A/N: You may (or may not) have noticed that I changed the cover art to a scene that I drew for Chapter 18. You can see a higher-res version at my tumblr, shewhodraws.
The next few chapters are all Everlark, but have faith, Gadge fans. Gale and Madge are central to the plot, so don't think I'm ignoring them now that they've learned how to exchange body fluids.
Thanks, as always, to my mighty betas, dandelionsunset and evilgrinstar.
I hope everybody has a wonderful Mother's Day!
Chapter 20—the apothecary's daughter
Katniss sang until Peeta was fully asleep. Then she sat and watched the sunrise while she thought about everything Peeta had said to her. The more she thought about it, the more confused she became. Finally, frustrated with her inability to come to any conclusion, she yanked off her boots and socks, stood up, grabbed her bow and quiver, and walked to the stream. If Peeta was going to sleep, she might as well gather some food.
She made sure Peeta was always within her line of sight. She doubted there were any large predators nearby, as they were still quite close to the fence. But it wouldn't do to have a Merchant kid die on her hands the first time she helped him commit a capital offense.
Katniss tubers weren't as abundant now as they would be mid-summer but there were still plenty of plants along the stream bed. She used a stick and her toes to dig in the mud until the tuber floated to the surface. She made sure to leave plenty to grow and harvest later.
As she wandered up and down both sides of the stream, she tried to sort out what Peeta had said to her.
Out of all the things she'd learned this morning, the only thing that really bothered her was that Peeta burned that bread on purpose because he had a crush on her. That made the beating as much her fault as it was Mrs. Mellark's. He insisted that she didn't owe him anything, but trading squirrels with Mr. Mellark didn't really count in Katniss' mind. She'd traded those squirrels for bread, not to repay Peeta.
Had Peeta's dad really been in love with her mom? She'd heard over the years that Rosemary Bay had been a beauty, but Katniss simply couldn't picture her mother as a teenager who dated other boys before she met Cal Everdeen. To Katniss, her parents were a single unit that had simply always been. When her father died, her mother died, too. Now all that was left of Rosemary and Cal Everdeen was much less than half of their previous whole.
Katniss also didn't understand some of Peeta's feelings. Well, she understood that he felt what he felt; she just she couldn't understand why.
Like this business with his mother. He didn't kill her. Yeah, he wanted to, but so what? Half of Twelve had wanted that evil bitch dead at one time or another and she hadn't kidney-punched any of those people with a rolling-pin.
Ripper, the one-armed purveyor of white liquor in the Hob, was one of those people. Last year, she told Katniss and Gale a story about Mrs. Mellark. Once, after an especially profitable week, she decided to treat herself to some bakery bread. When she walked into the bakery, though, Mrs. Mellark had screeched at her in front of a bakery full of customers. She called Ripper "Seamtrash." Ripper didn't much like it, but it wasn't anything she hadn't heard already that day.
But then Mrs. Mellark ordered her to leave, saying she "only sold to people with two hands."
"My god, was I angry," Ripper told them. "One a' these days, that woman's gonna piss off the wrong person and show up dead. Lemme tell you, no Peacekeeper's gonna bust a nut looking for who dunnit, neither. Some people just need killin'."
And then Ripper confessed else to Katniss, "Listen, girlie, I'm sorry to say as I was leavin', I yelled out, 'No wonder your husband's in love with somebody else.' Every person in there heard what I was talkin' about. Even her sons and husband." Ripper then gave Katniss a significant look.
At the time, Katniss hadn't understood that reference. She did now.
Katniss also didn't get why Peeta felt like a coward for not helping her more. He'd been a child, just like her. What did he think he was supposed to have done, live with both eyes always blackened?
As for his fear that he would be like his father, that was just plain ridiculous. The day Peeta Mellark stood by and did nothing while his own children were being beaten would be the day the world stopped spinning on its axis.
Katniss couldn't make heads or tails out of the whole crush thing. She had tried to set the record straight about a couple of things—that lynx wasn't exactly a power-kill, for example—but he was so set on finishing what he had to say that she didn't get the chance.
And that sketchbook. All those drawings made her feel kind of...exposed. Vulnerable. Had it been anybody else, she would have pulled out her knife. But Peeta had been so unflinchingly honest about it. Was that what he meant when he said he was a coward for not talking to her for all these years? That he could pour that much energy into drawing all of those scenes from Katniss' life but that he couldn't even say hello?
