Something Old

I stand in my blue Reaping Dress before the District Clerk and the District Justice of the Peace. The Housing Bureau is the office that notarizes and distributes marriage licenses, and though I've never been in this office before, I'm terribly nervous.

I really shouldn't be, as I turn back and smile at my baby sister, Prim, who is standing next to the three little Hawthornes – Rory, Vick and Posy. For them – Gale and I are doing this for them. And besides, this isn't a full wedding ceremony. Gale and I agreed that, for now, we would enter into a civil union, as district law clearly states that civil unions are the bare minimum to create a congregate, stable household. Plus, the age of consent in District 12 is still 18 for marriage. By joining together like this, Gale and I are guaranteeing that our younger siblings won't be sent to the Community Home. That I won't be sent there, if only for a year. Gale is 19; I am 17.

His mother, Hazelle, has been gone for three months now, buried in a pauper's grave out back of their large homestead… which is now referenced by the District Clerk.

"And I see you have put in a formal waiver of a housing transfer… Is the property deeded to a Mr. Clay and Mrs. Hazelle Hawthorne considered a suitable living arrangement?"

Gale clears his throat. "It is, your Honor. It's also the only one of the two homes between our families that can accommodate all of us."

"I see." The Clerk lowers his hooked nose, topped by rimmed spectacles, down to the paper. "Well, the Justice Building has no objections. Shall we proceed?"

The District Justice of the Peace now steps forward and instructs Gale and I to join hands, facing each other.

"Gale Clancy Hawthorne, do you take this woman to be your civil partner?"

"I do."

"Sign here, please." Gale affixes his name to the civil union license.

"Katniss Magenta Everdeen, do you take this man to be your civil partner?"

"I do," I get out, thinking of Prim.

"Sign here, please." I sign my name to the parchment. "I now pronounce this couple as a union in the eyes of the law. You may embrace as you see fit."

Gale swoops forward, taking me in his arms, and my eyes only have time to grow wide before he is taking my face in his hands and kissing me deeply on the mouth.

I am completely unprepared, letting out a squeak of shock in the back of my throat. You would think that after years of friendship, hunting with Gale, I would have had cause to wonder about his lips. Or how his hands, which can create the most intricate of snares, can so easily entrap me, as they now steal about my waist.

Gale's lips press with even more passion into mine and I let out a gasp.

"Erm…."

To my credit, I hold the kiss until Gale and I break apart. I hear Primrose gasping and whispering excitedly to Rory. All I can do is stare at the man who is now my…. my partner in shock. I don't know what to feel, and even less what to think. But it hardly matters now. We are joined, for at least the next year until I turn 18. Then we can either renew the civil union contract or enter a traditional District 12 marriage. Either way, it is imperative to both Gale and I that our younger siblings be raised in a stable household. The alternative is to see them thrown to the Community Home, and thus increased risk of getting Reaped for the Hunger Games.

And as far as Primrose is concerned, but certainly also for the other little ones too, I cannot allow that.

Gale and I exit the Justice Building arm in arm. In the street, a few of our neighbors notice and stare, presuming that we have just come from having our wedding and that surely a customary Toasting will follow.

But there isn't going to be a Toasting. And this wasn't a wedding. It was a civil union – there is a distinct difference. It was that difference that had allowed me to set aside my reservation of ever getting married or having children of my own, and agree to Gale's plan.

Our discussions had started in the woods not long after the conclusion of the 74th Hunger Games nearly a year ago. Gale and I were viewing our daily hunts as more and more of an escape while Mother languished on death's door (she'd been depressed for years, following the death of my daddy in the mines when I was 11) and Gale's own mama was taking a turn into decline. Both of us agreed that should the worst happen, we could not stand by and see our little siblings carted off as orphans to the Community Home.

Mother passed in her sleep during the Harvest Festival that coincides with the Victory Tour; Hazelle followed weeks later. It is now a balmy May, only a couple of weeks after my seventeenth birthday.

Our blended family approaches the cart that Gale used to haul us into Town – the cart that is now laden with all of Prim's and my possessions from our old home in the Seam. I allow Gale to take me by my waist and lift me gentlemanly into the cart. His siblings – 13-year-old Vick, 10-year-old Rory and 6-year-old Posy – clamber excitedly up beside me. Only Prim does not follow, instead darting towards a stall at the edge of the open-air warehouse known as the Hob mere steps away.

"Primrose, stay close! Where are you going?" I call.

