Disclaimer: Nothing!

Author's note: I'm a little kinda exhausted, so I'm just going to update with nothing more than Catching Fire was AWESOME, Thank you guys for EVERYTHING (Reviews, follows, the whole nine yards!), and hopefully this chapter is a nice little treat.

My goal is to have Story of a scar updated by Xmas… fingers crossed!

Happy Readings!


June 18th, 2011

"I just don't think sitting in the bath tub is the solution to all of this." Clove's voice is set on soft mother mode. She's coaxing me. She's trying to soothe the emotional turmoil that is circulating my body.

It's not working.

"Baths are very relaxing." I retort. Maturity had packed its bags and had run out screaming.

"They are. However, I think it would be more relaxing if you weren't fully clothed and laying in the fetal position."

My eyes open so I'm staring at the white, shiny porcelain. Dammit, she knew me too well.

I had a thing for small spaces when my emotional capacity maxed out.

You'd be surprised how often and easily that happens.

"Kat, did you ask about his mother? Did you find out if they were together? Maybe he has the baby on weekends." She knows the answers to these questions. She knows. She thinks by repeating the questions to me I'll come to some grand realization and mosey my ass out of the tub.

But, no, no, not this time. This time, I will lay my happy ass in the tub and debate on the best method of coping. The best method, currently in my head, is whiskey.

"Clove, he has a baby. A baby!" I let out what Clove refers to as raptor noises, and roll around to face the other side of the tub. "No one told me! This is way bigger than when Cato got that job promotion and lied to me about it. Or when Seneca started dating Bryan and avoided telling me he was gay. Or when Jo slept with that guy, the guitarist, from my favorite local band. This, is, like, what the actual fuck? I'm going to be forty and alone."

"You literally skipped over twelve years of your life." Her soothing tone has all but disappeared. "You're going to have to talk to him. You'll be out with those girls for the whole day."

"I don't have to talk to fucking anyone. I'll be sullen for the day." A shadow blocks the light from spilling into the tub. I look up to see Finnick leaning over me.

"I'm just saying, Katniss, you should have talked to him." I can just see Clove with her head down, shaking it back and forth.

And, fine, finding out Peeta had a son and then quickly saying bye, while running like a bat out of hell from the park, probably wasn't one of my smoothest moves. Talk to him? Pf.

"Madge is waiting downstairs for you. Darla called my room." Finnick is giving me the most depressing look I have ever seen on his face. It's a mixture between pity and sympathy.

"Clove, Madge is apparently waiting for me downstairs." I state, giving Finnick a stink eye.

"Talk to Peeta." And with a click Clove is gone and I'm left with the phone still pressed to my ear.

"How did that go?" Finnick's look twists into a humorous one. He's hoping I was yelled at.

"It was fine." I roll so I'm facing the ceiling.

"Ask Madge about Wyatt." Finnick shrugs, putting a hand out for me to grab. I take it.

"I'm not asking anyone shit. They're just as much at fault here. There should have been a Facebook post, or an email, or a mass text. Please, a fucking birth announcement."

I climb out of the tub and look at my reflection. I was already dressed, so I simply smooth my hair down, adjusting my braid.

Finnick folds his arms behind me. "You'll be seeing him in less than a day. We're meeting you guys around seven o'clock."

"So?" I walk out of the bathroom, grabbing my bag and giant sunglasses. "I'll be fine Finnick." I spin around and give him a chaste kiss on the cheek. "Don't do anything stupid while you're with the guys."

He huffs. "Like what? Ask all the questions you're dying to know the answers too?"

I give him one last dirty look before closing the door behind me.


I pour another shot from the tall bottle that is sitting next to me on the counter. I can hear the gaggle of girls in the back corner, tipsily giggling about the dress fitting and the upcoming nuptials. The bartender, Jimmy, had been discreetly trying to check up on me, to make sure I didn't fall off the stool.

