7.

Katniss was staring and Peeta wasn't sure what he had done wrong to warrant the intensity in her grey eyes. It was almost a glare.

He didn't confront her until Prim had offered to go with Madge fetch the snacks in the kitchen and they were left alone in the living-room though. The movie night had been planned a little at the last minute but it had all the promise of a good time. Madge hadn't lied when she had said the Undersees had a big TV screen. It was flat, high definition and it had a home entertainment center.

"No patrol tonight?" he asked, making sure to keep his voice low even though, from what he could tell, the house was huge and the kitchen was far from the living-room. He didn't want Madge to accidentally overhear and he wasn't sure how much Prim knew about Katniss' activities. He knew she had explained everything to her sister but he also supposed everything didn't include… everything.

"Haymitch wanted to talk to Trinket." Katniss shrugged. She looked a little ill-at-ease, maybe because the house felt so… wealthy. It was clearly lived-in, not like one of those expensive homes you didn't feel comfortable even sitting for fear of breaking something, but the furniture and the devices were expensive. "I'll do a short sweep on my way home. You can drive Prim back, yeah?"

He was torn between feeling honored she would trust him to get her sister home safely and worried she would be out there on her own. Haymitch usually went with her as back-up, he knew.

"Maybe Gale can drive her back and I can go with you." he suggested in a cautious tone. He wasn't really pleased Gale had been invited but he could be civil. He could learn to share. He must learn to share because she wasn't his girlfriend and, even if she were, it shouldn't have to mean she ought to stop being friends with the guy who had had her back for years. Even if that guy was so obviously in love with her it made him worry she would wake up one day and realize she was too.

Her face closed and she turned away from him. "Maybe."

There was a table so polished it was gleaming under the soft lights of the lamps in a corner, its surface was covered with various framed pictures. She headed there and started picking up one after the other, inspecting them without looking.

If he hadn't known better he would have thought she was nervous. About Gale's presence? He knew she missed spending time with him. He knew she was…

"Can I ask you something?"

They said it at the very same time and shared an amused smile that went a long way into diffusing the sudden tension.

"Sure. Go ahead." he offered, sitting down on the armrest of the couch. He tried not to be too obvious when he checked her out but she didn't often wear jeans that tight and it was distracting. It was probably a good thing that succubus was dead because under its influence his thoughts would probably have been much, much worse. The red sweater also looked good on her, it reminded him of fire. That was Haymitch's nickname for her when he wanted to annoy her: Girl on fire.

She made a face. "Do you like Madge?"

That wasn't the question he had been expecting. He had thought she would ask about Trinket or something related to Prim or…

"I like Madge." he answered slowly, with a frown. "As a friend."

She nervously brushed a strand of hair back behind her ear, nodded and then started inspecting the pictures again. "What did you want to ask me?"

"Why do you want to know if I like Madge?" he retorted, still frowning.

"Because it would make everything more complicated." she muttered. "That's not what you were going to ask."

He wasn't sure what he had been about to ask anymore. He was sure, however, that he would have worded it a lot more diplomatically than how it actually came out. "Do you like Gale?"

She didn't look up. "He's my best friend."

It wasn't entirely an answer, it was a deflection. He wasn't sure he wanted to call her out on it though. He wasn't sure anything good would come out if he brought up the dancing elephant that were his own feelings to her attention.

"Does Madge have a sister?" she suddenly asked, taking a closer look at one of the pictures.

"What? No? I don't think so…" He joined her in front of the console table and peered at the picture she was holding. He was maybe standing a little too close to her, close enough to smell the particular scent of pine trees that always seemed to cling to her, but if she noticed she didn't protest.

"They look like twins…" she pointed out.

And she wasn't wrong.

On the picture, Madge was standing elbow hooped around a girl who was almost identical to her.

"Strange." he commented.

The doorbell rang just as Prim was coming back into the room her arms loaded with snacks, he heard the rumble of voices, Madge's laugh and Gale's lower pitch telling her he had brought strawberries in a slightly embarrassed tone. He waited for Katniss to place the picture down but she didn't seem to have noticed any of that.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

She was so focused on the picture, even Prim shot her an odd look.

"Katniss?" her sister worried.

She didn't answer, she simply brushed her fingers on the bird pin she was wearing on her sweater. The same bird pin Madge was wearing on the picture.

"I don't want to be pessimistic but mysterious twins on the hellmouth… It can't be good." he whispered to her just as Madge was coming back into the living-room, Gale in tow.

Gale, who didn't look thrilled to see the two of them standing so close together.

"Sorry." Peeta told Madge. "We didn't mean to pry. We just…"

"You have a twin?" Katniss asked with zero tact.

Madge froze for a second and then shook her head. "That's not me, that's my aunt. Mom says I look exactly like her…"

Peeta did a double take between her and the picture. Now that he had her in front of him, he could see the differences but they were indeed very small. She could have passed for a perfect copy. He didn't want to think it was creepy because it was hardly Madge's fault if she looked so much like her aunt but… it was a little weird. And Katniss' apparent fascination for the picture was even weirder.

