author's note: So sorry for the long wait once again! I've kind of gotten back into the groove of this story, mostly thanks to this particular chapter which is a much needed interlude before we head into the last few chapters of this story! Thanks to everyone who has hung in with this story, you have no idea how much I appreciate all of the awesome, funny, and often touching reviews and PM's I've received since I started posting it. Enjoy!
Interlude 10
These bruises make for better conversation
Loses the vibe that separates
It's good to let you in again
You're not alone in how you've been
Everybody loses, everybody loses, everybody loses
We all got bruises, We all got bruises, We all got bruises
Train "Bruises"
Every parent loves their children, but they also understand the value to be found in the peace and quiet that comes from a good hour or two of time alone without said children.
I often look forward to my unaccompanied trips to pick Peeta up from work on the nights we eat dinner at my mother's house. This afternoon I'm particularly happy to be alone with my thoughts after the emotionally draining, but healing talk I'd had with my mom as the children napped earlier today.
I can't help but smile as I think of the extra tight hug she and I exchanged when I left a few minutes ago, suddenly leaps and bounds more comfortable doing so now that I know the true story behind what I'd unwittingly assumed to be her selfish response to my father's death when I was 11 years old.
As I drive the familiar route back to the town in District 12 toward the bakery Peeta and I have owned together for two decades, I think of the look on my daughter's face upon finding her grandmother and I crying and holding each other in a fierce, loving embrace. It saddens me that it startled her so to see us that way for the first time in her young life, but also gives me hope that she is just young enough that perhaps years from now she won't remember a time when we acted any other way with each other.
Finn is too young yet to have ever noticed the rift that existed between us, but Bow, in the quietly observant way that she's inherited from Peeta, seemed to always understand that there was something about the mother-daughter relationship she had with me that was warmer and more authentic than the one I shared with her grandmother.
My smile widens when I think about how I'm about to share with Bow's equally observant father that he no longer has to play referee to the sometimes passive-aggressive exchanges he's grown accustomed to over the years when we've spent time with my mom. It widens just a little more when a warmth that comes from feeling like another little piece of the girl I was before the war, the Games, and the death of my father has been returned to me spreads through my body in a word most rare in my 30 plus years, but welcome and treasured all the same whenever it arrives; Hope.
Hope. The only emotion stronger and more dangerous to a dictator like President Snow's power than fear. I finally feel like I have enough of it to threaten the often times disturbing and painful doubts that have plagued me for most of my life. Ever since I made the fateful decision to hold out a handful of berries that would begin to crumble 75 years of undeserved punishment and slave labor. A decision I now know I made not only because I couldn't face my District if I killed the other tribute who'd come with me from there, but because I wouldn't let the Capitol force me to kill the boy who had thrown me a loaf of bread and given me hope when I'd thought all was lost.
I have suffered for these doubts about whether that choice had been worth all of the lives lost and families destroyed in the rebellion and war that followed. Doubts about whether I could live up to such a sacrifice and salvage something resembling a life in its wake. Doubts that asked if I was worthy of the respect and loyalty Panem showed me when I inadvertently became their mockingjay. Ones that questioned my rights to the quiet life of solitude I now lead in the aftermath of so much blood shed and so many mouths silenced forever with my name as the last one to pass their lips.
With a glance in the rearview mirror, my eyes fall on the green and blue beaded necklace Bow made for my birthday a few months ago and the mold of my son's pudgy little hand preserved in now hardened dough that had been his gift to me, hanging side by side just beneath the mirror. I reach out and touch the little ornaments dangling a few inches from the car's windshield and finally allow the piece of that girl I once was slide eagerly back into place inside my heart.
As a parent I'm regularly consumed by so many fears about whether I'm doing the right thing by my children. I worry that I'm too strict, too relaxed, whether they are eating right, getting enough sleep, if we're teaching them to be good people, if they'll be prepared enough for adulthood. There are so many, many things to worry about when you're raising a child, but the one fear I've never had to concern myself with is that they might be sent into the Hunger Games to die. Whether I'm comfortable with the idea of it or not, it is a fact that both Peeta and I are largely responsible for the eradication of this fear. For that alone I know that we are worthy of the lives we worked so hard to rebuild, and of the children born from the love that grew between us as we did it.
With a deep breath, I square my shoulders and drive on to pick up the man who first began helping me put that particular puzzle back together.
Peeta is surprised and to be honest, more touched than I had expected him to be as I recount the story of my parent's swift and passionate courtship, the young aunt I was named for whose death brought them together, and how her parents disowned her for falling on love with a boy from the Seam.