Little did he know a bottle of Whiskey was my favorite M.O.

There was no need to check up on me.

"A whole bottle, I'm having flashbacks to when Johanna started dating Kyle." I look over to Finnick. His eyes are slightly reddened around the edges.

"How much beer have you been drinking?"

"We started around one, so, a lot." He gives me a cheeky grin, his hand moving to my low back as he pushes himself onto the stool next to me. "Did you talk to the girls?"

I roll my eyes, gesturing to Jimmy for another shot glass. If by talk he means I was snide, rude, and had managed to snap at both Madge and Prim, then yes, I had talked to them.

"No. I have nothing to talk to them about." I look over to the corner; the gaggle has been joined by Gale, Thom, Rory, and a few other guys that I wasn't completely familiar with. "Where's Peeta?"

I mentally wince, aggravated that my tone came out as caring. As if they boys had left him on the boat in the middle of the lake. I have a mini-flashback to high school when Gale and Peeta use to butt heads a lot and my main mission in life was scolding Gale for being nasty to him.

"He wanted to check in with his mom." Finnick states, shrugging as he maneuvers his arm to grab the bottle from me. "I heard lots of fun stories while out to sea."

"Oh?" I grab the bottle back.

"I don't think they meant the stories to be about you, per say, but it seems that you were the center of these people's lives way back when."

My eyes fly up as I shake my head. "Fuck off, Finnick."

"No, I'm serious." His voice is low and steady. I sigh and turn so that we're facing each other. His hand immediately moves so that it's resting on my thigh.

To a normal person, it looks as if we're about to kiss, as if we're sharing a lover's moment. The truth of the matter, however, is this is a technic Finnick learned to keep me from shutting down. It was his way of forcing me to talk.

It was the physical embodiment of his verbal magic with his students.

"What do you want from me, Finnick? Yes, I was involved with a lot of aspects in everyone's life in high school. We all were. None of our stories contain less than four people from the bigger group picture. We graduated with a hundred and seven students. A hundred and seven. It was the biggest perk and biggest downfall of living in a town where everyone knows everyone." It was one of the reasons I wanted to live in a big city. "Were they at least good stories?"

We turn to the bar, take a shot, and pop our glasses back on to the smooth counter.

"They were the best of stories." Finnick smiles, his hand moving to my knee. "Peeta speaks very highly of you."

That... that does not shock me, despite everything I put him through.

"Peeta is a better person than anyone in this room, in this entire continent." I can feel the buzz of whiskey flittering through my veins.

"Hey." Finnick and I break eye contact as our bubble is popped by Peeta's voice.

"I was just telling Katniss here about how you caught almost as many fish as I did." Finnick's smile goes ten-watt.

"Finnick, here, seems to be an excellent fisher." Peeta jokes, trying his best to match Finnick's smile; and failing miserably.

"He spent his summers in Maine." My voice is guarded and I can see Finnick shoot me a look as Peeta's face falls ever so slightly. I clear my throat. "I'm surprised you came close, usually Finnick, he, um," I'm attempting to adjust my tone, to release the tension that seems to have wrapped around my body. But much like Peeta's failed attempt at smiling, I'm drowning in deep water. "He usually knocks everyone out of the water."

A moment of awkward silence passes between us.

"Ok, well, I'm going to take this," Finnick reaches over to grab the basically empty bottle of whiskey, "and go over there."

I watch, with a withered expression, as Finnick throws me a grin and thumbs up, and swaggers over to the large group.

"He's a pretty awesome guy." My ears perk and I have to do a full one-eighty on the bar stool to face Peeta. He's sitting against the bar, his eyes on the back shelf and his elbows up on the counter.

"Yeah, he is. My best friend from college, Cato, was roommates with Finnick our first year at the marketing agency. So, we were all always hanging out. When Cato moved out to live with his girlfriend on their own, I took his old room. It's pretty nice. Finnick comes from a lot of money, the apartment is gorgeous. We even have a spare room. Our friend Jo uses it a lot, when her roommates are pissing her off."

