss felt more like herself than she had in weeks. Was she supposed to be different now? "Do you ever miss Mama?" she asked, looking back at her own reflection because this wasn't a topic they ever brought up.
There was an unspoken rule in their household that the mention of Cary Mellark was off limits. Whenever she had been brought up in past conversations, Bara would grow distant and sad, and neither Katniss nor Peeta wanted to see their father so upset. It was bad enough losing one parent; they didn't want to lose another and be sent to the Community Home. No, Cary Mellark was never discussed, but that didn't mean Katniss didn't think of her mother at times. Times when only a mother would know how to take care of her. "Do you?"
Peeta sat up, alert now, and watched her shadow from the candle light that lit her tiny room. He didn't know what to say. It was the one topic that brought him up speechless.
"Do you?" he countered, still watching as she plaited her hair.
"Sometimes."
He needed to touch her, to know she was there. "Let me do your hair, Nissy." She agreed and padded over to her bed, sitting Indian-style in front of him. Her hair was soft and it smelled like cinnamon and sugar. He loved her thick, dark locks. "When do you think about her?" he asked, brushing out a few snarls she had missed.
"I think about her when I wish I wasn't the only girl in our house." Biting her thumb nail, Katniss wondered if he would take it the wrong way. She didn't mean for it to sound ungrateful, but her house wasn't the same as Madge Undersee's or Delly Cartwright's. They had mothers who cared about them, who would never leave them. "I think about her a lot whenever Papa has to bring that mean ol' Francis Brinx over."
Peeta sadly nodded and started to split her hair apart for two braids. The candle light flickered around the room, cascading shadows everywhere, and the winter winds blew against the brick wall to the outside world. "I think you and Mama would have gotten along if she had stayed," he said at last. "At least from what I remember."
"Was she nice?" Katniss asked, trying to remember her mother from so many years ago. The only memory she could dig up, though, was of Katniss and Peeta crying under his covers the night she had left.
"She was," he smiled, thinking back to before their mother had went off the deep end and left their family behind her. "She would always sing these songs to me, and one time," Peeta laughed, "one time Papa was so mad at Mama, and I didn't think they were ever going to make up, but she started to sing this silly song she'd made up. Papa was so shocked he started to laugh until he knocked over a bowl of flour. The entire kitchen was covered with the white stuff, but it was okay because they had kissed and had made up for the time being."
Katniss processed his story and tried to imagine a time where there was a woman who looked just like Peeta, for everyone who had ever met him told him he looked exactly like Cary, dancing around and singing in their bakery. It was hard to imagine. Besides her and Peeta's laughter the bakery was often times a quiet place to think, bake, and sell.
"Was she beautiful?" His hands froze, and he leaned down to her ear and whispered if she could keep a secret. "What kind of secret?" It was a silly question to ask because they both knew she couldn't lie if someone ever asked, but she nodded enthusiastically. "I can keep a secret."
He got up with her candle and told her to follow him to his bedroom. "It's a secret," he whispered again as they tiptoed down the hall to his room, avoiding all the creaky floorboards that would surely alert their father from below.
His room was smaller than hers, a bit bigger than a closet, but Peeta set the candle down on his nightstand, told her to stay still, as he shimmied his way under his bed for the box he was looking for.
"Papa doesn't know I have this," he whispered excitedly when he revealed to her the small wooden box. "He'd probably want me to burn it if he ever found out."
She touched the rough, wooden lid in awe. "What's in it?" It had to be something important if Papa would want to destroy it.
Peeta lifted the lid and dumped out its contents. Pieces of paper, dried out flowers, pictures, a ring, and a bracelet fell out onto the floor. "It's all of the things Mama kept in her drawer," he smiled, looking through the few photos before finding the one he was looking for. "Here," he whispered, holding out the worn out, black and white picture of a young woman sitting by a tree. "That's Mama."
Katniss carefully took the photo, afraid if she touched it it would go up in flames, and studied the photo of the woman who abandoned their family when she was only three. Peeta did look like Cary Mellark, but Katniss could also see traces of Bara in him now that she saw the picture. "I wish I looked like her," she commented, tracing the edge of the photo with her index finger.
"Why?" Peeta asked, looking at the letters their parents wrote to each other when they were younger. "You're prettier than her."