"How did she died?" Katniss enquired. "You said she died but you didn't say how?"

"Damn, Catnip, light it up a notch?" Gale scowled, reaching to squeeze Madge's shoulder. "Everyone isn't as cold about death as you are."

The following silence was both tensed and hurt.

"I don't mind…" Madge winced, after clearing her throat. "She was attacked by a wild animal. She was only eighteen. My mother never really recovered. I wasn't even born yet."

A wild animal attack was the police's favorite way of explaining vampires bites, he had noticed.

"I'm so sorry." Prim said, reaching out for her hand.

Peeta wanted to offer his sympathies too but Madge was already surrounded by Gale and Prim and moving would have meant leaving Katniss alone on her side of the room. It didn't seem… right.

Katniss slowly placed the picture down.

"I'm not cold about death." she replied, a bit frosty.

Gale did look a little sorry for having said that but he didn't apologize and the tension wasn't going away. Peeta cleared his throat and purposefully strode to the pile of DVDs they had selected earlier. "So, what are we watching first?"

All in all, they had a good time.

He and Gale made an extra effort to be civil because Madge looked nervous to play host. Prim patiently calmed the situation down every time Gale and Katniss started exchanging cutting remarks. Madge kept them so well supplied in snacks Peeta thought his stomach might burst from all the food he had eaten – and those strawberries Gale had brought were good. As for Katniss, she brooded most of the night and made them all shake their heads every time she missed the glaring point in a movie. It amused them all but by the time they all were ready to call it a night, she looked a little frustrated.

Peeta suspected she was secretly glad to be able to go fight a few monsters before bed.

"I don't understand." Gale cringed when she asked him to walk Prim back home. "Why aren't you coming with us?"

Peeta was pretending really hard not to listen to the conversation even though they weren't being really discreet. They had left Madge's house and were walking down the street in the direction of Peeta's car. Gale and Katniss were walking a few feet in front of Prim and him. He was debating the merit of franchise reboots with a twelve year-old who was far too smart for her age and he wasn't listening.

"I have something to do." Katniss replied. "Peeta'll drop me off."

"He drops you off and then what?" Gale retorted. "You walk back home by yourself in the middle of the night? Forget it. It's dangerous. There's a serial killer on the loose. Didn't you hear about the janitor? Who knows who the next victim will be."

Katniss glanced at him over her shoulder and Peeta flashed her a small encouraging smile while keeping his end of the conversation. Because he was talking with Prim and not listening.

There wouldn't be any more victims, at least not because of that particular monster and he felt proud to have been a part of that. Even if his contribution had mostly amounted to reading books and carrying an axe.

"Look…" she sighed, sounding deeply aggravated.

"Is he your boyfriend?" Gale cut her off. "Is that it? Are you two going out?"

Prim was watching him with twinkling eyes and a very amused smile. She kept her voice low so the other two wouldn't hear but the teasing was unmistakable. "Are you her boyfriend?"

"No." he said firmly.

"What? No!" Katniss answered at the same time and, maybe, it would have been nicer if she hadn't been so emphatic about it.

"How about I drop Gale and Prim at the trailer park and then we go do the… thing?" he suggested, louder, because he had a feeling they would still be standing there in the morning if Gale and Katniss were left to butt heads. "And…" he added when the other boy opened his mouth. "I will, of course, drive her back home when she's done with the… thing."

And they said Katniss was a terrible liar.

Prim shook her head at him but declared that idea was the best and she climbed in the SUV he had just unlocked.

Gale really wasn't happy with his idea though. "It's almost midnight. What's so important that can't wait until tomorrow?"

"Are you coming or not?" Katniss snapped, already climbing on the passenger seat. Peeta was relieved she was claiming shotgun. He wasn't sure he would have fared well if he had been forced to sit next to Gale for a long fifteen minutes ride given the current tension.

It soon appeared however that Gale wasn't, in fact, coming. He scowled and stormed away on foot to make a point.

Katniss glared at his retreating back and slammed her door shut to make a point of her own.

The silence, once they were all in the car, was almost suffocating and he was almost relieved when Prim broke it. "Why don't you tell him the truth?"

"It's against the rules, Prim. I explained." Katniss immediately answered, as if she had just been pondering that very question.

"Yeah, but I know and Peeta knows…" her sister argued. "What's one more person?"

What's one more person?

The question seemed to echo in the car all the rest of the ride.

He remained in the SUV while Katniss escorted her sister home and checked on their mother. She shot him a curious look when she climbed back up but he didn't say anything.

He didn't say anything right up until they were walking between two rows of graves, with the starry sky over their heads and the dead under their feet.

"If you tell Gale…" he started.

"If I tell Gale, Haymitch is going to have my hide." she grumbled.

He ignored her interruption because they both knew the threat of Haymitch's anger wasn't enough to stop her if she wanted to do something.

