Chapter 31: Mom Says You're My Dad

My grief over the loss of Vick – though whether it comes from a place as his hunting partner or as his widow, I can't quite tell – compels me to hunt farther and harder. The Hawthornes need good meat coming in, as Hazelle has taken ill. Gale is moping about and trying to struggle on for his wife, Bristel, and their two kids – according to Prim, Gale and Bristel have been getting into frequent arguments since Vick's passing, a phenomenon she observed while treating their youngest for the mumps. I manage to bring down quite a few squirrels too. But no matter how much I hunt, it's incredibly lonely without someone there to watch my back.

I try to enlist Poppy as my apprentice, though we both know it isn't for her skills. When she was little, Poppy managed to hit a duckling wandering out of a pond during an archery lesson, even though she wasn't aiming for it and made the shot almost completely by accident. She cried for three days, even though the meat on the duckling provided for at least a good snack.

We bag enough squirrels for us to take to the Mellarks. Though I've kept up the practice of providing squirrel meat to the Bakery, I have always made a point, at least since my daughter was born, to enter through the front rather than the back loading dock – too many painful memories….

The counter is busy when we arrive. My cousin Annabeth, who happened to marry Peeta's eldest brother, nods to me cordially. The Witch is working the till, and back by the ovens, Rye and Dannel are taking another batch of loaves out of the oven. Upon seeing me, my ex-brother-in-law abandons his father to handling the tray as he dances up to the counter, smiling brightly.

"Well, if it isn't my favorite Everdeen!"

"I'm your favorite? My heart is crying out with joy," I deadpan. Rye may have grown on me somewhat since we were younger, but I will always maintain that he is an immature ass. Delly and their three little ones – all between the ages of 12 and 4 – at least bring out the best in him.

"Not to sound rude, but I wasn't actually talking to you, Kitty Kat."

I frown hard. I've had people call me by all manner of nicknames before, but… "Kitty Kat? I've never head that one before."

Beside me, Poppy giggles. "Hey, Mr. Rye."

Rye presents a cookie to my daughter with a bow. "Would you like a treat?" Down the counter, Miriam indulges in an eye roll, but doesn't try and stop him giving away free products, perhaps not seeing the point.

"Trying to fatten me up, are you? You've been sneaking me cookies since I was two!" Poppy laughs.

My lips upturn at the pleasant memories, of Rye slipping Poppy iced cookies from the time she could walk, growing more and more open in his dealings and delighting in the fact that it pissed his mother off.

"Where's Peeta?" I find myself asking. "Doesn't he still work here part-time?"

"Up in the Village today. Called and said he and Haymitch are discussing strategy for the Games."

"But it isn't for three months yet!"

"Old Abernathy keeps them to a schedule – Snow only knows how; you'd think it would be the other way around…."

Dannel comes over, wiping his hands on a tea towel. "Hello, Poppy," he says quietly, full of warmth. "My, my, aren't you turning into a beauty? Just like your mother."

I flush scarlet, smirking. "Dannel…."

"I never say anything that isn't true," Danny winks at me.

"No, you just say shit that makes you look like a sap," Miriam snorts abrasively, nudging her husband and middle son aside. "I take it you've got meat for us, girl?"

My sunny expression dims into one all business-like, and I have to suppress a sigh. Poppy looks down at her feet; she likes Miriam Mellark about as much as I do, which is to say, not at all. Were it not for Peeta, I wouldn't have bothered dealing with this bitch in trades for nearly twenty-five years.

"Yup. Nearly a dozen." I dump the bag on the counter.

Unlike the rest of her family, Miriam actually makes a sincere show of inspecting each and every squirrel. I think she does it just to mess with me, as I never sell off any squirrel that wasn't brought down clean through the eye. Not if I can help it. I hate messy kills – always have.

"These'll do," she grunts, setting them aside. Her gaze shifts to Poppy. "You've been helping your mother, girl?"

I clench my jaw, wanting to remind Miriam that my daughter's name is Poppy, but Poppy manages to only just meet the Witch's eye, and curtsey, a little. "Not as such, ma'am – Mother's the real talent in the family."

Miriam nods. "Humility is a virtue," she extols. She nods to me. "I'm pleased you kept this one, if also a little surprised."