"I look like a Seam brat," Katniss sighed, wishing for the millionth time their mother did not have that affair with the coal miner. "And everyone takes pity on us because 'poor Bara, having to take care of that child that's not even his,'" she quoted from the many rumors she'd heard throughout the years.
People in District 12 didn't have many things to do besides work grueling jobs, starve, and gossip, and they loved coming back to the age old gossip of the scandal Cary Mellark had caused by not only having an affair with a man from the Seam, but also having his child, leaving said child with her Merchant husband, and leaving her family to live her life in the Seam with her lover. It was so unheard of for a Merchant to move to the Seam, and the scandal Katniss brought along with it always kept the District 12 citizens gossiping. "People would like me better if I looked like the rest of the Merchants," she decided. People from town didn't like those from the Seam. People from the Seam didn't like those from town. Katniss didn't belong anywhere with her Seam look and Merchant lifestyle.
He grabbed her chin and made her look at him, a serious look set in his face. "Katniss Mellark," Peeta whispered harshly, making sure she understood, "don't you ever say something so stupid again. You are the prettiest girl I've ever known, and you can win at wrestling with any boy I know. If people don't like you because you look different then spit on them."
She wrinkled her nose in disgust, but pulled away from his grasp to get a better look at their mother's belongings, asking if he knew what they meant. Peeta dramatically read her the silly love notes their father had sent Cary and his super low voice made her laugh until he had to cover her mouth with his hand so they wouldn't get in trouble for staying up so late on a school night.
"Have you ever thought to go and find her?" Katniss asked, playing around with the pretty blue beads on the bracelet. "You know, in the Seam?"
"No," Peeta sighed, setting down the photo he was looking at. "She made her choice, and I guess there's no coming back once you're down there."
"Not even to just see her?" He shook his head and started to put the things back in the box, saying how it was time for bed. "Can I keep the picture?" she asked, holding the picture of their mother by the tree. "So I can talk to someone if I have girl problems?"
"Sure," Peeta smiled. "And you should keep this, too." He handed her back the bracelet she had been playing with.
"It's so pretty," Katniss murmured, running her fingers over the beads again.
"See this charm?" Peeta pointed out. She nodded, studying the golden bird under the dim light. "It's a Mockingjay," he explained. "It'll keep you safe." He put it on her wrist and kissed her hand.
"How?" The bracelet felt too pretty for her, too valuable for her to wear. The blue in the beads reminded her of Peeta's eyes, though, and that was comforting.
"The Mockingjays love to hear you sing," he smiled. "If you're ever lost, or in trouble, just sing, and someone will find you because of them. They'll want to sing because of you."
"Why did Mama have a Mockingjay charm?" she wondered aloud, rubbing the charm between her thumb and index finger.
"I think it was from a friend of hers," Peeta said offhandedly, already putting the box underneath his bed again. He pulled her back to her bedroom and they settled in for the night curled under the covers.
"Peeta?" Katniss breathed, tracing his face in the darkness.
"Hmm?" he muffled, half asleep already.
"I wish Mama were here."
"Mmm," he sighed, pulling her closer to him. She buried her face into his chest and tried to forget all thoughts of Cary Mellark, but it wasn't easy.
"I just wish," she sighed, "I just wish Mama cared enough to at least see us. To show that she still cares."
Peeta muttered something about being selfish under his breath, and Katniss thought about the word and how people used it. Was she being selfish for wanting her mother? No, that was ridiculous. All girls need a mother for love and protection. Even Francis Brinx had said that. No, it had to be Cary who was selfish. It was selfish to hurt such a wonderful man as Papa, Katniss thought. And it was selfish to abandon two young children for a silly man.
Yes, Katniss thought, Cary Mellark was selfish, and selfishness didn't settle well in the young girl's eyes.
Peeta didn't like sharing Katniss' attention with another boy. Why was his sister looking at boys anyway? She was eleven⎯ far too young to like anybody, he thought.
It took him a bit to notice the changes in his sister, the subtle differences she made to make room for this boy to enter her⎯no, their lives.
The first was when she kindly offered to take the Thursday morning and Sunday morning shifts at the bakery. Katniss hated the mornings despite the fact they had both been working at their father's bakery since before they could see over the counter. He thought it odd, but she had laughed at him when he asked about it and told him she wanted to be nice to Papa for once.
The second was Katniss started dressing differently. She tossed aside the pretty dresses Peeta loved seeing her in, stopped wearing her hair in two braids, opting for one braid now, and told her father she was a woman now, let her buy her own clothes. Peeta barely recognized his little sister when she paraded around in cargo pants, a long cotton shirt, and hunting boots.