When I tell him the story she'd shared about mothers taking the lives of their children during a time in history when a dictator who rivaled the treachery of President Snow meant to exterminate a particular type of people from the earth, Peeta looks off out the passenger window of the car and shakes his head.
"Do you think it's possible, Katniss? Do you think we'll ever get things right and run out of reasons to kill each other?" he asks with a quiet desperation that makes me reach across the seat and grasp his hand tightly.
"I don't know…" I answer honestly after a few moments. One of the most important things I've learned over the years from my therapy phone calls with Dr. Aurelius is to always be honest with Peeta, even if the truth hurts. During the star-crossed lovers ruse we played in our Games, and throughout his torture in the Capitol, he was treated to enough misinformation to last a lifetime and it's important to try not to give him any reason to doubt my word again if I can help it.
Being a married man himself, Dr. Aurelius understands that there are moments in the course of a marriage when honesty might not always be the best policy for the sake of sparing your spouse's feelings, but he's assured me that even if it hurts, Peeta will fair much better if I can share as much truth with him as possible to aid his rehabilitation.
So when he asks me with that tone of exhausted anxiety if I've ever thought things could change for good, I give him an honest answer, but follow it up with a declaration of hope just as truthful.
"….but when I look at Bow and Finn and all of the children that come through the bakery…" I squeeze Peeta's hand to get his attention and he turns desperate eyes on me. We pull up and park outside of my mother's house just as the front door swings open and our beautiful, happy babies charge down the steps to greet us.
"I'm filled with a LOT of hope…" I say and smile as Bow jumps up and down outside of Peeta's door and I hear Finn chanting for his 'Dadda' over the sound of little hands trying to work the outer handle of the car door. "buckets, and buckets of hope…" I chuckle as the children's insistence that we pay attention to them groews louder. I lean over the seat to kiss my husband before I will have to surrender him to the tiny tyrants on the driveway.
Home safe now and lying in bed back at our own home together, Bow and Finnick are tucked into their own beds sleeping off a day's worth of adventures at Maw-maw's house. Peeta idly runs the fingers of one hand through my hair where my head rests in its usual place over his heart.
The windows are open wide and the familiar sounds of the summer crickets chirping has lulled us both into a light, carefree doze where the events of the last few days and the stress of Peeta's episode seem a long forgotten memory.
Even if they aren't, it is enough for both of us right now that they feel that way and we can be for a few precious moments not the girl on fire or the boy with the bread, but just Peeta and Katniss with two full-bellied, exhausted children sleeping peacefully down the hall.
I'm so comfortable, that I think for a moment about sharing one of Peeta's birthday presents with him a few days early but he interrupts the thought with a continuation of our conversation from earlier in the car and the notion is gone from my head just as quickly as it came.
"You know, babe…their story is a lot like ours if you think about it." He murmurs still in that dreamy place between sleep and waking and I grunt a short noise of agreement. It is all I can manage as the weight of rest I still haven't quite caught up on drags me down deeper and deeper with the promise of a good night's sleep beside my man.
I consciously cuddle closer to him and turn my head just a little so that my nose brushes over his chest and reacquaint myself with the feel of his skin and the mix of smells that are 'Peeta' to me. It is part of the ritual we go through each time he emerges from behind the door with the red x and while it is sad in so many ways to have to readjust to being together again, it is also somewhat special and a bit like falling in love with him over and over again as well.
If there is one thing Dr. Aurelius has worked tirelessly to hammer into my cynically-minded brain over the years, it is that if 'one looks hard enough, there is frequently a silver lining to be found around even the darkest raincloud'. He'd mention this little mantra at least a few times a month during our phone sessions and when I shared it with Peeta and Haymitch, the former nodded, considering this fluffy declaration almost immediately, the latter had called outright 'bullshit' on it, and I had shrugged uncomfortably and mumbled noncommittally that it was certainly a nicer way to look at things.
"I'm serious, it's kinda freaky actually…" Peeta says more clearly and squirms against me in response to my cuddling, moving me around enough to rouse me fully awake. I prop myself up on one elbow so that I can look down into his face and raise my eyebrows in invitation, letting him know that I'm waiting oh so eagerly for whatever he is about to say.
I immediately miss the touch of his hand in my hair and Peeta grins boyishly when he can tell I'm in too grouchy a mood from being woken to humor him for long. He wastes no time in jumping right back into the train of thought that has kept him from falling asleep on this peaceful summer night.