Seeing that she is rapidly engaging in conversation with Greasy Sae, the old peddler woman, I figure she is safe. Gale and I have traded in game with Sae ourselves. As I watch my partner secure our cart and circle the front in order to pull it himself, my eyes happen to cast over to the alley across the street.

It leads to a back loading dock attached to the rear of the Merchant Bakery. On the concrete ramp, a young man of stocky build is sweeping the dust and dirt away. When he suddenly lifts his head, golden curls falling into his face, my grey eyes expand as they lock on his eyes of blue…. Eyes as blue as a summer sky…

He's a classmate of mine in school. And I only really know his name – Peeta Mellark – and that he is on the wrestling team. We only interacted once, and it was years ago, yet it is an interaction that I will never forget.

You never forget the person who was your last hope.

Except I have a new hope now – or at least, a stopgap on the problem – as Gale lifts the sides of our cart.

"Primrose, we're leaving!" I tamp down a smirk at how paternal he already sounds with my baby sister.

Prim dashes back just in time, climbing into the cart beside me.

"Katty! Katty," she chitters, babbling happily while holding something in her palm. "Greasy Sae gave this to me for free! It's a wedd – a civil union gift from me to you."

She places the pendant in my palm and I open my fingers to look at it. It's a pin, adorned with likely fake gold that is now also grimy and rusting besides, ironed into the shape of a mockingjay.

I lift my eyes to my sister, smiling weakly, my eyes wet. "I love it, Little Duck." I tuck her into a one-armed squeeze.

"Off we go, homeward bound! Ho!" Gale calls, tugging our cart through the dusty streets of District 12, bound for the Hawthorne (now Hawthorne-Everdeen) homestead.

Primrose is leaning against me as we step into the Hawthorne homestead. We've visited here countless times before for dinner (our late mothers were best friends) but even so, something about entering the place this time feels different.

Gale sets down several of our bags, shifting his weight to better take the brunt of Mother's large trunk.

"Vick and Rory have their own room. Prim, I was figuring you could bunk with Posy. Catnip: follow me…."

He leads my sister and I up to what was once Hazelle's room. The master bedroom. I try not to look at the double bed as Gale sets down Mother's trunk between a simple vanity and a leaning chifforobe. My civil partner lightly touches my arm.

"I'll go see to Prim's things." He heads back downstairs.

Prim crosses to Mother's trunk and lifts the lid, rummaging through the things that amount to our inheritance. "Gale was so terribly strong to carry it out to the cart this morning," she prattles, pausing to gingerly lift a garment of heavy silk and sighing.

"This is…?"

"Mother's. Yes," I smile sadly.

Though she incurred huge costs in wedding our Daddy, a poor Seam coal miner, Mother was actually born a Merchant and lived until she wasn't much older than me in Town – the richer portion of District 12. My parents' Toasting was an elopement that caused quite the scandal, as Seam-Merchant intermarriage was rare and remains so to this day. When Prim's and my grandparents disowned her, Mother made off with the family wedding dress, traditionally passed down from Merchant mother to Merchant daughter. It is our most precious family heirloom, the nicest article of clothing we own, even though I'm fairly certain I will never wear it. I'd declined to wear it to the Justice Building today. The impulse to do so hadn't… felt right.

"It's so beautiful," Prim gushes, piningly.

I come behind her and put my arms around her. "Maybe someday when you're older, we can take it up so you can wear it."

"Really?" Prim's eyes shine.

"Mmm-hmm."

"What is that?" Gale asks, emerging back into Hazelle's room, appraising the garment. "It's a fine piece of fabric."

"My… my mother's wedding dress," I explain. "She carried it off with her when she married Daddy. Merchants tend to wear them."

Gale sports an expression that he must think is regret for me. "You should have worn it to the Justice Building today! You… you would have looked enchanting!"

Prim giggles at his choice of words, even as I frown. "My Reaping dress did the job well enough. Besides, Gale, I told you – this is a civil union. Wearing a wedding dress wouldn't have been right."

He nods, thoughtful. "Well, then perhaps you could sell it," he offers. "It would carry for a pretty coin. Maybe even sesterce cash money too."

I gawp, dismayed. "Never! It's a family heirloom. Prim's inheritance! She has the right to wear it someday when she Toasts the bread. Mother would have wanted that!"

Gale smiles down at my little sister, even as he raises his hands in surrender. "OK, then. But for what it's worth, I don't ever see our Little Duck getting married."

Prim grins cheekily and wiggles her bottom like a duck's tail. "Quack."

That night, I peer into the ajar door of Prim and Posy's bedroom, watching the two girls share a cot, both of them dozing nicely. I pull the jamb too quietly, stirring when I feel Gale touch my arm.