What in the world did she need hunting boots for? She had never stepped foot near the forest in her life.
When she started insisting she was too big for her brother to sleep in her bed, Peeta knew something was obviously off. Katniss and him had been sleeping in the same bed for most of their lives. Something was wrong and Peeta didn't like it.
He decided to wake up early on Sunday with her, just to see if she had really wanted to help Papa out. When he came down, yawning because Sunday was the only day he ever got to sleep in, Katniss jumped in surprise.
"You're supposed to be sleeping."
"I wanted to help today," he smiled, pulling his apron off the hook. "We haven't spent much time together, and I miss you, Nissy."
Her smile was sad, and she took his offered hand. "I miss you, too." She pulled him closer to hug, and he knew she'd missed him desperately. She even breathed him in.
There's a knock on the door, interrupting their embrace, and Katniss pushed Peeta away before running to answer it.
Gale Hawthorne was standing at their doorstep, and it becomes all too clear who has captured his little sister's attention.
"Oh, Gale, these rabbits look wonderful!" Katniss gushed, holding one out to inspect. "You're such a good hunter."
"Thanks," the fourteen year old muttered. She invited him in so she could get the bread to trade, dragging a stunned Peeta along with her to the kitchen.
"Don't you even think about it, Peeta Mellark!" she snapped once they were in the kitchen.
"Think about what?" What in the world? Gale Hawthorne? Is that who had... "Do you like Gale Hawthorne?" he finally asked incredulously. His little sister liked a boy. That wasn't supposed to happen.
"I do," she snapped, wrapping two loaves of bread. "He's handsome, and nice once you get to know him, and funny, and he's been in the woods, Peeta. He's a hunter!" Her eyes lit up describing the boy and it made Peeta want to hurl.
"How do you even know him?"
"Papa's been trading with him for awhile," she explained offhandedly. "And I just started asking questions on hunting whenever he came for a trade." So that's why she insisted on the morning shifts Peeta begrudgingly realized. "He's a lot more open now than he was a few months ago."
"He's from the Seam," Peeta retorted bitterly, not even thinking. He was just so confused and upset and hungry. This wasn't how he wanted this to go.
"Excuse me?" Katniss asked, her voice getting low with anger. He knew he had crossed the line, and he knew he should apologize, especially since Peeta knew how terrible Katniss' anger was. He had rarely ever been on the receiving end of her anger, most times he was snickering at the poor person safely behind her, but he knew the signs and this was the first. "What did you say?"
"He's, he's from the Seam, Katniss. And he's a boy. He'll take advantage of you." This was a losing battle.
"Who cares if he's from the Seam!" she snapped. "He's truly brave. He goes out into the woods by himself, and he takes care of his family all by himself." Her admiration for this kid made him sick and jealous. "And..." she blushed, looking down at the bread, " And he understands." Katniss thought Peeta didn't know her?
"What's that supposed to mean? What does he understand that I don't?"
"You look like you belong here," Katniss seethed, trying to keep her anger to a whisper. "You don't have anyone talking about you behind your back because Papa belongs here and my birth dad doesn't. Sometimes, I don't feel comfortable being around two-faced people." She sniffed the air, showing she was done with this conversation, and took Gale's bread out to him.
"I'm not a two-faced person, Katniss Mellark!" he yelled, storming out to the front of the bakery. Gale looked rather uncomfortable as Katniss handed him his bread. "At least I don't change who I am for a boy!" His sister's face looked mortified.
"Good-bye, Gale," she squeaked out, giving the young man a tiny wave, embarrassment coursing through her veins. When the bell jingled, signaling Gale's departure, she let her fangs out. "I cannot believe you just did that!"
"I cannot believe you didn't deny it!"
"I'm growing up, Peeta," Katniss yelled back. "I am a big girl who can make her own decisions, and if I want to wear pants and hunt, then so be it!"
That threw him for a heartbreaking loop. "You hunt now?" he sneered, not believing her. "Since when?"
"Since I asked Gale three weeks ago, and it's a lot more fun than baking stupid bread all day!" She took her apron off and threw it on the ground. "And I like him better than all our Merchant friends because I know they tease me behind my back. I want to be with at least someone who gets me and doesn't treat me like a stupid doll!" She started toward the stairs to their home, but Peeta pulled her back.