But far and away, the most confusing thing about the entire morning was how she had felt in Peeta's arms. Katniss had never thought of herself as one of those girls who wanted cuddles and kisses from a boy. She didn't want a boyfriend. She was never going to fall in love. Love made you weak. Love had taken her mother from her when she'd needed her most.
Yet, she'd spent quite a lot of time this morning with Peeta basically wrapped around her. Peeta had held her against his chest when she cried. He'd embraced her from behind while he showed her the sketchbook. At one point, he'd even put his hand on her cheek, and she'd thought he might kiss her. He hadn't—she was grateful for that, she wasn't anywhere close to ready yet—but she found that the thought didn't bug her like it should.
He kept giving her all these outs, too. He'd said that if she wanted him out of her life, she only had to say so. Why hadn't she? Why hadn't she pulled away? Katniss kept thinking about how it felt to be in his arms, and how Peeta thought himself a fool for wanting to take care of her. And that's when it hit her.
She'd felt safe. Peeta Mellark made her feel safe. And she had no idea why. She just knew it was true.
Katniss had gathered enough katniss roots for supper. She walked back to where Peeta was sleeping and sat down. She studied him while she put her socks and boots back on. She'd never noticed how long his eyelashes were, almost as long as a girl's.
Katniss looked up at the sun. Less than an hour had gone by. She would let Peeta sleep a little more, then wake him up if he wanted to sketch her arrows. She reached into the satchel and looked for the sketchbook. There were two of them, but she only took the one he'd shown already shown her. She was curious about the other one but she left it alone. If Peeta wanted her to see it, he'd let her know.
She looked through the sketchbook again. When Peeta had shown it to her earlier, Katniss had been in so much shock from seeing herself under that tree that she didn't process just how incredibly good the drawings were. No wonder Peeta decorated the cakes. Why hadn't she ever seen any of his artwork up at school? There were contests and classes each year and the students' works were displayed in the hallways. Peeta's work outclassed anything there.
Although Peeta certainly sketched her a lot, she was a little relieved to see that he had turned his talent to other subjects, as well. Some were day-in-the-life kinds of sketches from the bakery: Rye and Bannock with bags of flour on their shoulders, or Mr. Mellark frosting cupcakes. Stuff like that.
Others were chilling. Mr. Mellark, looking sad, was holding a cold compress to the bruised face of a little blond boy who was sitting on a bed. Another was the point of view of the artist, looking down at his own left arm, resting casually on a desk at school. There were papers and pencils scattered on the desk. A little bit of graffiti scratched into the desk was visible underneath one of the papers. His lower legs and feet, sneaker-clad, ankles crossed, stuck out from under the desk. The arm was swollen, and covered in bruises and burns.
The only sketch of Mrs. Mellark was of her standing at the back door of the bakery, screaming at somebody. It was the sketch immediately before the one with Katniss under their tree.
There was a sketch of the Reaping. She stared at that one for a long time. Based on the ages of the kids around him, this must be what Peeta saw at their first Reaping. Effie Trinket was standing at the microphone reading a slip of paper. Haymitch Abernathy was sprawled on a chair with a bottle in his hand. The Mayor was sitting down and looking at his toes. And all around were the backs of little boys' heads. Even looking at it, she could feel her heart race in anticipation and dread.
She flipped back to the picture of her with her father. It was amazing. She didn't have many photos of her father at home. He'd been gone for so long now that Katniss couldn't always recall his features with as much clarity as she could right after he'd died. Yet somehow, Peeta had captured Mr. Everdeen perfectly.
"You should keep that one," Peeta mumbled, sleepily. Katniss looked at him. She wondered how long he'd been awake, watching her.
"I'd love to, actually, but-"
"But you don't want to owe me," Peeta said flatly.
Katniss bit her lip and shook her head a little. Staring at the sketch, she could almost hear her father's voice again. She blinked back tears. "No," she replied. "No, it's not that. I'd willingly go into debt for this. I just don't know what seeing it would do to my mother.I really can't afford for her to check out on us again."
Katniss closed the sketchbook and put it back into Peeta's satchel. "Did you still want to look at the arrows?"
"I do. But I need a hand getting up first. I have to respond to, uh, nature's call."
Katniss took back the water skin and helped Peeta to his feet. He staggered a short ways off, then returned a couple of minutes later. She helped him walk back to the boulder, so he could lean against it again. She pulled out the arrows, and laid them out on top of the boulder. A couple of them needed new fletching, so she took out her knife and some of the turkey feathers she'd saved from yesterday.