"One of them from the Seam, one from Town…" He's smiling up until this last word and I notice a small frown form between his eyes as he reaches up to run a thumb soothingly along my jaw line and up to trace the shell of my right ear. "…brought together after the death of a younger sibling…" I frown myself and let my eyes fall away from his to rest on a spot on the pillow beside his head so that I don't have to see the sadness that will always be between us when Prim's death is mentioned.
Peeta's hand slides down to cup my cheek and he turns my head gently so that I am looking in his eyes once again. I slide over a little more so that I am stretched out on top of him with our stomachs touching and my toes brush against the line of coarse leg hair that ends just above the ankle of his good leg which I am straddling.
At once, I am comforted by the steady calm Peeta brings to everything that I see looking into the blue depths of his eyes. No matter the situation, Peeta seems to be able to always know what best to do. An oven full of burnt pastries just before the morning rush begins in the bakery, a screaming toddler protesting the injustice of a night with no dessert, or a frightened wife woken in the dark by memories of the past. The one exception being that he remains unable to help himself when an episode hits which says so very much about his character. He never thinks twice about helping others work through their own anxiety, but he will not endanger me or anyone else in the effort to appease his own. Despite everything he has been through, Peeta has remained the most selfless person I know and that gives me hope for humanity as well.
I see a small smile forming thanks to whatever he's thinking of to distract me from the sadness that has suddenly fallen over the ending to an otherwise pleasant day, and narrow my eyes in anticipation of his next move.
Peeta cocks his head to the side and flexes his jaw in the way I once accidentally admitted I find to be a major turn on during a weak moment one morning when he had his face buried between my legs. Paired with the impressive erection he has just nudged between my legs where I am now straddling his hips, I have a pretty good idea of just how pleasantly he'd like this day to end.
"…well, and you know there's also the similarities that can be found in the…. romantic gestures made by both gentleman in the stories…" he teases and I lift a hand that has been idly stroking one of his collar bones, playfully pushing his face away from mine as he lifts his head up to me for a kiss.
"You're ridiculous…" I say and screech a laugh when he rolls us over quickly so that he is on top of me and begins peppering kisses all over my face.
"Yeah, well good thing you love me, right?" He says breathlessly a moment later when I press my hands against his firm chest to halt the amorous assault.
"Mmm..yeah, good thing." I grin and slide both hands from his chest up to frame his face, pulling him down to finally let him kiss me.
Peeta's arms which have been folded under my back since a minute ago when he was trying to hold me still, now loosen their hold as he lowers his body to mine. I sigh and bite my bottom lip against a soft moan as Peeta begins lightly thrusting his hips against mine to determine my willingness after the long, emotional day I've had. I know he wants to be sure I feel the full force of his need through his shorts so I have the chance to bail if I'm too tired.
In answer, I kiss him back hard and run my fingernails gingerly down his sides. This makes Peeta grind his hips into me harder in a way that tells me how much he needs to be with me this way after the days of separation even though we were together a few times at the cabin the night before.
We've been together long enough that Peeta knows it's unnecessary to hold me still anymore, instead he lets the length of his body fall fully down on top of me, pressing me into the mattress and I release a full, lusty moan in response. My breathing quickens, my nipples pebble and scrape against his bare chest through my thin nightshirt and I tug on one of his earlobes lightly with my front teeth.
"I do love you, Peet…so much." I whisper and raise my hips to his in invitation. Our love-making is always enjoyable, but there is something just a little more exceptional about our first few couplings after one of his longer or more potent episodes.
These experiences are a little slower, kisses and touches linger a little longer than usual, and it is just that much more difficult to keep quiet for the sake of not waking the little ones a few doors down from our room.
"I love you too, sweetheart…always." Peeta whispers in a hot puff of air against my chin following a long, wet kiss and I bare my neck to him in what has always been my ultimate sign of trust in my husband.
Ever since Peeta tried to strangle me back when he was rescued from the Capitol after our second Games and his subsequent torture and hijacking, he has been careful about touching me, even during sex.
Especially during sex.
It's never something either of us mentions out loud anymore, but I feel it in the occasional hesitation before he reaches out to touch me, and I see it in his eyes sometimes how he has to focus all of his attention on what his hands are doing. It is during these moments, like now as I see him glancing down between us to keep a visual on where and how his hands touch me, that I often make things easier on him by taking over the control.