"Do you like him better than me?"
Grey eyes glared into blue. "Yes," she said, her tone hard and unforgiving, "and I don't need you anymore. So leave me alone." With that Katniss took the stairs two at a time before entering their home above the bakery.
The shock from her confession killed him. His little sister didn't need him? She didn't want him there anymore? But they were the Mellarkable Duo. They had been joined to the hip since she could walk. They needed each other.
He hated Gale Hawthorne. He made Peeta have to share the one thing that he didn't want to share, and Gale stole it from him, too.
Katniss and Peeta didn't talk for two whole months.
The silence concerned their father at first, but he was pleased to see they were making friends outside of the other. It had taken seven whole years but both were finally making their own friends. Bara couldn't have been more pleased when he saw Katniss bringing home girls such as Madge Undersee from school or spending time with that Gale Hawthorne kid he often traded meat with. He was thrilled when Peeta would tell him he was going to go play sports with the boys in the Meadow. This was healthy. This was what children were supposed to do.
They were finally learning to be independent after all this time.
Katniss had told him she didn't need him anymore, and though it broke his heart, Peeta had to agree because what else could he do? He left her alone and would bite his tongue when he noticed cuts and scrapes on her from those dreaded woods. What if she got hurt and that stupid Gale Hawthorne abandoned her? Or attacked by one of those wild animals they were always dragging back into the District? What if Katniss got lost? There were so many what-ifs he worried about when he knew she was out there, and she seemed to go out there every day. He didn't want to think about what the two of them could possibly be doing besides hunting, but Gale Hawthorne was a boy who was starting to get a reputation at school. During class, when their teacher was busy, a lot of the girls would whisper and giggle about what Gale Hawthorne had taught them at the slag heap and it was never innocent. Peeta would be forced to listen to them, looking over at the Seam boy in question who sat near the window, and wondered if he had ever dared touch Katniss like those girls had been touched.
The thought made him want to punch the boy, but he wasn't stupid. Gale would probably beat him since he had four whole inches on Peeta, and Katniss would probably hate him even more.
This sucked.
Peeta wished he was brave enough to go into the woods, but he wasn't. He wished he could tell his sister that he would go with her instead, to keep an eye on her, but he couldn't. This new Katniss was different from his little sister. She would yell at him about how he was babying her and tell him that Gale was a better person than Gale understood her better because they looked alike. That Gale was Mr. Perfect who could do no harm.
Anything Peeta thought to argue would be turned down in a heartbeat.
He hated his sister for putting him through all this.
Sometimes he wondered what life would have been like if Mama had taken Katniss with her to the Seam, but the thought of not having his little sister by him at all broke his heart even more and he would go to sleep with tears in his eyes, feeling guilty for even thinking such things.
It was the night before the Reaping, and feeling guilty for thinking of Mama taking Katniss out of his life so he wouldn't have to feel this pain once more, Peeta tried to go to sleep. He tried not to think of how his name was now in the bowl three times, or that this was Katniss' first Reaping. In the past she would always cuddle and tell him her plans if he was ever Reaped, taking him to safety. She would kiss his nose and tell him Papa had saved a piece of yummy dessert for afterwards, and it would comfort him.
He missed that comfort.
He missed holding her at night.
He missed her.
Stupid Gale Hawthorne.
A soft knock was heard on his door, and Peeta jumped up in shock.
"Peeta?" Katniss' voice cracked, tears choking her. "Peeta, can I come in?" With no response she opened the door. "I'm scared."
Even though he was still mad at her, he didn't want her to be upset. He was still her big brother, after all, and even though she was a thorn in his side right now, she needed him. Lifting up a bit of his covers, he patted for her to join him. Bare feet smacking his wooden floor, she scampered over to his bed, climbed in, and clung to him. It all felt so natural. So right. It was if Gale Hawthorne didn't exist, and that these past two months of fighting had never happened. None of their silly arguments mattered now because they were safe in each other's arms, and that's what mattered.
"Shh," Peeta soothed, rubbing circles into her back to calm her down. "You're name's only in there once, Katniss. You have nothing to worry about."
"Josie Rander was only twelve when she got picked last year," his sister sobbed, shaking in his arms. "She only had one name in."
Trying to make light of the situation, Peeta joked, "Well Josie Rander didn't have a hiding plan like someone I know."
"Can you just hold me?"
"Of course." And he did