I crash into his blue eyes. My heart instantly begins pounding against my chest as my stomach does flips and flops. His lips are twisted in a lazy smile from when we were teenagers. It's lit up by the brightness of his eyes and the look of happiness that's taken over his face.

"What?" He chuckles and looks down at the bar. His eyebrows rise up into his forehead.

"I'm just surprised, that was a lot of little information into your New York World. I was sure I was going to have to sit here and pry."

I instantly sneer. "Yes, well, some of us aren't as lucky as you. I didn't think I would have to pry, at all, to find out you had a child."

I expect him to be taken aback by my tone. A wince. A look. Hell, I thought for sure he would stand up and just walk away from me.

What I didn't expect was the drop in his shoulders and the sigh that escaped his lips.

"I wanted to tell you the minute I found out Laura was pregnant." His eyes shift from bright blue to a stormy and clear ocean color. "She told me she was pregnant and, I swear to god, I picked up my phone, in front of her, and went to dial your number." He shook his head. "I mean, eight years had come and gone, and you were all I could think about the minute it left her lips."

He sighs and stretches his back, slightly.

"Madge," I stop and swallow the air that has suddenly dried my throat. "Madge told me yesterday that there was girl. A girl she thought you might have loved, liked, the way," I stop instantly.

"It was an accident." He clears his throat again. He looks back at the bottles on the shelf. He dips into a string of concentration, as if he's trying to memorize the dark bottle with faded labels and scratched caps. "I mean, we had no intentions of having a kid, we had only been dating for a year or so. She didn't want him, you know. She was going to have it taken care of." I see the muscles in his arm tense up. "I have full parental rights over Wyatt. She hasn't seen him since she gave birth."

I'm staring at him. Full on, body facing, eyes wide, staring at him.

"Seriously?" I feel, personally, I could do better than this line of comfort.

Peeta makes a face, a sarcastic smile. "True story."

Silence once again sits between us.

"Why didn't you call?" My voice is tiny. I try to listen for the group's laughs and giggles, but all I can hear is the rhythm of his breath and the slight grind of his teeth. A nasty habit from childhood.

A part of me is shocked that I can still recall these details.

"Eight years had come and gone." He repeats. He even says it as if it's a simple phrase. 'Oh, the sun is supposed to come out to today'; 'See the gray clouds? Looks like rain'.

I open my mouth only to close it. I want to tell him that I wanted to get the phone call. That I wanted to be there when he found this news out. I want to tell him a part of me, a deep, deep, seeded part, wanted to be the one that was telling him that I was pregnant with his son.

But the truth, well, the truth is that I would have probably let the unfamiliar number slip into voicemail. And when I had listened to the voicemail, I would have done the same mature thing I did when I found out about Wyatt.

I would have laid in the bathtub with a bottle of whiskey from our emergency stash.

The stash that we had created after failed relationships and rowdy students and the reasons we don't call home anymore.

"I'm sorry." It's half murmured.

"Me too." His fingers run through his hair. "What are you doing tomorrow?"

My eyes have drifted over to the group; they're a blur of silent laughter and chatter. "Huh?"

He chuckles, his hand moving to my thigh under the bar. I swing my head, my heart racing as my lazy smile is lingering on his lips.

"What are you doing tomorrow?"

"Uh," Sleeping? Drinking? Plotting my own suicide? I'm pretty sure lying in the bath tub seems reasonable. "I don't think anything. I think Finnick and I were just going to hang around town."

"Gale invited Finnick to go Turkey hunting with him and Thom tomorrow morning. My mother takes Wyatt to church, I was wondering if, maybe, we could go and do breakfast and," there's a plea in his eyes that cuts my chest. "Catch up?"

It feels like an eternity before I finally nod my head.

I have no idea what he thinks this is going to accomplish, but the deep seeded part of me, is actually a little excited.