Poppy blinks rapidly, glancing between me - her mother - and…. her grandmother. "I don't think I know what you mean…" she murmurs nervously. Across from her, Rye and Danny surreptitiously look at each other. Miriam ignores her eldest grandchild, still fixated on me.

"You've never seemed the type to just open up your Seam legs to any man willing. At the very least, your daughter has decent genes. That Peackeeper who raped you must have had them…."

Rye looks to be in some halfway land between mortified and livid. Even when up to her craziest tricks, Miriam has never run her mouth this much. "Mom…." He growls warningly. "Only fools traffic in rumors…."

"Is it a rumor? Who else would she have bedded? Certainly not any one of our fine Merchant boys, I know. She has too much good sense….. even if she is a Seamer." The truly bizarre, passive-aggressive, backhanded compliment (probably the nicest thing Miriam Mellark has ever said to me, and she still managed to piss me off) sets my blood to boil. Poppy is looking immensely confused, and even a little scared – I've never told her how a Peacekeeper cadet once assaulted me, and that Peeta (then a new Victor) actually killed him to offend my honor.

Even with how enraged I am, however, I start to laugh. Now Miriam is the one who is immensely flummoxed. "What could possibly be funny?"

I can only shake my head. "Oh, Miriam…" And I really can't help but chuckle at her delusion, at how she could be so blind. "The fact that you think Poppy came from a Peacekeeper is bad enough. But that you can't recognize she's your own grandchild? – that's even worse!"

Miriam has gone deathly still, her beady eyes popping. She is quivering, and I am deliciously satisfied that the tremors seem to be more from fear than anger. "What did you say?" she whispers.

"You heard me," I quip. I ignore how Poppy is gaping at me in astonishment, her jaw nearly on the floor. Rye and Danny are shuffling their feet, stealing glances, which quickly stop when Miriam rounds on her middle child.

"Cheating on a sweet girl like Delly? You bastard!" Considering how he is single-handedly responsible for my daughter's sweet tooth, I can see why Miriam would believe Rye is just as responsible for her very existence as well. Again, her lack of imagination makes me chuckle.

Rye is backing up, hands raised in surrender. "Are you insane?! First of all, no. And second of all….. ewww. Just gross."

"Nice to know you have my back, Mellark," I smirk.

Miriam is now rounding on poor Leven, who has just chosen this moment to enter from the back.

"I've finished looking over the account books, Mother…."

"What do you have to say for yourself?!" Miriam shrieks at him. Leven looks deeply confused.

"Still cold, Miriam," I call from the counter. She whirls to me.

"You little… if this is your idea of some practical joke, it is not funny! I don't know who else…."

"Maybe you should ask your youngest, the one up on Victors' Hill," I state shortly. "I admit, a Toasting in the holding room right before he boarded the train wasn't exactly ideal, but it was quiet and just for us. Conceiving our daughter right afterwards was just the icing on the cake."

You could hear a pin drop in the Bakery now. Miriam has gone ghastly white. Poppy looks stunned too – in her Hunger Games History lessons, I know she has studied how Peeta Mellark willed himself through the arena holding onto the memory of a mysterious sweetheart.

"You…." Miriam whispers, pointing a shaking finger at me, hardly daring to believe it. "It was you?..."

I smirk, feeling a little lighter now that the secret I've kept inside me for nearly two decades is finally out. "Surprise." Turning on my heel, I steal an arm around Poppy, who's shaking. "Come on, honey, let's go…."

The door is just closing behind us when we hear Miriam scream. I waste no time in hustling my daughter up the street. A few kilometers out from the Bakery, I hear someone calling our names.

"Katniss! Poppy! Wait up!"

We turn and wait expectantly as Rye catches up to us, winded.

"I'm sorry, I'm…."

I smile softly at my ex-brother-in-law. "It's OK, Rye. I'm just amazed it took her this long to figure it out."

"Dad and I never told her…"

"I know you didn't…"

"You knew?" Poppy is gazing at her uncle. "Is that why… all the cookies and…"

Rye nods. "Yeah." There are actually tears in his eyes. "Can…. can I hug her?" He directs the question at me, even though he's looking at his niece.

Poppy can't seem to decide whether to smile or frown, as Rye embraces her without waiting for an answer from her or from me. "Oh, uh…. OK…." She giggles a little.

Rye draws back, and places his hands on her shoulders. "You're family," he tells her. "Always have been, no matter what your grandmother says. Understand?"

