A/N
I revised Chapter 4 of this.
Chapter
The new victor indeed had a new niece nine months later, and that was hardly the only addition to our wonderful little families. Jacob had named his second child and first daughter Katniss, after one of the few woodland plants he loved even more than the primrose. Phillip and I hadn't thought of a middle name for Ceres, but 'Katniss Jacqueline' was his way of naming his daughter after her mother.
Angela's brother and sister-in-law had a new baby girl too, born soon after the Reaping chose who would die. Delly came into this world August 7th as several were leaving it. She wasn't the cutest little girl in the world; Phillip of course insisted that was our Ceres, but their Delly was still a good baby.
It was a nice time of year to have a birthday. Being an August 2nd girl with August 1st and 2nd nephews, I would know. Those highs counteracted the lows of the Games, so no wonder it was also a good time for weddings. Phillip was not the kind of man who needed help remembering anniversaries and birthdays, contrary to the jokes of some Townies, but being our 1st and 2nd had made my 24th and 25th been particularly sweet.
Oh, he was glad to 'check the oven', even more so than he had been when Ceres was in it. The few times I was too sick and tired to want Phillip's tender touch, I knew something was wrong. Yet when I was ready for my beloved, he made me feel even better than he usually did.
I often laid down at the foot of the bed while he stood up inside me. One such time the light coming through the window behind him caught him perfectly. That was an utterly beautiful sight, and it seemed like no coincidence that we both climaxed at that moment. He slid out of me quickly, which I oh so pleasantly contrasted to how slowly he had thrust in. Sitting next to me on the bed, he pulled me up towards the pillows. There was something oh so intoxicating about his strong yet gentle touch as he moved me towards the other end of the bed. "There's something Ceres is already too old for that I'll always be young enough to want," he said sweetly. I figured out the riddle, but he explained himself before I could reply. "These lovely things," he said while cradling one breast and playing with the nipple of the other.
"And I'll never tire of what you do with them," I answered just as sweetly before his skilled fingers and mouth made my words rather less coherent.
Maysilee would have a niece or nephew she'd never know, as her beloved twin sister and the husband thereof were expecting their first. Hopefully, the child would be a bright spot in Melody's life she hadn't really had since that fateful summer of 50 ADD.
Angela was apparently ready for her second, the first of Adam's own, with a due date of about two years after beloved baby Bridget. Daniel had made so many things possible for that family, including Angela's very relationship with Adam, so 'Daniel' made perfect sense as a boy's name. They weren't sure what nature name they'd pick if it was a girl, although they wouldn't use 'Primrose' in case Jacob and Jacqueline ended up having a second daughter. I still had the yellow flower Jacob picked me on the back page of my diary; it was drier and more crumbly now, but in a way still as beautiful as he had said it was. One time I had surreptitiously taken some clear wrapping paper from the bakery for that flower – not only to preserve it, but also to indirectly paste it to the last page.
Phillip was similarly confident about naming a son Peeta. Like 'Pan' or 'Pumpernickel', it was a bakery-themed 'P' name, but I liked this one better. This Mellark boy would have a better mother, and that wasn't any conceit of mine or puffery of a devoted husband, although Phillip was most definitely capable of the latter. It was a common sentiment around the Merchant Section that Priscilla Black Mellark was a witch, and her husband Paul had trouble dealing with her whether or not their sons were involved. It wasn't bad enough to get them sent to the community home – how could it be that bad? However, I wondered if they would grow up to prefer spending time with their aunt and uncle.
Gail Sandbar's Victory Tour came around, and she was what we had sadly come to expect from foreign victors – someone who had embraced the culture of arena brutality and was very off-putting as a result.
By then, Gale Hawthorne was already known as Thomas Hawthorne II. "Tommy!" the little boy kept pronouncing his name, as I was only a couple months away from having a little boy of my own.
"We all know how happy you are with the baker, and how much that Seam rogue loves his Jackie, so this is all in the past now, but maybe I should've stood up to your mother. Yet I took the road most traveled too," my father said to confess something genuinely shocking.
"It's probably good to admit that," I responded. "But I've decided to keep my focus on how good my second chance went, like how excited I am about our second child."
He liked his granddaughter well enough, but was downright excited about the grandson, the opposite of how things had gone with my mother. They certainly weren't getting any grandchildren through my sister. "People know Priscilla's attitude is no good – amongst other things, that's why she doesn't have a boyfriend," my father admitted to me privately. I knew this, but it was good to know he knew it. "I don't want to say why can't you be more like your sister?, though," he added.
Only a few days into spring, I went into labor. My particularly abused uterus and birth canal would confirm it was no tiny infant, although baby Peeta sure was healthy. He looked just like his father and would hopefully grow up to act much like the man as well. "You're going to be big and strong just like Daddy," Phillip cooed to put another positive spin on things. He was named after a baked good instead of a plant, but we just as surely had our spring flower.
Miles and Melody Undersee liked the letter M like Mellarks liked the letter P, and a few weeks later, the world had a Margaret in it. As summer dawned, the tough Daniel Everdeen found a good reason to cry holding the nephew named after him. I was surprised there weren't any sons or daughters of his own to help deliver yet – he was quite popular with the women of this district in addition to the Capitol sexual escapades the gossip media made him known for. Maybe he didn't want any of this own, although he was great around other peoples' kids instead of hating youngsters entirely.
As usual, we were one of the eleven districts to send two kids on a one-way trip to the Capitol. This year, it was District Three that only suffered half as much, as a Nathan outsmarted his competition.
The evil bastard who ran this country became a grandfather as the year drew to a close. So even President Snow, known for gorging himself on death, partook of life.