Ricochet

Chapter 5: Fair trade and trust

Author: Carla, aka cali-chan
Rating: Most likely PG-13. Nothing worse than what's in the books.
Genre: Adventure/suspense/drama/romance... again, pretty much what's in the books.
Pairings: Peeta/Katniss, Rory/Prim... and probably others. You'll see soon.
Canon/timeline: Same-context AU- this fic still happens in the same world as THG, but the actual events in the books never happened. I'm adding about five years to the characters from the age they were at the beginning of The Hunger Games. Katniss is 21.
Disclaimer: Yeah, just let me go get my transfer laser and switch bodies with Suzanne Collins.

Note: I've never really tried this before (and I'm sure it will eventually come back and bite me in the behind), but each chapter will be from the PoV of a different character. You should be able to tell whose PoV it is fairly easily, though.

Summary: "Primrose Everdeen." This can't be happening, Katniss thought. She desperately pushed through the crowd. I volunteer!, she wanted to scream. I volunteer as tribute! But she couldn't, because she wasn't eligible for the reaping anymore. There was nothing she could do.

.

.

Peeta was still chuckling even a while after Old Man Rickets had left the bakery. "Rickets" wasn't actually his last name, but a nickname Peeta's brother Crispen had given the man back when they were kids, because he was somewhat bowlegged. Out of the three brothers, Peeta was always the guileless one. As a kid, he thought the moniker was mean and repeatedly tried to get his brothers to stop using it, but despite his best efforts, it stuck. Now he found himself using it as an adult... maybe he was feeling a bit nostalgic.

He was sure his mother would've closed the door in the old man's face without remorse, but he simply grabbed a piece of cloth and started wiping crumbs off the counter, while the man made his decision. He'd moved to wiping the display as the man finally walked out of the bakery, cane clanking with each step. And because he was closer to the door now, he couldn't help but hear the voices outside. "...Even that guy from the Hob who always smells like skunk told him no!" came the first one, soft and feminine, clearly a young girl. There was a light huff. "That man is disgusting. We shouldn't have even asked; I don't want Rory working with him... but he's desperate by now."

The second person who was involved in the conversation was also female, but her pitch was slightly lower, maybe a little more mature, and her tone was slightly flatter, not as springy as the first girl's had been. "I think it's good that he's considering every possible option." That caused him to startle. He'd recognize that voice everywhere.

"Of course you do, you have lower standards. As long as he does find a job- any job- he'll spend more time away from me," said the first girl. She sounded amused. There was a pause and then a rustle, accompanied by a giggle. "You could at least have the decency to pretend it's not true!" the girl exclaimed, laughing.

He left the cloth on top of the counter and moved to the door. This is becoming less and less overhearing, and more and more eavesdropping, Mellark, he told himself as he took a look outside. But how could he not sneak a peek when they were having a conversation right there in front of his door? They weren't exactly being quiet- at least the younger girl wasn't.

Katniss noticed him first. A hunter's hearing, he guessed; must've heard his sleeve brush against the doorframe, or similar. She turned her head to look at him and gave a nod in his direction. He'd learned from the previous times she'd come in to trade that this was her usual form of greeting.

The other girl, a slightly taller blonde whom he now recognized as Primrose, Katniss' younger sister, did not notice him yet. Perhaps those keen reflexes didn't run in the family. "I don't know what we're going to do, though," she lamented, hugging her little round, wooden container to her chest. That's where she carried blocks of goat cheese, which she made herself every few weeks and then sold in town. Peeta had bought a few in the past.

She let out a big sigh. He laughed silently; the exhalation seemed so out of place in someone as upbeat as her. "I just don't know who else we can-" That's when she turned around and noticed they weren't alone. "Oh! Hi." She went a little wide-eyed at being caught mid-rant, and Peeta noticed it made her sister's lips crinkle up ever-so-slightly. It was the closest thing he'd ever seen to a smile from Katniss, at least since they were kids. "I'm sorry, we're in the way," Primrose continued speaking, a little chagrined as she'd only just noticed that they were standing right in front of the bakery's main entrance.

"No, that's okay," he let the girl know, giving her a warm smile. It's not like they were blocking a steady flow of customers or anything; it was a low point in the afternoon. He wouldn't get a crowd until it was closer to dinnertime. "Things are a bit slow right now, anyway. I was just wondering if you had come by to trade."

"Yes," she said, pointing to the container she carried. "I have some goat cheese, and Katniss caught two squirrels today," she let him know.

Two squirrels didn't seem like that big a deal to him- at least not from Katniss- but then again, he knew next to nothing about hunting. Primrose's excitement surely meant they came to a good haul overall that day. Probably because summer had fully set in, finally. "That's great. Come on in, then." He signaled to the door and followed them inside.

