"You're good with him," Peeta murmured. Katniss smiled tiredly, shifting the little boy who was sleeping on her chest. She'd played all evening with the boys, then read Paddy stories and sang softly to him until he fell asleep in her arms.
"He reminds me of my sister." And not just physically, with his blonde curls and big blue eyes. Prim had been cuddly like Paddy, especially when she was little. Katniss hadn't realised how much she missed it. How starved she'd been for uncomplicated affection.
"You've never mentioned a sister before," Peeta said lightly, settling onto the couch beside her, careful not to jostle the sleeping child. Ollie was stretched out in the recliner across from them, snoring softly.
Katniss nodded. She should deflect, change the subject, it's what she usually did when family came up. But she missed Prim, so damned much, and it felt like a betrayal to deny her existence. "She died. Nine months ago now."
"Oh Katniss," Peeta said, his arm tightening around her shoulder. "I'm so sorry."
"Thanks," she said. "It was cancer. She fought so hard, but it wasn't a winnable battle."
"What was she like?" Peeta asked, and Katniss was touched that he seemed to understand her need to talk about her sister. He was really good at knowing how to read her moods.
"She was my best friend." Katniss sighed, and snuggled into Peeta's shoulder, her chin resting on Paddy's downy curls. "Prim. She was four years younger, but we were as close as any two people could ever be." They'd faced so much together, depended on each other so long. Two peas in a pod. Two sisters against the world. "She used to cry when I cried before she even knew the reason."
"I can't imagine you crying," Peeta chuckled, and Katniss smiled.
"I mean, you're not wrong," she laughed. "But back when we were little, I meant. She always wanted to be just like me." Katniss's smile fell. "She even followed me into medical school. She was in her second year of residency when the headaches started. She seemed really run down too." Katniss drew a deep, shuddering breath. "I should have known something was wrong. But I was only a couple of years out of residency myself, I knew how exhausting the schedule could be. I just thought she was working too hard.
"One day she fell on the ward, and couldn't get back up. It was a glioblastoma." She glanced up at Peeta. "Brain tumour. Highly aggressive.
"We knew, right from when she was diagnosed, that she was terminal." They were doctors, they knew the odds. "But she still had the surgery, and chemo, and radiation, to delay the inevitable. To buy us a little more time." It hadn't been enough, not by a long shot. "She was determined to squeeze out every bit of life from the time she had left. I cut my hours at the hospital, and we spent the months after her surgery crossing things off her bucket list." Katnss bit her lip against the threat of tears. They'd barely made a dent in Prim's list of dreams before her symptoms had gotten bad again and they'd been forced to slow down. But even then, Prim's spirit had been indomitable. Swollen from the steroids and largely confined to a wheelchair, she'd still made plans for things the sisters could do together every week, even as simple as feeding the ducks on the bay.
"She smiled right to the end," Katniss whispered. "Thin as a ghost, drugged out of her mind to control the pain and the seizures, she still smiled at every doctor and nurse who saw her in the hospice. Still smiled at me."
The pain of it overwhelmed Katniss, even all of these months later. Her sister, the sweetest, sunniest person she'd ever known, gone forever. "She was only twenty-seven. Her life had barely even begun."
They sat in silence, Katniss lost in her grief, Peeta's arm a solid comfort.
"She's why I came here," Katniss whispered after many long minutes. "Everything about the hospital in the Seam reminds me of her."
Peeta nodded, his jaw lightly brushing her hair. "Is it easier, being here?"
"I don't know," Katniss replied honestly. "I feel so lost, so untethered without her. But I think she'd be thrilled that I'm here. I kept thinking about her, the whole time we were with the koalas. How much she'd have loved to see them." Katniss laughed softly. "Maybe I'm finishing some of her bucket list now."
"I bet she'd have loved that," Peeta said, and the kindness in that single sentence made Katniss smile.
"You're right," she said. "She would." Prim would have loved Peeta too, Katniss realised. Would have seen in him a kindred spirit. How she wished her little duck were there, to guide her, to give her some sisterly advice. Because this thing with Peeta, it was more than a fling. But it couldn't be a relationship, she wasn't built that way, and she was leaving anyway.