"Let's go to bed."

We traipse upstairs to the master bedroom. Now to be…. our bedroom.

By the light of the moon, I open Mother's trunk and rummage through it until I find it: her old, faded nightgown.

For some reason, I don't feel comfortable changing in front of Gale, so I cross into the adjacent washroom. Changing from my blue Reaping dress into Mother's nightgown, I then take a deep breath before re-entering the bedroom and climbing into the bed that Gale and I will now share, purposefully with my back to him, facing the wall.

"Good… goodnight," I murmur. Gale mumbles something beside me.

I lay there quietly, awake in the dark for what might be close to an hour, before I unexpectedly feel strong, warm arms encircle me from behind. I tense, shivering at the pair of lips now dipping a kiss into the curve of my neck.

Gale sharply rolls me over onto my back, and I stare in shock at how he hovers above me, the moonlight accentuating his silvery eyes that now seem to smolder. Gulping, I feel him press against me, and then I let out a gasp when I feel strong fingers push back the hem of my nightgown, push it up over my hips.

A large, strong set of fingers sink into the folds of my feminine beauty, and I feel dampness gather despite my lack of arousal.

Gale dips his head down to mine and kisses me fiercely, and I don't fight it. I try to sink into it. With his free hand, he dares to reach out and gallingly cup my right breast; his other hand is still palming my heat, stroking me, grooming me.

"Ermmmhmmmmm…." I make a disconcerted noise in the back of my throat, yet still I yield. Gale squeezes my right breast again, causing the nipple to harden in the cool, late spring air. Rather sharply, my civil partner yanks down the bodice of my nightshirt to bare my breasts, and his mouth switches from ravaging mine to sucking on my left nipple, making the bud ache.

And then… I feel a bloated thing push into my vagina and I cry out in pain at the new sensation of a man filling me.

Gale pauses inside me for a moment or two, focused on kissing and fondling my breasts, before he then begins to thrust inside me. The bedsprings creak and strain underneath our undulating bodies, the headboard smacking against the wall of rotting wood, plastered by clay.

"Fuck, fuck…. Urrrr…. Grrrrr…." Gale grunts with pleasure into the sweaty curve of my neck again. All I can do is grip his back and hold him close to me as he takes me, fucks me. I pass the time of our frantic coupling by staring at the ceiling, counting the ceiling tiles, trying not to make a sound even as moans and noises I don't feel are involuntarily torn from my lips.

It's not a wedding night – far from it. But even if it were, I wish that my first time shagging a man felt more like… making love. All I can do is whine as Gale pounds me into the mattress.

"Ummmmm….. Ugghh….. HUHHHHH! UHHHHH!"

The breakfast table next morning is quiet and awkward. The little ones are uncharacteristically subdued, Rory and Vick's ribbing of each other half-hearted. Prim keeps her head bowed into her cereal bowl, occasionally stealing glances at me while biting her lip. I smile at her weakly, trying to act like nothing is wrong, even though I can tell she clearly heard Gale and I coupling last night.

Only Posy is oblivious, waving her spoon around like the conductor of the Capitol Grand Symphony Orchestra, which occasionally has concerts play on Mandatory Viewing. It's better than watching the Hunger Games, at any rate.

I wince as I shift in my chair, feeling the dull ache again in the space between my legs. An awareness of new muscles I hadn't appreciated before. There had been dried blood and cum on my thighs in the shower this morning, and I recall how Gale finally ejaculated and softened inside me last night, though he didn't make me orgasm nor reach anything close to completion.

I quickly down the preventative tea that Mother told me about, that I'd prepared at first light. A pregnancy is the last thing this thrown-together family needs.

Gale is bustling about, tugging on his mining coveralls. "Has anyone seen my helmet?"

"On… on the hat rack," I state softly.

"Ah." Gale plucks it off and jams it on his head. "Thanks, Catnip. Mama always knew where Dad's helmet was too. You know what she always used to say?"

I smile wanly, answering the rhetorical question for him. "'A District 12 woman who's worth her weight in coal dust supports her husband and keeps the household.'"

"Exactly." Gale flashes me a grin over his shoulder, before turning back to the rest of us at the table. "Come on, Rory, Prim, Vick. Be good children. You have school soon!"

Our younger siblings scramble to gather their schoolbags and books. Posy prances at my feet, tiny little fists reaching.

"Up! Up, Katty!" I gingerly lift her into my arms as we all follow Gale to the door.

Rory looks nervous, gazing up at his big brother. "You'll be home tonight for supper… won't you?"