He watched her for a minute or two as she removed the older feathers and started to trim and shape the new ones. Then he turned his attention to the rest of them. After a few minutes of looking at them from all angles, he began to draw in the second sketchbook.
As Peeta drew, he asked Katniss questions.
"What kind of feathers are you using?"
She pointed each one out. "These new ones here are wild turkey. That one you're holding is mockingjay. These two there," she indicated the arrows she was referring to, "are also mockingjay. The rest are grouse."
"Where do the metal tips come from?"
"The points? One of the traders in the hob uses a mold that my grandfather made a long time ago. You have to provide the metal, though. It doesn't take much, but decent metal is hard to find and its expensive. Mostly, I carve new shafts and keep re-using the points. I once found a bayonet. It was enough for four new points. Those arrows are in a different part of the woods, with the bow I usually use."
"When did you find a bayonet?"
"About two years ago? I'd shot a rabid dog, which nobody will buy, not even the tanner. Gale and I dug a pit to bury it in, and we found the bayonet while we were digging. I remember my father saying that there must have been a battle near here a long time ago, before the Dark Days, because he would sometimes find things like that."
"How many bows do you have?"
"Four. All made by my father or his father."
He was working fast, making rough sketches but they were still remarkable for all they lacked detail. When he was done, he handed the arrows back to her. Then he pointed to the game bag. "Did you hunt? Your bag was empty when I fell asleep."
"No," Katniss smiled. She pulled out the katniss tubers. "I found myself."
Peeta held his hand out and she gave him a couple. He flipped over a new page and sketched the tubers, as well as the flowers attached to the stem. "What do they taste like?" he asked.
"Bitter if they're raw, but once you bake or boil them, kind of like potatoes. Mrs. Hawthorne calls them 'duck potatoes.'"
She looked at him again as he sketched. He was just as pale as he had been earlier and even though it wasn't hot out, he was sweating. "Peeta, we need to get you back to my mother."
He just nodded and closed his sketchbook. Katniss gathered up the rest of their things. Peeta pushed himself off from the boulder, swayed a little and closed his eyes. For a moment, Katniss was worried he'd pass out. She couldn't put her arm around his waist without hurting him, so she gripped his forearms. "Peeta, look at me," she ordered. He opened his eyes. She leaned close, looked him straight in the eye and said, "If you make me haul your carcass all the way back to the Seam, I will never, ever, let you kiss me."
He let out a burst of laughter, which was the reaction she had hoped for. "You do know how to motivate me, Katniss."
The return trip was slow. Peeta was clearly in a lot of pain and needed her for support most of the way back. He was visibly weaker and slower than he had been on the trip out. When she returned her bow and arrows to their hiding place, he asked for a rest to catch his breath. Same thing after they got through the fence. By the time they got through the brush and were back on the school-grounds, Peeta was a sickly gray. She thought maybe talking to him would help.
"You know, I don't think I ever said so, but your drawings are beautiful. I had no idea you were so talented. How long have you been drawing?"
"Since I was old enough to hold a pencil."
"You're really good, Peeta. Do you ever take any of the art classes at school? I've never seen any of your work if you have."
"No. I've wanted to but Marigold felt it reflected poorly on the Mellarks."
"Wow. That's just...wow."
"Well, I will next semester," he told her. "I meant what I said earlier. I'm done hiding."
"And I meant what I said earlier. You were never a coward."
They slowly worked their way through the Seam. Katniss had never been so happy to see her home in her life. As she helped Peeta up the steps to her house, she called out for Prim and her mother. Prim and Rosemary took one look at Peeta and started clearing off the table. As they got the table ready for Peeta's examination, Rosemary asked Peeta what happened.
So he told her. Under Rosemary's questioning, he revealed some details that Katniss had not heard yet, including the fact that he'd had blood in his urine for the last several hours. Rosemary sent Peeta into the privy with a small glass bowl. "Urinate in this," she ordered, "and leave it on the shelf."
While Peeta was gone, Rosemary scolded her oldest daughter. "Katniss, why on earth did you take him with you this morning? If there is blood in his urine, he's in no shape for that sort of exertion. You should have brought him here immediately!"
Katniss felt tears in her eyes again. "I didn't know! If I had, I'd have brought him here!" She choked back a sob. She sure was crying a lot today.
