Chapter 10: Peeta's past
At the delightful sight of his baby girl entering his room, Haymitch turned off the miniature television suspended over the bed and tossed the remote onto the table.
"Sweetheart." He smiled broadly. "You look beautiful my girl."
"Uh, thanks!" She answered flushed, leaning to kiss her father on the cheek "You definitively look better dad." Stay cool Katniss, he doesn't know "Although one little birdie told me you're refusing to eat the hospital food."
"What? Who told you that?" He looked the picture of innocence. "A nurse? Which one? The cute one with the glasses?"
She dropped into a chair and crossed her legs.
"Well, there's that, and the fact that your breakfast tray is still there, intact. Who brought you contraband, one of the guys from the precinct? I doubt it was Pee…Detective Mellark."
Haymitch snorted in amusement. "No doubt you're my daughter. You have a detective nose, sweetheart."
Katniss raised her eyebrows in response.
"Hawthorne". Haymitch responded by blushing. "The very tall pretty boy. I think you met him last night."
"Oh! Yes the tall guy." she said remembering. The guy Madge liked. "Well, you may have some very loyal officers, but that is not good for your health. Also, the nurses will be on the lookout of any officers doing your dirty work. I already put them on notice. Smuggled corned beef sandwiches are strictly forbidden. In fact, the coffees and muffins I brought, I gave them the nurses. And they were very happy."
"Bribery." Haymitch grumbled, pouting and crossing his arms like a spoiled child.
Katniss chuckled.
"Dad. They just understand you need to change your diet and get healthy or they won't clear you to return home."
"Home? I don't need them to clear me to get home. I want to go back to work." Grumbling, he pushed himself up on the bed. "Hell, most of the time I'm just interviewing people, making questions, anyway. Not a lot of strenuous physical activity involved there. That's why I fill my unit with young strong guys. They do the heavy lifting for me."
"Keywords being 'most of the time.' I seem to recall three years ago, you got close enough to a perpetrator that you wrestled him to the ground. Jog any memories?"
Haymitch looked at her in silence for a moment. "Sure, I remember. Former Peacekeeper suffering from PTSD barricaded himself inside a church with 25 kids in Seam City. Threatened to burn the whole place down. The question is, how do you know about it? I doubt it made the news in the Capitol."
Actually, she'd been following Haymitch's career most of her life. In addition to writing a best-selling memoir about life as a SCU Senior Detective, which she'd read cover to cover, not a month went by that he wasn't mentioned somewhere in the news. Oftentimes, it felt as though technology was the glue holding her relationship with her father together. No need to fill him in on that minor detail, however. She forced herself to nod.
"I might have checked in on you once or twice. You know, we have this fancy new invention called the Internet. Makes it pretty easy."
Haymitch snorted a laugh, looking down at his hands.
"I might not have been around while you grew up, but I sure managed to pass on the smart-ass gene." He turned serious then, somber eyes meeting hers across the room. "I'm sorry. About the way things worked out."
Uncomfortable with his apology, she stood and paced to the window. She hadn't intended to have this conversation, but now that it seemed unavoidable, she needed to give voice to the question that had always haunted her.
"Why did you stop coming to visit?"
Having been so young when her parents got divorced, she barely recalled the time they'd lived together in one house, as a family. When she'd grown slightly older, she could remember Haymitch going to the Capitol once a year, usually around her birthday in May. He would take her to the beach or the park, buy her something, ask about school. She'd looked forward to it with joyful anticipation. Then one year, he'd stopped coming. Maysilee explained countless times how busy Haymitch was in District Twelve and she'd tried to be happy with his phone calls on Christmas, but she always wondered if she'd caused his absence.
Haymitch blew out a breath.
"Well, Katniss. I honestly don't have a good enough answer for you. Not that I haven't had ample time to prepare one." He lifted a hand and let it fall. "You were so young. Every time I came and left, it confused you further. Once I missed one year, it just never felt right going back."
"I would have understood eventually." Katniss still didn't face him. "And a few more phone calls or e-mails per year wouldn't have hurt either."