It's not only empowering for me, but Peeta has admitted that it is much easier for him to control his impulses when all he has to think about is his response to what I am doing to him and allows us both to receive as much comfort and safety as we possibly can from our love making. Peeta needs only to listen to my quiet reassurances and allow his heart to guide him where his mind may not be able to follow just then.
Peeta presses a kiss to the pearl on my necklace which is now resting in the little hollow space between my collar bones, then my throat right over my carotid artery where he surely must be able to feel my pulse thrumming for him, and finally to my ear where he whispers, "Go ahead." And rolls us over once more so that I am on top of him again.
When he settles his hands at my hips, I know this is one of those times where he needs me to take charge and I nod, whispering for him to lie back, to relax.
"Thank you." He says in such a relieved tone that my protective drive (which have become more powerful by leaps and bounds since Bow and Finn came along) pushes me to abandon all thoughts of physical gratification for the moment and I simply wrap my arms around his shoulders.
"Thank you…" he says again and his voice wavers in a way that both breaks my heart and makes it swell with love for this man who is the very beating heart of our little family. This man who sat beside me on a beach and tried to convince me to let him die in the Quarter Quell arena because I had a sister and mother to support and he had no one who needed him in that way. No one who needed him for their survival.
All he had managed to unknowingly do though, was to spark inside of me the realization that there is more than one definition that can be attached to the word 'survival'. Sitting there, looking into his eyes as he stated without any pity or self-loathing that there was no one who needed him, I had suddenly understood that second definition. While I had always known that there were the basic physical needs of living things like food, water and shelter, it wasn't until I was faced with the choice of living with or without Peeta that I knew for certain that I could not imagine or survive even the suggestion of a life without him.
I've come to realize over a little more than 2 decades living side by side with Peeta that there are times when even the bravest of men need to be taken care of. In my younger years, being needed by my mother and my sister was an obligation born of my mother's depression and my sister's vulnerability but it was also an emotional liability. A liability which I paid for out of love and duty by stepping forward and volunteering to take Prim's place in the reaping that sent me to the Hunger Games.
Looking back, I can see that I had spurned both Peeta and Gale's advances initially because I saw loving either of them as just another responsibility to add to the already heavy burden I carried by loving and tending to the needs of my mother and sister. As this was all going on when I returned from the first Games and had been tasked with quelling thoughts of rebellion in the districts by President Snow himself, there were much more serious concerns at the time than which boy's attention I preferred.
With all of that gone now and living a quiet life in our home district with naught but the usual concerns for the health and happiness of our children, I am not just willing but glad to show Peeta just how absolutely needed he is. To our community, to Haymitch, to my mother, to our precious children but especially and yes, selfishly, to me.
"You're welcome, baby…" I whisper as I guide his head to my chest, letting it rest there a moment like a child's as I pet back his hair and smile at the familiar feel of his curls springing back into place as I reach the ends with my fingertips.
We have all the rest the night to remind each other of how strong our physical bond is. Right now, my husband's only need is to be reminded of how much he is needed. And after denying him so many things for so many years, this is one thing I can give to him immediately and without any second thoughts, so I do.
I hold Peeta for so long and he's so relaxed as he lays weightless in my arms that I wonder briefly if the moment for passion has come and gone. I can't say I care since the comfortable weight of his body to mine, our legs tangled and the shared warmth of our bellies touching where my shirt has ridden up a little during our cuddling is just as intimate as anything we could be doing sexually right now.
I only wonder this briefly because as I begin to settle myself into the mattress, Peeta tenses and lifts his head once he realizes I am arranging myself for sleep. The mixture of panic, embarrassment, and open lust I find in his gaze makes in nearly impossible not to laugh at the situation. I emit a soft snort as I watch a smile slowly spread across Peeta's face and I know he can feel my torso shaking with silent laughter.
"Ah, shut up." He grumbles playfully and scatters little pinching bites along the neckline of my nightshirt, making me squeal and grip his hands at the wrist. I can feel his nimble fingers heading towards some of the more ticklish places on my body that he'll be able to find easily even in the dark that fills our room.
"Make me…" I grunt back and fight a peal of giggles tickling the back of my throat when I feel him laughing too. They are quickly cut off by a sudden gasp of pleasure when Peeta easily breaks my hold on his wrists, slips his hands beneath the edge of my nightshirt and tugs my panties down and off my legs.
"Gladly." Peeta growls and we both cry out as he tugs his erection through the slit in his shorts and thrusts into me hard a second later.