"Don't worry, squirt – I'll be back before you've grown an inch taller!" Gale ruffles his hair. Turning to me, he steals a kiss from my lips quickly before I can object. I blink, my smile still weak.

"Have…. have a good… day."

Tipping his helmet, Gale sets off in the direction of Abernathy Mine for a day of backbreaking work. I look down to Primrose.

"I have to keep Posy here, Primmy. I'm counting on you to walk with Rory and Vick. Make sure you all get safely there and back."

My sister nods and the three kids start down the path towards the district school, clear on the other side of Twelve, in Town, near the Square. Sighing, I wait until the trio is out of sight before turning inside with Posy and setting her on the floor. Posy is still too young to go to school – Hazelle had her held back, on account of her baby girl being born premature. Gale's mother's intentions had been for Posy to finally start in Lower School this coming fall.

As Posy plays, I rummage around in the fridge and come up with the two squirrels Gale and I had caught yesterday morning, before we had to go to the Justice Building and get… civilly unified.

A sudden, rather insatiable urge strikes me. The Baker would want these squirrels. I turn back to my partner's baby sister.

"Posy? Baby, I'm going to go outside for a bit. I'll be back as soon as I can. I'm going to lock the door; don't answer it for anyone, OK?" I bend down and kiss her head before tossing the squirrels into my game bag, shucking my father's hunting jacket on over my blue Reaping dress and sprinting into the dusty street.

It takes about twenty minutes to get from the Seam to Town at a walk. At a run, I've been known to do it in a little over ten. When I finally get to the alley and back loading dock behind the Bakery, I am panting, my chestnut hair windswept and in danger of coming out of its braid.

I climb the concrete ramp and bang my fist on the large metal door, waiting expectantly for the Baker to answer me.

Instead, my throat grows dry as his youngest son appears.

I feel a blush rise up from my chest and into my cheeks of its own accord as Peeta and I stare at each other for a prolonged moment. Finally, I lift my throat and heft the game bag into view.

"Hi."

"…Hi," he manages in reply.

"Squirrel delivery."

"Of- of course." He makes a show of inspecting the little beasts as I procure them, and for some reason it makes me smile. I try to hide it with a scowl. Peeta Mellark has always made me feel inexplicable things, and I would be better off to spurn such thoughts. Such…. desires.

"Right in the eye, every time!" I turn even further pink at the praise. "Wait here." And Peeta goes back inside to retrieve something. Likely bread, for the standard trade I make with his father.

When Peeta reappears, he is holding two whole loaves in his arms with steam wafting off the top. I frown.

"These are fresh from the oven. That's never been the deal," I accuse.

"Katniss, please take it. Snow knows you need it, with four little mouths to feed and all."

I wonder how much he knows about Gale's and my trip to the Justice Building yesterday. He saw me leaving in the wagon.

"So…." Peeta floats. "There seemed to be quite a bit of excitement at the Justice Building yesterday morning. You and Hawthorne's families."

I can't bear to look at him as I mumble out: "We went to the District Justice of the Peace. Um…. entered a civil union."

When I lift my eyes for a moment, I am struck by how much Peeta's brilliant blue orbs have dimmed. "I see…. I see…. Just a civil union?"

I bristle uncomfortably. "It's just to keep our little siblings out of the Community Home. We can renew it after a year."

"Oh. Well…. congratulations."

I sniff. "Thank you."

Against my better judgment, I take the freshly baked bread, gathering it into my game bag. As I move, my hunting jacket shifts, parting like curtains to reveal my blue Reaping dress, where Prim's little pin from yesterday is now affixed on the bodice, directly over my breast.

"That's a nice little pin…" Peeta's large, strong, firm hand is reaching for it as I lift my head up out of my gamebag. His digits finger the gold, and then brush against the swell of my breast as he retracts his hand back. At his touch, my nipple suddenly pebbles rock-hard in desire, suddenly aroused. I suck in a breath sharply.

"Umm…." Peeta clears his throat. "Where did you get it?"

I unconsciously start to bunch up the skirts of my blue dress with one first, while with the other, I am anxiously combing my hair back into a semblance of its braid. I shyly avert my eyes. "My sister. Gave it to me as a…. civil union present."

Peeta nods. The conversation lurches to an awkward halt, and I fish around for a way to end it.

"Well…. see ya." And I turn and take off running without looking back, my breasts still aching with a want I can't place.

I can't even begin to tell what it means. All I know is that I didn't feel this want, this lust, when lovemaking with Gale last night in bed.