"I know that and I'm sorry." He cleared his throat. "I've tried to be involved…in other ways."
"I guess I should thank you for the money you sent," she said, feeling kind of numb. "I don't think I have before."
"Jesus, you don't have to thank me. I was happy to do it." His tone of voice made her turn from the window. "Your mother and I might not have worked out, but I would marry her all over again, deal with all the arguments, just to have you. I just want you to know that."
Her throat tightened.
"Thanks, Dad."
Haymitch cleared his throat, signaling an end to the conversation, and she felt grateful. Her emotions were on a permanent roller coaster today and it was time to get off.
"So how did you end spending your night last night?"
"Uh, your partner, Pee…Detective Mellark deemed safer that I crash with my friend Madge. He said it wasn't safe for me to be alone in your place. So…we did. They, you know, escorted us and all."
Haymitch smiled fondly.
"That boy has been the best detective I have ever trained. He's very smart. But not just booksmart shit, street smart. He has a sixth sense to detect details that I cannot see myself sometimes. And his empathy with the victims is like none I've ever seen before. I assure you that over the years he will become the best Special Case Detective Panem has ever seen. Clearly his upbringing, as bad as it was, prepared him for this line of work."
Katniss frowned. "His upbringing?"
Her father looked suddenly uncomfortable.
"It's not really my business to tell."
She decided it was the perfect opportunity to get to know a little more about him without raising any suspicions.
"Tell me." she said sitting on the end of the bed.
"Sweetheart, I don't..."
"Please." she interrupted.
He sighed.
"I trust you'll be discreet."
She nodded mutely.
"Peeta was a foster kid. His mother….she was an awfull woman, an alcoholic and drug addict who abused him in every cruel way you can possibly imagine. That poor boy had the worst mother ever. I was a newbie SVC detective, and I remember his case. I always tried to get that kid out of that house...a pigsty if you ask me. But the social worker assigned to his case, Alma Coin, she was worse than his mother. It was so blatantly obvious that she didn't care at all about the safety of that child. At the time, she was running for a Family Court Judge nomination and wanted to show people that she believed that a mother could rehabilitate herself and properly care for her child. And boy she was wrong in Peeta's mother's case! I remember we received a call from a restaurant manager one day. When we got there, we found the boy, barefooted, inside a garbage container infested with rats and roaches, looking for food at the wee hours of dawn. Meanwhile, the mother was drugged in an alley, surely after having sold a blowjob for a couple of bucks for her dosage. She didn't even feed him, and he had to look for food himself. A four year old! But Coin bailed her out again after a slap in the wrist for selling her food stamps for drugs and booze. Two weeks after the boy was returned to her, there was an incident where she nearly killed him. I remember Lieutenant Paylor fighting with the district attorney because no one did anything to protect that child. I felt guilty for months, because I should have done more, even if my hands were tied. Needless to say that Social Services finally removed the kid, and, after the scolding the CPS office received for their negligence, they retired Coin from the case, and her nomination went through the toilet. She surely deserved it. The mother went to jail for a few years."
"What about his father?" Katniss asked horrified.
"As far as we know, his father was a baker who died in a fire after an explosion in their shop, along with two older boys. I don't know if his mother never recovered from the tragedy, but it is not an excuse to abuse a four year old kid like that, least if he was the only surviving child. After that, he became property of the state. He was a difficult child, and moved around a lot between foster homes." Haymitch turned to stare out the window. "At fifteen, he finally got a Social Worker who genuinely cared for him, and they, conected. He got him a good home, with good foster parents. Peeta learned a lot from Cinna, I know his empathy with the cases and the passion for the job, he learned from him. But then, a year later, he witnessed the murder of his foster parent in a robbery. He tried to protect the smallest kids in the house, and was shot for his efforts."
Haymitch paused for a wheezing breath.