I bite my lip to keep from yelling out again as he rears back and pounds his hips into mine once, twice and on the third I use the advantage of my two fully functional legs to his one and nudge his false leg out from under him so that I can roll us over.
"Uhn….Kat!" Peeta cries out and I widen my eyes and cover his mouth with one hand, half laughing and half moaning as I begin rocking my hips back and forth, riding him and controlling the depth and speed of our joining so that it brings me the most pleasure.
"Shhh!" I hiss, finally giving into the laughter as we quickly find a rhythm that suits us both and what we'd both hoped would be a long, quiet and gentle affair becomes an urgent sprint towards a release we obviously need.
"Can't help it…" Peeta whispers back when I move my hand and I see him bite his bottom lip in the moonlight as his hips snap up to meet mine faster and faster.
When he reaches up and under my shirt and lightly palms my heavy breasts, I throw my head back as we move even faster still. The light, wet sound of our bellies slapping together and the sincerity of his admission that he can't honestly help the racket he's making sends me tumbling over the edge into my orgasm. I can just hear and feel Peeta following me over the roar of blood in my ears as my muscles clamp rhythmically around his shaft and he pours into me.
Moments later, even as we are catching our breath and working our way through the haze of ecstasy that follows such a powerful release of pleasure inducing chemicals, our parenting ears are scanning the frequency of the household for a door creaking slowly open, or little feet padding down the hall to our room.
I freeze when I hear a creak by our bedroom door and we both turn our heads from where we are lying in a heap in the middle of the bed only to find the rather listless yellow-eyed stare of ButtercupTwo who has nudged our door open. He stares at our sweaty, naked tangle of limbs with a look that says he's certain our time could have been better spent finding him a midnight snack or opening the back door to let him out to hunt mice.
"Oh, for fuck's sake…" Peeta whispers and pushes his shorts down the rest of the way as I laugh heartily at the battle between man and cat I'm sure is about to begin. He uses the elastic to slingshot them at the cat who dances gracefully around them where they land on the floor and hops up onto the end of the bed.
While Peeta is removing his prosthetic and setting it against the nightstand on his side of the bed, the cat slinks up the mattress to nudge my hand with his nose and I scratch his ears lovingly. I do still miss the old Buttercup sometimes, but this one is a lot more friendly and while I appreciated Buttercup's connection to my sister, I'll admit it is easier to look at ButtercupTwo and not think about Prim every time.
When Peeta turns back to me, I grin and he frowns animatedly at the cat and flicks the fluffy tip of ButtercupTwo's orange tail with his fingertips. This in turn makes the cat hiss half-heartedly and swat at Peeta's hand before cuddling back into my arms with an arrogant little flourish.
I chuckle when Peeta hisses back at him and reminds the cat for the millionth time in the 7 years we've had him that the first Buttercup was a far superior wingman when it came to our nocturnal activities.
"Peeta, relax…he's just a cat…" I say conveniently forgetting for the moment that I at one time used to imagine his predecessor's furry carcass lining a pair of comfy winter gloves.
Peeta nods and reaches out to lift the cat from where he has cuddled up to the front of my nightshirt, holding it under the arms and staring into his face.
"Yeah, he's just a cat that needs to get out of my damn way and let me hold my wife before I turn his pelt into a nice new collection of mop brushes…" he threatens and the cat growls menacingly in the back of his throat to let Peeta know that he won't be made a part of his art supplies.
"Peeta!" I gasp as he leans forward and drops the animal back at his usual sleeping spot by my feet and inches closer to me after he climbs back beneath the covers.
"What? He's got the perfect hair for a mop brush…" he argues with a playful tone to his voice and I swat his chest lightly and roll my eyes. "Well, maybe just the tip of his tail then…" He muses and then laughs and pulls me into his arms where we share a languorous, romantic kiss that is stark contrast to what we just did together in this bed.
"Sorry that was kind of…quick and dirty…" Peeta says quietly through a yawn when we pull back, reading my mind in the way couples who have been together forever can do. He holds my chin between his thumb and forefinger as he looks down into my face to check that I'm ok.
"It's okay." I promise and reach out to stroke his cheek lightly before sitting up.
I tug my sweaty nightshirt off over my head and toss it on the floor on my side of the bed and cuddle back up to Peeta so that the full length of my naked body is against his own. "Did I sound like I was complaining?" I ask with my own yawn and tuck my head under his chin in our usual signal that I am ready to sleep.