Peeta staggered back into the kitchen and said, "Don't be angry at Katniss, Mrs. Everdeen. She actually urged me to come here more than once, but I insisted we go." Katniss couldn't believe he was trying to protect her. She felt horribly guilty.
Rosemary looked annoyed with both of them. Shaking her head, she ordered Peeta to strip down to his shorts and to sit on the table, while she went to inspect his urine specimen.
Katniss knelt down to untie Peeta's shoes and he kicked them off. She and Prim helped him stand back up so he could get his pants off. He started to unbutton his fly but then looked at Katniss, a little smile on his face, and quipped, "This is your cue to run screaming from the house." Prim snorted.
"Shut up, you two" Katniss mumbled. Secretly, she was glad to hear him joke around a little.
They got his pants off. His right knee was swollen and bruised. Katniss and Prim helped Peeta hoist himself onto the table. He grunted with the effort and had to rest against Katniss once he was settled. Then she and Prim helped him take off his shirt. The bruising was so deep and dark it almost looked black. It looked worse than it had a couple of hours earlier. Katniss felt her eyes well up with tears again.
"Peeta, I'm so sorry," she sniffled. "If I'd known how bad it was, I really would have brought you straight here."
"I know. That's why I didn't tell you."
Rosemary returned. Katniss could see from the look on her mother's face that she was in her healer-mode. Rosemary looked at Peeta's back, not touching it. She then announced, "Peeta, I'm sending Katniss to the bakery to get your father and bring him back here."
"Good," said Katniss. "I'm going to have a word with your parents while I'm there."
"No, you won't," said Rosemary. "I could send Prim, but I need her help. If you don't promise to mind your manners, I'll send Prim anyway. Then Peeta will have to wait for her to return before he can get comfortable."
Peeta was still leaning against Katniss for support. She looked at him to see if he had any opinion, but his eyes were closed and his face was pale. Prim came up and said, "It's all right, Katniss, I've got him."
Katniss nodded and let Prim take her place.
She stalked out of the house and ran to town. When Katniss got to the bakery, she knocked on the back door. After a few moments, Rye answered it. "Everdeen! What are you doing here? Isn't Peeta with you?"
"He's with my mother. She's treating him for his injuries and asked me to come get your father."
Katniss crossed her arms across her chest and did everything she could not to either cry or start raging at Rye. This wasn't Rye's fault.
Rye opened the door a little further for her and said, "Wait here, I'll go get my dad." He went up a staircase that Katniss assumed led to their living quarters.
Katniss looked around the spotless kitchen and silently hoped Mrs. Mellark would wander in and give Katniss a reason to break her promise to her mother. Instead, after a minute, Rye and Mr. Mellark came downstairs. They both grabbed their jackets and followed Katniss out the door.
"What happened to Peeta?" demanded Mr. Mellark.
"You know what happened. You were there," hissed Katniss. "Peeta's at my house, peeing buckets of blood, and he's in so much pain that he couldn't take off his shirt without me and Prim helping him."
They walked in silence for a few more minutes, then Mr. Mellark confessed, "He blames me for it, you know."
"Dad, you've never stopped her," said Rye.
"She never hit you boys when I was there. She always waited until I was gone!" Katniss couldn't stand how whiny Mr. Mellark sounded.
"Dad. You never stopped her. You stayed. You let her stay. You kept your mouth shut. You let it happen. We paid the price."
Mr. Mellark didn't say anything else after that. When they got back to the Everdeen home, Katniss was hit with the smell of turkey broth and medicinal herbs. Prim stood at the stove stirring something in a pot. Rosemary was grinding something in a mortar and pestle. Katniss glanced in the pot. The turkey giblets and some of the bones from last night's turkey were in the pot, along with some vegetables.
Peeta was lying on his stomach on the table, a sheet covering him from the waist down. Most of Peeta's back was covered in bruises. Peeta 's eyes were closed but he opened them when they walked in. His father patted his head. Peeta said, "Don't." His voice was cold, angry. Mr. Mellark dropped his hand and looked hurt, but didn't say anything.
Katniss walked up to Peeta, intending to give his hand a quick, reassuring squeeze, but Peeta held on, so she stood there holding his hand while her mother explained just exactly how much damage Marigold Mellark had done. Peeta looked like he had fallen asleep again.