"He did succeed, at least, in getting those other three kids out of the incident without any harm, but he almost died for his heroic act." He thought for a moment. "It was like tragedy followed him everywhere. But Cinna didn't give up and after his discharge from the hospital, he put him with an old widow. She, helped him finish high school and enter the Academy. Working at the department he began to see cases of abused children, and he identified so much that he took courses for the Special Crimes Unit. He surpassed all his peers by a long shot. The boy wonder they called him in the unit. You don't know how surprised I was when I found out who he was. Many people find a career in this, but in Peeta's case, I'd say this career found him. The special crimes unit needed a Peeta Mellark. It was his destiny. And many abused children have been rescued thanks to him. He's a better cop than I've ever been."
Katniss nearly burst into tears. "What a horrific thing for a young boy to experience on top of being alone, without a family to protect him! And why didn't you helped him more? He almost die because of all of you!" It hurt to think about those sweet blue eyes reflecting all that pain. Minutes ago, she'd thrown herself a pity party over Haymitch's absence in her life. Now, knowing what Peeta had gone through made her feel selfish. She'd had a loving mother and advantages while he'd been given nothing but pain and misery.
"I've never forgiven myself for being a coward who didn't stood up to my superiors. And after his case, I sworn myself that I've never let any other victim gone through that. That's been the drive in my career."
"Oh, God!" She looked up to find Haymitch watching her closely. "Poor Peet..Detective Mellark."
Haymitch snorted. "Yeah. I wouldn't feel too bad for him, though. Sometimes, he's just another jackass with a badge."
Katniss shot to her feet, feeling righteously indignant on Peeta's behalf. "How can you say that? After everything you just told me he went through, look what he's accomplished. He's much more than that."
Her father shrugged his big shoulders. "If you say so. Where is he by the way. I think I told him to look out for you! You shouldn't be here alone."
She was about to reply when the door opened, and Peeta's figure materialized right behind it. Their gazes collided for an instant, sending chivers all over her body.
He cleared his throat and tried to sound casual.
"Sorry I'm late Miss Abernathy. I had an important meeting at the precinct and when I reach Miss Undersee's, she told me you had already gone."
"Just Katniss, please. It's okay, Mr. Mellark, I wasn't ... "
"No, it's not okay." Haymitch interrupted grunting. "In fact, what was the meeting for? Boggs giving the briefing on the Seam's rapist case? How many have been?"
"Four." Peeta replied ashamed.
"Well. You can't leave her wandering alone in this town with that lunatic on the loose. Understood?"
"Yes sir."
Katniss got up offended. It seems as if they both forgot that she was present. What did they think? That she wasn't able to take care of herself?
"Looks like I'm some kind of assignment for Detective Mellark."
Both men looked at the young woman standing by the window, her arms crossed in obvious annoyance.
Peeta took two steps toward her, but she took one step back and stopped him with a hand signal.
"I am sorry that you are thinking that you are some sort of assignment for me Miss. Your father is extremely concerned about a series of dangerous events that are happening in the district. Neither he nor I want anything bad to happen to you."
She looked at him straight in the eye, without changing her expression. Peeta took one step closer and reached out, taking one of her arms, untangling them from her chest.
"I couldn't live with myself if something bad happened to you Miss Everdeen." He said in a whisper, lightly squeezing her hand while still looking deep into her eyes. "You have no idea the effect you have on people." he gulped "On me."
Her expression softened. How could this man, who had had a terrible upbringing, have this kind of empathy and caring for others? Would it be his training as part of the special crimes unit, or would Madge be right that he felt something more for her, more than just a one-night stand? But what she was sure of was that she felt something more for him than a one-night stand, and she wanted to give herself the opportunity to feel something special for someone who showed her real affection.
"Neither do you." She whispered back. And his eyes brightened tenderly.
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Hi there. SORRY for the delay! Crazy crazy crazy weeks with my kids' finals, this schoolyear sucked. I'm done with the on-line classes!
I had this chapter written weeks ago, but hadn't had any time to revise it. But, here it is.
So, tell me what you think about Peeta's past and how Katniss reaction to it may change the course of their relationship.
Thank you for your patience!
XOXO Lizzyvb