Peeta tugs the light top sheet up over us so that it rests across my shoulders and his mostly rhetorical answer to my completely rhetorical question is a soft grunt as one of his large, warm hands falls to rest on my backside. My last conscious thought before I drift off to sleep with the steady thump of Peeta's heart beneath my ear is how happy I am to have my husband back beside me in bed, and how nice it really does feel to be needed.
"No they aren't dummy, their eyes are still closed…"
"Uh huh, awakes!"
I don't have to open my eyes to know that my children hovering by Peeta's side of the bed, staring down at the two of us in what, by the dimness of the light I can see behind my closed eyes, is obviously VERY early morning light, are not going to give up their venture and head back to bed for the rest of the morning.
But that doesn't mean it isn't a really nice idea to think about.
I start to move my hand on Peeta's chest when the arm he's had draped around my waist for most of the night tightens slightly and he hisses against my hair where he has his face turned into it,
"Don't. Move." He tries to say without moving his lips and giving us away. The quiet desperation in his voice leads to the return of that soundless laughter I tried so hard to hold in the night before during our spirited foreplay.
Before I can respond, Finn gasps and both children stand so still, you could hear a pin drop in the room.
"See Bowie!? Awakes! Awakes!" He cries and Peeta groans as I laugh when the light but noticeable weight of our son climbing up onto the mattress beside us leading Peeta and I to finally open our eyes. It's still just before dawn but late enough to remind me that it must be Sunday because Peeta isn't up and ready to walk out the door to work right now like he would be during the week.
I had thought perhaps that he might go in anyway because he'd missed a few days during his episode, but I was more than pleased to see that he was planning on keeping as close to our family's routine as possible after such a difficult few days for all of us. We may have been sad to see him leave yesterday for work, but I understand that he was trying to keep things as normal as he could for the kids which meant going to work when he was supposed to, and now staying home when he should be there as well.
"Morning Mommy, morning Daddy!" Bow chirps bright eyed and bushy-tailed as my father used to say and follows her brother up onto the bed.
If my encounter with Peeta last night (and then another much more quietly and gently a few hours ago) hadn't already done a lot to ease the stress of these last several days, seeing how happy and seemingly unaffected by the week's events my children are right now would have been enough for me.
"Mam… Da-dee…" Finn whines and climbs clumsily over Peeta and wriggles his way between us over top of the thin sheet which is still thankfully covering our naked bodies. He's still wearing the undershirt and sleep shorts I put him in the night before so I know he's had another dry night of sleep with no diaper-free accidents.
I reach over and pat his bottom to draw Peeta's attention to this and he smiles and wags his eyebrows once at me, neither of us wanting to mention it for fear it will jinx the lucky streak that began the other night at the cabin.
I do however raise the hand from Finn's backside and hold it up to Peeta who gives me a quick high five and then pulls his son up so that he's sitting on his father's chest.
"Have a good night of sleep there Mr. Finnick?" He asks lightly grasping one of Finn's chubby ankles and kissing the bottom of the tiny foot attached to it which makes Finn laugh and push his foot forward, mushing Peeta's nose back comically.
"Uh huh…I go-ed pee." He says proudly and points to the bedroom door as Bow explains that she made him stop in the bathroom on their trip down the hall to visit us this morning.
"Peed good." Finn nods and then screeches when Peeta bites his big toe lightly. "No, no Da-dee!" he scolds frowning at his father and grabbing both of his feet which he pulls together at the bottoms and shakes his head.
"Morning to you too, grumpy." Peeta says making a pout at Finn identical to the one on his chubby little face. Bow and I giggle as she climbs over her father's hips behind where her brother is sitting on his chest and cuddles into my side that isn't against Peeta.
"Morning baby." I whisper and kiss her soft, rosebud lips with a happy smack and try to smooth out some of the snarls in her wild head of morning hair.
"So what are you two up to this very early morning?" I ask and idly rub Bow's back over the light little nightgown she's wearing.
I glance down at my son who is now wedged happily between his father and I and notice he is tracing his little fingers over the burn scars that wind their way up one side of Peeta's torso and into his neck and the lower part of his jaw on one side.
"Nothin'." Bow says and I tense slightly when I hear her next question before it even leaves her mouth when I see her eyes following the trail of scars her brother is mapping on Peeta and then drift over to look curiously at my own. They aren't usually so evident but being as my nightshirt is still in a ball on the floor, the rough, pink scars on my own upper arms, chest and neck are evident.
"Mommy…if me and Finn are you and Daddy's kids how come our skin is different than yours?"