"Well, the good news is none of his ribs are fully broken, although some of them are probably cracked. The bad news is that the blow to his lower back probably caused one of his lower ribs to bruise or maybe even puncture his kidney. All that walking around this morning made it worse. He needs rest and fluids, lots of both."
Rosemary kept talking to Farl in her clinical voice. Farl, Katniss noticed, couldn't look her mother in the eyes.
The adults decided that Peeta would stay there for the next two days. Mrs. Everdeen intended to keep Peeta sedated and on an all-liquid diet while she monitored his progress. If the blood levels in his urine decreased, he could go home and return to school, although he wouldn't be wrestling for a few weeks.
If the blood levels increased, well, "there aren't a lot of options available to us in this District." Katniss knew from experience that was her mother's way of saying that only the Capitol had the advanced medical treatment that would be needed to heal Peeta.
Katniss leaned over to Peeta and told him, "I'll be right back, I need to talk to Rye." Peeta nodded and gave her had a squeeze before letting it go.
Katniss pulled Rye outside. "I'm not rehearsing until Peeta's well enough to walk me home."
Rye had that thousand-yard-stare on his face, like he'd had on that first day when he and Peeta had joined Katniss and Madge at lunch. Was that really only last week?
Rye finally spoke. "I'll tell the guys and Madge we're not rehearsing at all tonight. I'll ask your mother if I can come by after dinner and just work with you. You need to work on those songs you don't like, anyway."
Katniss knew that Rye wasn't really worried about rehearsing. He was just looking for a way to keep an eye on his little brother.
Rye studied her for a minute. "He told you? About how he feels?"
Katniss nodded.
"What about you?"
"What about me?"
"How do you feel about him?"
Katniss got kind of defensive. This was really none of Rye's business. "I don't know, Rye, OK? I've known for three whole hours, two of which I've spent dealing with his injuries! I really haven't had time to process it!"
Rye put his hands up, "OK, Everdeen, fair enough. I'm just looking out for my kid brother."
"Well, somebody needs to," she retorted. She didn't actually blame Rye for Peeta's injuries, but this conversation was making her mad.
Rye leaned against the railing of her porch and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. For a moment, he looked so much like Peeta that her heart lurched. Then he scrubbed his face and crossed his arms across his chest. "If I'd known she was gonna ambush him like that, I would've never left the kitchen. When I got home, she bitched at me about the time. I blew her off and went to bed. I figured Peeta was in for a lecture, not a beating." He shook his head. "The older she gets, the meaner she becomes. When she finds out where he is..."
Katniss hadn't thought about that. The thought of an injured Peeta at the mercy of his bitter, jealous mother sent chills down her spine, but then she remembered what Peeta had told her, about how he had scared Rye.
"Peeta was beating himself up this morning for scaring you last night. I think that upset him a lot more than anything else," she informed him. "Were you scared?"
"I was. I've never seen him like that. Marigold said the wrong thing last night and it just...set him off. She didn't even say those things to upset Peeta, she was just trying to get a rise out of Dad."
Rye kicked the dirt and watched as a small cloud of coal dust settled on his shoes. "If he'd actually killed her, the whole District would have thrown him a fucking party. But Peeta would never forgive himself. He'd spend the rest of his life convinced that every awful, horrible thing that ever came out of that hag's mouth was true."
"What did she say, anyway? I mean, what set him off?"
"Everything that you were worried about people saying when I asked you to be our singer. Marigold just included your mother in the mix, too, because she was aiming for Dad."
Katniss felt sick to her stomach. She sat down on the porch steps and put her head on her knees. Rye sat down next to her.
"You know, Everdeen, when you told me that people were going to think the worst of you for joining the band, I thought you were overreacting. And you weren't. I'm really sorry about that. I don't want you to quit this band, but I sure won't blame you if you do."
Katniss thought about it. She didn't want to quit. That would be like a win for Marigold Mellark. Besides, she needed the money. Then she thought about Peeta.
"Would it be safer for Peeta at home if I quit?
"Our home has never been safe. So, no."
The more Katniss heard about the Mellark home, the sadder she became. She tried to imagine how she would feel if some kind of temporary insanity made her want to kill her own mother, or Prim. It was so foreign to her that she couldn't even contemplate it.
"Then I'm not quitting."
"Thanks, Katniss," Rye said. He stood up and gestured towards the house. "C'mon. Let's go ask your mom if we can serenade Peeta to sleep tonight." Katniss got up and followed him into the house.