Poppy smiles. "OK. Thanks…. Uncle Rye."

He beams, pecks her on the cheek, then hustles down the street.

Worrying my bottom lip, I finally cut free from my indecision and turn before my daughter can overwhelm me with questions. "Come with me. There's someone I should have introduced you to long ago."

"Where are we going?"

"….To Victors' Village."

We set a resolute course for Victors' Hill, Poppy trailing behind me. But I can still hear her, over and over again, breathing out in wonder:

"Peeta Mellark's my dad?"

Poppy and I stand on the front stoop of Peeta Mellark's mansion for a moment.

"Are you ready?"

"No," my daughter, visibly trembling, tells me.

I allow it, but just for a moment. I'm not ready, either, but it's my fault we're in this situation in the first place. I kept Poppy away from her father because I had been under the impression that that was what he wanted, when he pushed me away. It only helped that he (along with apparently his mother and nearly everyone else in Town) thinks Poppy was conceived out of my rape at the hands of that Peacekeeper years ago.

"Are you ready?" I ask again.

"OK."

I knock on the door purposefully. Behind the varnished wood, I can hear someone swearing, then the door yanks open.

I'm surprised to find Haymitch glowering down at me. "What are you doing here, Sweetheart? And why is she here?" he gestures at Poppy, though his features tellingly soften slightly. I wonder if Haymitch has guessed at the truth. He did as much in working out that I had married Peeta in secret in the Justice Building. That I had been with him. Plus, at least to me, the resemblance between my daughter and his only successful tribute in over thirty years really is uncanny.

"Is Peeta around? I understand you and he have some Games business to prepare for, so…"

"Haymitch?" his voice carries from down the foyer. "Who is it?" I have to stop from trembling in yearning delight at Peeta's dulcet tones.

"It's Sweetheart and….. oh, fuck it, come on in, you two." Haymitch's volume modulates as he gives up trying to play a game of Telephone, and ushers us both inside. We enter the kitchen, where Peeta is just slicing some bread. Stacks of papers and notepads are scattered across my ex-husband's kitchen table. A strategy session to prepare for this coming summer's Games.

Peeta turns, glancing between the two Everdeen women come to call. "Katniss…." he breathes. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Beside me, Poppy is gazing at Peeta almost adoringly, as she now sees him in a whole new light. Her happiness and excitement is infectious. "It's you, isn't it?"

Peeta studies her, face pinching in bemusement. "So I've been told…." He chuckles, confused, wondering just what in Panem she's talking about.

"You really are my dad, aren't you? I'm Poppy!" Poppy extends out her hand, beaming.

Peeta's entirce face slackens. His hands shake so much, he nearly drops the tray of cheese buns he's been holding. Behind us, I notice Haymitch's eyes scanning the room and up into the ceiling, almost in fear. Like we're being watched, or overheard….

When Peeta doesn't immediately reach out to shake, or even hug her, Poppy's childlike exuberance falters. "Mom…. Mom says you're my dad," she states. Reassuringly, I sidle up to her, nuzzling my face into her dirty blonde hair.

"That's him, love," I whisper to her confirmingly.

Peeta is now staring at me in amazement.

"When…..?"

I blush. "After our wedding. We conceived her in the Justice Building, right before you got on the train."

"OK, that's enough," Haymitch rumbles, trying to shoo us out nervously and still staring at the walls like there are ghosts in the very crevices.

"Haymitch," Peeta is now staring his mentor down, and though his voice appears calm, it is deadly and laced with something dangerous underneath. "Can I please speak with you for a moment outside? Alone?"

Haymitch throws up his hands. "This whole damn conversation should have taken place outside but…. come on, boy." And the two Victors prowl from the kitchen, slamming the door behind them.

Poppy glances to me for help, tears welling up in her eyes. "Mommy? What….?"

"Honey, stay here," I murmur soothingly. "I…. I have to go talk to your father…."

I stride out of the mansion to find Peeta and Haymitch in the center of the Village green, nose-to-nose and clearly in the middle of a heated argument. Well, it is actually Peeta who is doing much of the shouting as I jog lightly up to them.

"You knew! You fucking knew the whole time, old man! And you didn't think to tell me?!"