I can't blame her for being curious and if I'm being honest, I began preparing myself for this question a few years ago when Bow's unquenchable thirst for information began to emerge. I've seen the way she looks at other families and isn't the first time she's mentioned this. There have been times when dropping her off to school in the morning I have seen her observing the similarities between the hair color and skin tones of her little friends at school and their parents.
It isn't until I feel the light touch of her fingertips tracing the scarred area on my left upper arm and shoulder that I realize I haven't responded to her question yet.
"Umm…well, actually Daddy and I were born with skin like yours and Finn's but…we… we were…" I thought I had a pretty good handle on what I was going to say based on all of the times I have imagined this exact scenario, but I find myself suddenly floundering and look over to Peeta for help as the kids look on expectantly.
Always the one to do better with words, my husband throws me a wink and sits up against the backboard of the bed, fixing his pillow behind him and settling Finn in his lap.
"…we were in a bad fire…" he finishes for me and Finn's eyes widen in awe as he looks his father's scarred, pink chest over with renewed respect. As the children of a baker, Bow and Finnick were taught from the time they could crawl to steer clear of the various ovens and stoves in the kitchen at our bakery.
"Ouch, hot." Finn whispers and touches the scars again. Bow sits up at the mention of fire with the same startled expression on her face as her brother. She looks between my face and Peeta's to make sure we're telling the truth.
"At the bakery?" Bow asks in hushed tones as if she understands we're discussing some secret she's just now become privy to.
"No, no…somewhere else outside of District 12 a long, long time before you were born." Peeta explains and Bow's face darkens slightly and her back straightens as something occurs to her.
"Does it have to do with the….with the Hunger Games? Does it have to do with why everyone knows who you and Mommy are?" She asks and those frightened blue eyes get larger as Peeta and I cut each other a glance, trying to decide how much to say without scaring our oldest child.
The younger one has lost interest in the conversation since the point where he heard the fire was not in our family bakery and he's crawled to the end of the bed where he's playing with the cat. I envy him the innocence of a world still so small that nothing beyond the borders of our tiny town in District 12 is really of any concern to him.
I nod to Peeta almost imperceptibly and he tugs Bow over to hug her against his side. "Yes, it does have to do with the Hunger Games. You started learning about them in school this year, didn't you?" He asks her, trying to keep his voice light and even.
"Uh huh…and Paw-paw told me that's where you lost your real leg too…" Bow says and she begins worrying her bottom lip nervously as she looks at Peeta's scars with new eyes. Eyes that are seeing the first real proof that the horrors she's heard only a little about in her first year of formal schooling, did in fact happen.
Peeta and I share a brief annoyed glance and I make a mental note to have a word with Paw-paw about what is and isn't an appropriate topic of conversation to have with my nearly 6-year-old. Preferably without any sharp objects around that I could use to bludgeon him. Drunken fool.
"So then you know that we don't have them anymore and that everyone in Panem lives peacefully together now, right?" he asks and begins stroking Bow's hair down her back soothingly as he speaks.
"Uh huh. " Bow says again and nods solemnly. Her artist memory as sharp as her father's tells me she's probably running through what little she's learned about the arenas that have all been torn down and the lottery which sent her father and I into them to kill other children our age.
"And if everyone knows about Mommy and me because we were in them and we lived even though I lost my leg and we got our skin burned…then that means we must be pretty brave right? Brave enough to keep you and Finn safe and never, ever let anything like that happen to you?" He asks tilting her chin up so that he is looking into blue eyes that match his own.
"Uh huh." Bow says once again and I sit up against the backboard myself with the covers tucked under my armpits. She isn't saying much, but I can tell from her tone that Bow has more on her mind. Peeta seems to be getting the same impression and we both let the silence hang for a moment, giving Bow the opportunity to ask any other questions that might be nagging her.
"What about…." She trails off and her eyes drift from Peeta's face to the nightstand beside him and then over, surprisingly, to me. "What about…the red x?" she asks and looks towards the nightstand again where the faded wooden letter rests against the base of the lamp there.
It is among the few items Peeta always has there including a small sketchbook he keeps handy should an idea for a sketch or painting come to him in the night, and a picture of the four of us posing outside of the bakery during the Harvest Festival last year.
I'm struck by how accurate a snapshot this assortment of items on Peeta's nightstand are of the different aspects of his life. His art, his job, his family and the Hunger Games. It's a little sad to think that there will probably always be those reminders of the Games in his leg and the red letter that hangs on the door when the darkness of our shared past interferes with our present, but looking at the picture of us outside the bakery that will one day pass to our children adds another log to that fire of hope in my heart that needs constantly to be watched and stoked.