June 19th, 2011

"Katniss?" I pop my head from the bathroom and stare at Peeta. He's standing in the middle of my room, his hands shoved into the pockets of his khakis. He's wearing a crisp white polo, a baby blue shirt peeking from under it. "Finnick let me in."

Of course he did.

"Give me two minutes." I pop my head back in and stare at my reflection. My hair is in a smooth braid. I went with the casual approach of jeans and a black tank top. My nails, thanks to a bridal shower at a salon, are a sleek deep purple.

I'm possibly prepared for the day.

You know, ignoring the fact I'm spending it with my ex, who was (is?), I don't know, the love of my life, and I just found out, less than forty-eight hours ago, has a son.

Fuck it, I'm calling Clove.

"I figured we'd head out to Meadow Creek."

And now, I'll be in a car with him for a good hour.

Peachy.

I walk out of the bathroom and smile. "Sounds good. I have a rent-a-car."

"I have a car, Kit-Kat." He laughs. I'm not sure if he realizes that he just called me my childhood nick-name, but I don't make any indication for it.

"You know," I grab my things, head out the door, Peeta on my heels. "We have two weeks to re-connect, is there a specific reason everyone is trying to fit their time in with me."

Peeta shrugs. "I'm at work all day Monday through Friday, and help out with the bakery at nights. This is really my only free time."

Thoughts of when he spends time with his son cross my mind, but are quickly wiped away as I see Darla smiling wider than I thought humanly possible at us.

"We'll see you later, Darla." Peeta tosses her a wink, his hand moving to my mid back as he opens the doors to the bed and breakfast.

"You kids have fun!" I look over my shoulder and shoot Darla a look. She ignores me.

I pop on Clove's overly large sunglasses and stand awkwardly as Peeta pulls his keys out. I look up at his face to see that his own sunglasses are now covering his eyes.

"After you." He smiles and gestures down the path towards the front parking.

Sitting, front and center, is a Toyota RAV-4. It looks like a family SUV. I half expect a tall and flawless woman to float out of it, Wyatt on her hip, and a smile that can shame the sun. I half expect her perfectly manicured hand to outstretch towards me with polite talk of how she's heard so much about me from Peeta and it's so wonderful to finally meet me.

Maturity might be the reason I agreed to this little rendezvous, but my grand delusions are going to be what destroys it.

"So, is your favorite color still green?" I'm not sure if the look of confusion is being properly displayed, what with the sunglasses and all, but I know there's confusion emulating off of my skin. "I figured we would start from the little stuff, and then move on to the big stuff. I mean, the last time we talked, talked, was on the train station. You were wearing a green jacket."

Was I?

"You were wearing a green jacket, because it was your favorite color."

He was being cheeky and relaxed. He was pretending years had not passed between us. But they had. And why was it so easy for him and not for me to be relaxed?

It used to be so easy to just relax and talk and be with each other.

"I think we should start with the big stuff, Peeta." My voice had taken a tone that was harsh, even to my own ears.

"Ok." All ease and relaxation had flown the coop. I needed to know about Laura and Wyatt, and, well Peeta. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything." My hands fold over my lap. I feel like a small child. I'm suddenly angry at myself. If I was in New York, I would be screaming and cussing at the top of my lungs at him in the middle of the sidewalk.

Or, well, not at the top of my lungs. I need to stop hanging around Johanna.

"Ok, well, after you left, I spent the first six months in a depression that could rival any of your bouts of crazy." I look over to see the truth etched in his face. "I wouldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I just kept waiting for your call, an email, anything. And, I mean, the emails stopped coming after a few months, and the fourth month was the worst." Guilt rises up to my throat like bile. "And then I started classes in the spring, at Pittsburg. I stayed around with Madge and Delly. I made new friends, I got out, I tried to forget about you, because, honestly I figured you had forgotten about me."

"I didn't." I interject, the conversation not going the way I may have wanted it to go.