"Can I still be your sidekick?" he insisted. He tried to make it sound like a joke, as if he was far less insecure about her reluctant friendship than he actually was.

"Why do you ask as if I have to choose?" she retorted angrily. "Why can't we all be friends?"

He suspected a part of her knew why but he didn't push. She never reacted well when pushed.

A vampire provided the perfect distraction by crawling out of a freshly dug grave. Katniss dusted him before he was even standing up. She didn't look entirely pleased by the easiness of the kill.

Peeta buried his hands in the pockets of his jacket and they kept on walking. He had a stake wedged in his belt but he knew he probably wouldn't need to use it. Not with Katniss there so determined to keep them safe.

"Why were you so fascinated with Madge's aunt?" he asked, to distract himself from all Gale related thoughts.

It wasn't all about petty jealousy, about his feelings for her… It felt like he had found a place he could belong with her and Haymitch, an odd family of sort and… Losing that? He wasn't sure he could handle it. And he knew that Gale would take it away from him. Not because the other boy was cruel – how could he even know what Haymitch and Katniss had come to mean to him? – but because Gale was exclusive when it came to Katniss in a way he could learn not to be.

She frowned. "I'm not sure. There was just something familiar about her… Like I knew her. Not just because she looked like Madge, I mean." She brushed her fingers on the bird pin again and then shook her head. "It doesn't matter, I guess."

Three vampires tried to ambush them a few feet away, next to the half-broken statue of a cherub. Katniss jumped in the fray without a second-thought, feet and hands flying, stake plunging down without remorse…

The third one turned to him and Peeta felt a thrill… There was no time to think when the vampire rushed on him, simply react. Being the captain of the wrestling team helped. He knew how to fight. He knew how to fight honorably and he also knew how to fight dirty.

By the time Katniss had dispatched her two vampires, he had the third one pinned under him and he was slamming the stake down. He looked up at Katniss with a smile, waiting for the man to burst into a cloud of dust… Instead, the vampire sent him flying and stood back up, the stake still sticking out of his chest…

Peeta rolled in the dirt, the air sucked out of his lungs…

"Missed the heart." the vampire mocked, advancing on him.

Then, he turned into dust for real.

Peeta's stake fell on the ground and Katniss emerged through the cloud of lingering particles. She held out a hand for him to take.

"I missed the heart a few times too at first." she said awkwardly, as if to comfort him.

He wasn't sure if she was trying to make him feel better or if it was true. Either way, he grabbed her hand and let her haul him back to his feet, vowing that he would do better next time. He picked up his stake and they looped around toward his car, following the cemetery's high stone wall.

"Is Miss Trinket part of the team now?" he asked at some point. He wasn't sure he had understood the whole Council spy thing. "I mean… Is she staying?"

"I don't know. I hope not." Katniss made a face. "We don't need another Watcher."

They might need a witch, though. But he didn't say that because Katniss had been very ambivalent about the magic thing. On one hand, she seemed to have liked the bow shooting flaming arrows but on the other hand, the whole thing had freaked her out more than vampires or demons had.

Peeta had thought the whole display to be pretty cool.

"I thought the Council were the good guys…" he insisted.

"I don't know, Peeta." she repeated, a little impatiently. "Haymitch doesn't really trust them, I guess."

"But he's part of them, isn't he?" he pointed out. "It doesn't make sense."

"He doesn't talk about his past much." She shrugged. "I got the feeling there was bad blood between them."

Haymitch didn't simply not talk about his past, he was closed off about it. He would talk about his years of freelance demon hunter in between Slayers sometimes but it was more technical anecdotes than personal recollection.

Katniss seemed to be mulling something over but it was only when they were within reach of the cemetery gates that she spit it out. "I think his mother was a Slayer."

That stopped Peeta dead in his tracks. "What? Why?"

She awkwardly shrugged again. "Some things he said. A feeling."

"But you guys are called young…" he argued, his mind railing with the implications. "That means she would have been…"

"Very young when she had him, yeah." she agreed. "And he had a brother, so… I'm not sure how this works out. Maybe I'm wrong…"

She didn't think she was wrong though, he could tell.

"That's… rough." he commented, after letting the knowledge sink in. "He must still have been a kid when she died…"

The number of people Haymitch had lost in his life though… He hadn't really given a specified amount but there was at least five Slayers and he always kept insisting death was inevitable… It was no wonder he was bitter.

"I don't want Trinket to be my Watcher." Katniss declared firmly, as if it was a serious possibility. Was it? Maybe Haymitch thought so. "I'm keeping Haymitch. If the Council has a problem with that, they can fuck off."

"I'm with you." he promised, as if the opposite was even an option. "Team Haymitch."

Still, the smile she rewarded him with was worth it.

End of Episode 2

And this is the end of episode 2! I hope you enjoyed it! Let me know your thoughts!

Episode 3 will start in two weeks! I hope to see you then!