Katniss glanced at Peeta. His arm was snug around her shoulders, his free hand idly stroking his sleeping nephew's hair. He was a good guy, he was fun to be with, he didn't push her for more than she could give. Meeting Madge quelled some of her fears about things being awkward when this was over. So why was she holding back? She could have fun, let down her hair, enjoy her limited time in Australia. And go home in a few months with some really good memories.
She leaned up to kiss his jaw. He met her eyes and smiled.
They sat in comfortable silence until Brann showed up a half hour later, walking into Peeta's house without ringing the bell. He looked exhausted, Katniss noted, and more than a little sheepish.
He picked up his eldest son from the recliner, Peeta took little Paddy from Katniss's arms, and the brothers walked together out to Brann's car. Katniss wandered to the front door, watching. They were very similar, the two men, but Brann seemed so much older, even though Katniss knew there was only four years between them, the same as had been between her and Prim.
They were talking in low tones, but Katniss could hear them clearly. "I'm sorry about earlier," Brann said to his brother. "I was an arse. I was scared, but that doesn't give me any right to be a wanker."
Peeta embraced his brother in that one-armed way men do. "S'all right, mate," Peeta said.
Brann glanced up to where Katniss watched them, making eye contact. "I've been an arse longer than tonight, haven't I?"
Peeta glanced over his shoulder and smiled at Katniss, then led his brother back up the stairs. "Weren't introduced properly earlier," he said. "This is Dr. Katniss Everdeen." There were words left unsaid there, Katniss could feel them. Feel Peeta itching to define what they were to each other. But he didn't.
"Hi," Katniss said softly, but the rest of her words were lost when Brann grabbed her and pulled her into his chest. "Oh," she murmured against his shoulder. He was a hugger. That was uncomfortable.
"Oi, quit molesting the lady," Peeta said, mirth in his voice. Brann pulled back, and Peeta wrapped an arm casually around Katniss's waist, not possessively, not this time, just steadying. She appreciated it more than she could articulate.
"Sorry," Brann said, smiling a smile very similar to Peeta's, but less warm. "I just," he pushed a shaking hand through his hair, the same blonde as Peeta's but greying at the temples. "Thank you," he tried again. "For knowing what to do for Charlie. For watching the other lads."
"I had something to do with that last part too," Peeta teased. Brann punched him in the shoulder, but then laughed. It eased the seriousness of the moment.
"Your kids are really lovely," Katniss said. "I enjoyed letting Ollie trounce me at Mario Kart."
"I don't think there was any 'letting', love," Peeta laughed. It was true. Neither of them had come even close to beating Ollie, though Peeta had at least given it a good effort. He was engaged with his nephews, knew what they liked, knew how to relate to them. But he wasn't a pushover. Katniss wasn't sure exactly what the situation was, why the boys' mother wasn't in the picture, but it was clear Peeta filled a void for his little nephews.
"Ah yeah," Brann laughed. "Ollie's a ringer. Ace reflexes." A faint cough came from the car, and Brann's smile faded. "They gave me a machine with a mask. Four times a day he's gotta breathe in the meds." Brann looked stricken. "I had no idea he was that sick until he started gasping."
"Sometimes it comes on fast," Katniss said, laying a hand on Brann's arm. "You got him the help he needs." Katniss didn't have a lot of experience counselling patients or their agents. There wasn't much of that in emergency medicine. It fell to the surgeons and internists, and often the oncologists, to comfort and reassure. "You're doing everything right."
One small sentence, a partial truth really since Katniss has no way of knowing how long Charlie had been symptomatic. But Brann seemed so grateful for her words.
"Thanks, Doc," he said, voice thick.
"It's Katniss," she said, smiling. After all, this was Peeta's brother, his family. There was no place for formality.
"Thank you, Katniss."
Peeta squeezed her a little tighter as his brother drove away. "You're an amazing woman," he murmured against her temple.
She turned in his arms and cupped his jaw in her hands. "Alone at last," she said with a smirk.
A big, broad smile stretched across Peeta's face. Then he tossed her over his shoulder and carried her, shrieking and laughing, back into the house.