When neither of us answers right away, Bow rephrases and expands on the question.
"I just mean…when Daddy doesn't feel good and the x is on your door, does… well, I just wondered, does that have to do with the Hunger Games too?" she rushes out and by the breath she releases at the end of this particular question, I can tell it is something she's been wanting to ask for a long time.
Looking into her expectant face, I think of the last few days and how mature my daughter has shown herself to be in the face of Peeta's episode. Taking care of her brother, helping me around the house, and even bringing her father lunch and keeping him company as he was working through that last nerve-wracking day apart from us.
"Yes, sweetheart…" I say clearing my throat and giving Finn a big smile as he bores of the cat and crawls back up the bed for some Mommy snuggles. "…and when Mommy doesn't feel well and stays in bed a lot, that's because of the Hunger Games too." I tell her honestly and out of the corner of my eye I can see what I hope is Peeta's pleasant surprise at my candor. I'll certainly explain myself to him later when he asks what inspired this honest discussion with our still young daughter, and when I do I will tell him that Bow is getting older and becoming more and more cognizant of the adult world. It is because of this that I know we must begin slowly and appropriately explaining our behavior so that she never for one second feels as though she is responsible for it.
Peeta spent most of his youth tip-toeing around a mother who needed very little excuse to fly off the handle and physically or verbally abuse her boys and as I learned today, I spent too many years being angry at my mother because she hadn't been able to have a similar conversation with me when I most needed to hear it. If as a country we have made a pact to not allow the mistakes of our past repeat themselves, then I am just as determined to follow the same example with my own young family.
Bow nods seriously and Peeta and I both wait quietly while she looks again at Peeta's prosthetic, then the red letter, and finally allows her eyes to rove over the exposed scars on my arms and Peeta's chest and neck.
"What are you thinking, kiddo?" Peeta finally asks and Bow reaches out to run her fingers over the burns on Peeta's shoulder with a small smile.
"I think…that it doesn't matter if our skin looks different than yours." She says with a decisive nod and places both hands on the sides of Peeta's head and giggles. "Because I have Daddy's same eyes and your hair, and Finn has your eyes and Daddy's hair…",
She stops and reaches over to touch the pearl hanging around my neck that I had her and Finn both kiss the other night when, at the end of my rope following Finn's screaming tantrum over wanting his father, I had told them both the story of how I rolled it across my lips when Peeta and I were apart.
Bow's smile widens as she slides the hand she is touching my necklace with down my arm to hold my hand and the one she still has pressed to the side of Peeta's face follows a similar trail down his arm to hold his hand as well.
"…and also, I think that all of us are really, really brave and that makes us the same too." She announces with a shrug and I thank my lucky stars once again for having such an intelligent, honest, and yes, brave little person for my daughter.
There will be a time in the near future when both of our children will know the whole story of our connection to the Hunger Games. Peeta has suggested that we use the memory book we wrote together as the handbook for teaching them about all of the good people we lost who they never got to know in life. I think this is as good an idea as any and am in some ways looking forward to introducing my children to those who played as important a role in the revolution as Peeta and I.
We will show them their pictures, read their names aloud and honor their memory by taking the best of what we learned from each and passing it on to our children.
Peeta and I share a look of profound pride and joy in the kind and smart little girl we've created together and I'm no longer afraid of that day when we'll have to burden the children with the full truth of our past.
I have no doubts that they'll be strong enough to handle the responsibility of that knowledge and use it to make sense of who they are and where they come from.
"Hey, how did you get so smart Miss Bow Sae Mellark?" Peeta asks and the mention of my daughter's middle name reminds me of the most recent entry into the revised memory book. I smile thinking of the 87 years' worth of life lessons to be learned from my trading partner in the Hob who my daughter just missed getting to meet.
"At schools, silly Da-dee!" Finn says with a sarcastic roll of his eyes so much like Haymitch that I consider for a moment the argument for nurture over nature despite the physical similarities Bow has just pointed out between the four of us in the bed.
"Silly Daddy!?" Peeta gasps and keeps his hold on Bow's hand as he reaches over with the other to tickle Finn who is snuggled up beside me.
"I'll show you a silly Daddy!" He threatens good-naturedly and Bow, Finnick and I break out in laughter as both kids squirm and kick happily between us and we all relax and enjoy a lazy Sunday morning in bed.
To be continued...