"I know, Katniss, but I didn't know then. Prim was always telling Madge that you were trying so hard to make it away from home, so you could prove everyone wrong and be the amazing person you've always been, and I was so," he shakes his head. "I met Laura about three years ago. She was smart and funny and outgoing, unafraid of people and seizing the moment and just being free. The total opposite from you." I glare at him, but he digresses. "We danced around the maypole for months, and then it just, we were a couple."

A hatred for Laura begins to pulse through my arms and legs.

"And then she got pregnant, according to her doctor her birth control pill was probably faulty from some meds she was taking. I don't know. And then from the moment I begged her to keep the baby, she became distant and cold." He chuckles. "It seems to be the trend with women and these grandeur dreams of a family I have."

Well, that one hurt.

"I like the name Wyatt." I mumble.

"Yeah, I figured you would, it being your dad's middle name and all." Peeta makes a tick noise with his tongue.

"Why didn't you call, Peeta? Eight years or not. I mean, we were, we are, we were," I stop, mentally smacking myself.

"Because I honestly didn't think I was ever going to see you again, Katniss. You stopped calling and writing. Prim and your mom were making trips to New York. I surely had no idea you would come for the wedding, much less stay for two weeks."

"So you were going to keep this a secret, from me, forever?!" Our voices have taken up the space in the SVU.

"You left, Katniss!" Peeta growls, his hands tightening around the wheel. "Jesus Christ. I wanted to talk about this with you, and I had this all planned in my head, and then I just see you and it's like, we're back to being seventeen and fighting on moving to New York or California or whatever."

I throw myself as far as I can in the seat and cross my arms. I'm feeling less like a twenty-eight year old and more like a spoiled pre-teen.

We remain silent for the rest of the car ride.


Our waitress is either very oblivious or very professional, but she doesn't even bait an eyelash as she directs us to a table at the small café/diner in Meadow Creek.

I had spent the rest of the car ride texting Cato.

He thinks I'm a giant baby.

"How's work?" His tone is controlled, his shoulders slightly relaxed.

"It's good." I nod my head. "I'm the junior director on our ad campaigns. We're working on a deal with Barnes and Noble right now."

"Wow." He mimics my nod. "How did you get into marketing? I thought you were majoring in journalism."

"Cato got the job, and then got me a job. He's a producer. That man can sell coal to the wealthy without batting an eyelash." I smile slightly to myself. "I was kind of struggling at the job I had gotten after college and Cato pulled me out of the water, so to speak. What about you? Prim says that you're in accounting."

Peeta laughs. "I work at an accounting firm, but it's mostly just keeping their books straight. Rye mainly handles the bakery, so there was no point in us both working it. And with mom and dad always somewhere, it's not like they're really worried."

"Yeah, my mom said that after Rita found out the cancer had been beat, your parents traveled a lot more."

"Yeah, they just got back from island hopping." Peeta's smile is growing. "They lost their luggage in Canada about three months ago. They have some funny stories."

"That's good." The waitress comes over and places our drinks in front of us.

She gives us a giant smile as she takes our order, both burgers and fries. I watch as she walks away, winking to a guy a few tables from ours. When I turn back, I'm met with Peeta staring at me.

"I missed you." I'm taken aback by this.

"What?"

"I missed you. You think, wow, it's been years, I must be over his by now," he chuckles, his lazy smile peeking through. "But I saw you in front of the bakery and all these emotions just rammed into me like a train wreck."

"I missed you too." It takes a second but I realize that I'm talking.

Peeta's lazy smile comes into full circle and I have to stop myself from leaning across the table to kiss him.

I don't even know where the urge came from, but, obviously, old habits die hard.

I lean in my chair. Peeta had a way of easing tensions. I had almost forgotten. Our fights never lasted long and we never seemed to have a problem falling into our normal routine, despite tensions that may have been running high just moments earlier.