"I didn't tell you because you didn't need to know! And it's better that you didn't! If the Capitol had known from the start you reproduced, what do you think would have happened?!"

"That doesn't make it right! I deserved to know I was a father!"

"Did you?" Haymitch queries. "You were broken up with Sweetheart not long after you got back anyway, so what does it matter?"

"Look, you may not care about me, or Poppy, or anyone else…"

"Don't you DARE tell me I don't care about you, or the kid!" Haymitch bellows.

I get between them. "That's enough, boys!" I pull them apart.

"And you!" Peeta rounds on me. "Keeping our child from me – how dare you! How dare you lie to me and say she was that Peacekeeper dog's!"

He might be right about the lying part, but as for the rest…. "What was I supposed to think, Peeta? You told me – on the train platform before your Victory Tour – that you didn't want to be with me!" Behind us, I can sense Poppy on the front stoop, watching the argument.

"I didn't think you'd take me seriously! I thought you would fight harder for us!"

"Oh, so it was up to me to fight for us? A relationship goes two ways, Peeta!"

"I told you I wanted to break it off because I had to!"

I stagger back a step, blinking at his outburst. "What do you mean you had to?" My gut is clenching in a foreboding way, as something Peeta said, a couple of months ago when we made out under the gym bleachers, comes roaring back: That's the best sex I've actually wanted in a long time…. "Peeta…." I try again, more calmly. "What exactly are you trying to tell me?"

"I'm a WHORE, all right?!" Peeta screams it out. "I'm Snow's whore. He tells me who I need to fuck, and I fuck them! And if I don't, he said he would hunt down my mystery 'sweetheart' and kill her!"

I blink in utter disbelief. "Snow said he would come after me, if…. if you…." Acid is churning in my gut, and I have to strongest urge to hurl, but I hold it in.

"He implied it," Peeta states. "That was enough incentive for me to break it off, as much as I didn't want to. I did it to protect you…." His eyes lift over my shoulder. "And more than just you, it turns out."

Tears are streaming down my cheeks, and holding back a moan, I reach for my Peeta, who twists away. "No, don't you DARE say how sorry you are for me!" he growls. "You're the one who hid her!"

"Would…. wouldn't that have made it better? If you needed to protect her?" I whimper, even though my heart has confessed: what I did was wrong, so wrong….

"Panem, no…" Peeta sobs. "It would have been better if I had someone to actually love…" and his eyes shift to look at Poppy. "Even if…. even if now, she'll be first in line for the Reaping." He wipes at his eyes fiercely, and turns away.

"Look, boy…." Haymitch tries.

"I'm going to bunk down at the bakery for a few days, Haymitch. I need to think." And Peeta all but runs out of the Village. Haymitch watches him go sadly, before turning to me and giving a jerk of his head. "Come on…."

It is nearing nightfall now, and I enter the kitchen after taking a quick spray-off in Peeta's shower to find my daughter and Haymitch huddled over some books on the sofa.

"So, these are really all your notes, um…. Mr. Abernathy? Grandpa? Haymitch?"

Haymitch jumps a little at being addressed like this, and stares at my daughter as if there isn't anyone quite like her.

"Each of these books is each and every record of every tribute I ever mentored over the last forty or so years," Haymitch states. "And here…. is the one for your dad's Games."

Creeping up behind them, I peer over their shoulders to take in a leather-bound book, filled with papyrus pages covered in Haymitch's scrawl. Though somewhat illegible, I can make out his handwriting just enough:

Day 4 of Prep: The Boy is likeable, self-deprecating – he'll do fine in his interview with Caesar; I just need the damn kid to sleep! The Avoxes are telling me he's moaning Sweetheart's name in his sleep. He must have it bad…. And is also clearly the luckiest son-of-a-bitch this side of the Capitol….

I smirk. Truer words were never written, though if anyone was lucky, it was me. Poppy is resting her head sleepily on Haymitch's shoulder.

"Grandpa?" she murmurs.

"Oh no…." Haymitch chuckles, though it's weak. "I'm too young to be a grandpa, little girl…"

"You're pushing 60," Poppy points out quippingly.

"Don't remind me…" Haymitch frowns. A small, peaceful silence.

"So…. can I call you Grandpa Haymitch?"

Haymitch throws up his hands, though I can tell even from behind that he's smiling. "Sweetheart, you can call me whatever you damn well please!"

I smile.