"Was there a guy in New York?" He looks innocent, his lips smacking together due to having just taken a sip of his water.

"There was not, no." I shrug at his incredulous look. "I was never really interested in anyone that was interested in me."

"Playing hard to get?" I see his cheeky banter has come back.

I try to give a coy smile and a nudge of a shrug.

There was no reason to discuss that there was only one guy my heart truly ever wanted and, well, I had fucked that up royally.


It's close to about one when we finally get back to Panem.

We had spent the time at the dinner and getting coffee talking about anything and everything that was trivial in our lives, from work, to our mothers, to our work friends, to my friends in New York, to Madge and Gale's wedding, to anything that wasn't about us or Laura or Wyatt.

I stared at the tiny little house that we had parked in front.

"I thought we were going to pick up Wyatt?"

"My mom texted that she had brought him here to nap." He gives me a smile as he throws open his car door.

"Where is here?" I delicately open the door just in case I refuse to get out.

"My house." He gives me a look as if I'm missing some obvious joke. "I just wanted to check in on them and then I'll drop you off."

"I think you wanted me to see your house." I mumble, he looks over his shoulder and I instantly know, that yes, he just wanted me to see his house.

We walk in and my eyes scan the foyer. There are framed drawings lighting the white walls with colors. His family, our friends, and Wyatt are brought to light by strokes of paint, color pencils, and even chalk.

My eyes catch a picture of Prim playing with Wyatt, a small frame hanging next to the key hook. It's done in pencil, the black and white poetic in the bright blue frame. I feel if I stare hard enough they'll come to life.

"I didn't know you still drew. Or well, worked on this stuff."

Peeta was an artist. The way he could draw was, well, it was masterful.

"I have a studio upstairs." He has disappeared into the kitchen.

"Oh, goodness, Katniss, look at you." I turn sharply to the narrow staircase. Rita Mellark is standing on the second to last step.

Her blonde hair is cut short. She looks older than I thought she would. Extra lines in her forehead, some deeper smile lines (not that she had ever smiled when we were younger), it was just a bunch of little things.

Grant you, Rita Mellark had, had, a harder life than some of the other women around her age in Panem.

"Hello, Rita, how are you?"

"Busy, busy!" She waves her hand as if it's all normal. "How was your travel home, dear?"

"It was good."

Rita and I have never really gotten along. You see, she thought I wasn't good enough for her son. Why was I not good enough? We may never know. But I know I was a true riff between her and Peeta for many, many years.

"How's Wyatt?" Peeta walks in, wearily eyeing us.

"Sleeping, my precious baby. Your Aunt Louis has made plans for me and your father for tomorrow. Now, you know how she is with the baby, I was hoping you could ask Darla to watch him."

"Darla is going to Madison with Aunt Carol and Madge." Peeta's voice drops. "What about Mark?"

"Mark is going to fishing with Thom and Gale, some crap about a bachelor week." Rita shakes her head. "Claire?"

"She has work in the morning." I state. Peeta and Rita look at him. I had no idea my mother watched Wyatt, but, I guess it takes a village.

I did, however, knew she had work.

"Mom, I already took off Friday and next Monday." Peeta's eyes get wide. "I guess Delly could watch him at the Inn? Rye is going to be busy with all the wedding crap."

"Finnick and I can watch him. We were just going to hang around until mom got off work, anyway." It takes my brain a full minute to catch up to the words that have just left my lips.

"You want to watch Wyatt? My eighteen month old son?" Peeta is looking at me as if I've grown another head.

I open my mouth to quickly rectify the situation, only to see Rita cross her arms and give me a look that brings back to 1999 and being a sophomore in high school.

"Yes, I can watch him. Jeez, Peeta, I'm twenty-eight years old. I think I can handle a toddler." I give him a confident look.

"Uh, ok." His tone does not suggest the same amount of confidence I'm trying to promote.

Pf. How hard could it be to take care of an eighteen month old?