Primrose set her container on top of the counter and proceeded to take out one small block of cheese wrapped in wax paper, to give to him. He walked up to the register to take out some coins to pay her, set them to the side and then went to the back, to pack up the usual loaves of bread he traded for Katniss' squirrels. All the while he was wracking his brain for a conversation topic.

The past couple of times Katniss had stopped by to trade, they'd talked some; nothing like their first conversation, but at least she hadn't completely ignored his attempts at small talk. The weather, their few acquaintances in common, nothing big. He'd never tried to talk to her when someone else was around, but if he only got the chance to talk to her once every week or so, her sister's presence wasn't going to make him shy away. Maybe that would make things easier. "So, did I hear you're looking for a job?" he asked from the back.

"No, my boyfriend is," the girl explained from the storefront. Her voice was slightly muffled because of the wall between them.

"A boyfriend your sister doesn't like?" He chuckled as he put the loaves of bread inside a paper bag. It was hard enough to tell what Katniss was thinking, especially if you hadn't been paying as close attention to her as he had through the years. He knew most people thought her aloof, cold. Peeta knew she wasn't precisely warm, but it wasn't that she disliked everyone- she was just selective as to the things and people she was willing to lend her attention to. However, that wasn't to say she didn't dislike anyone, and he could see why she would, if someone were getting a little too close to her sister. That she cared for Primrose was something nobody could ever deny.

There was laughter in the blonde girl's voice as she replied. "Oh, she likes him. She just won't admit it."

He picked up the bag and started to walk out just as Katniss intervened. "I like Rory just fine," she said with a scoff.

Peeta just managed to catch her rolling her eyes as he rounded the counter. The corners of her lips were barely quirking up, which made him smile. "I think she's just making sure nobody hurts you," he told Primrose, though he was looking directly at Katniss as he handed her the bag of bread. "I wouldn't want to be the poor guy, though. I bet she can be scary." He laughed as Katniss handed him the squirrels in turn. She didn't say anything to his comment but her smirk seemed almost amused. He mentally filed that as his new personal best.

Primrose just shook her head with a resigned smile, and he figured she'd heard something along those lines before. Whatever hard time Katniss was giving this Rory boy, at least it wasn't so serious that it put a strain between the sisters. So that was good. "We've even asked a few of the merchants- you know, about the job," Primrose continued their previous train of conversation as he handed her the coins in exchange for the cheese. "But nobody seems to have anything available." Once again she sounded a little dejected.

The expression was as sad as it was adorable on the girl, and Peeta thought he definitely would've wanted to do something, help her somehow if she'd come to him with the request. And that's when an idea occurred to him. "Actually, I might be able to help you with that," he said. Primrose immediately brightened up, hope springing up on her expressive face. Katniss, who had been standing off to the side like she was just waiting for her sister to be done so they could leave, turned sharp grey eyes on him, inquisitive.

He put his hands inside his pants' pocket as he spoke. "Yeah. The thing is, the bakery hasn't been doing very well lately, so I was thinking of hiring someone to help," he explained in a casual tone.

"Don't your brothers work with you?" Katniss intervened from the side.

"Crispen does," he nodded. He wasn't sure they'd even know which one of his brothers Crispen was, but it didn't really matter. "It's still not enough, though. Basically, we have to bake more in order to make profit, and there's only so much two people can produce. I could use an extra set of hands around here."

He could see from her expression that Katniss understood the logic, more or less. She was smart and knew about business from her trading. Primrose was a smart girl, too, he knew, but at this point she was simply excited. She was almost bouncing on her tiptoes, he noted with amusement. "And you'd hire Rory?" she asked, hopeful. "He doesn't really know much about baking," she added, a bit sheepish.

"Is he a hard worker?" The girl nodded enthusiastically. "Then it's not a problem," he shrugged lightly, dismissing her concerns. "He'd mostly just be mixing up batter and taking trays in and out of the oven. The basics aren't hard, I can teach him all he needs to know. My brother and I would be doing the more complicated stuff, anyway." Crispen was usually the one who did most of the retail pastries, as well as carving cakes. Peeta handled the decorating, most of the bread, and took care of special orders like cakes and cookies. What came before all that was the bulk of the work, really.

"Why would you hire a kid from the Seam?" Katniss asked, her eyes slightly narrowed. He should've known she'd be a little suspicious; people from town did not generally associate with people from the Seam, and given that his mother was not exactly subtle about her intolerance, it wasn't a stretch to think people from the Seam wouldn't be welcome to work in the bakery.

Fortunately for Primrose's boyfriend, Peeta did not share his mother's opinions on this issue. That's not to say that hiring a boy from the Seam wouldn't be convenient for him, as well. "To be honest, I can't afford to pay him as much as I would an apprentice from town," he admitted. "But if that's okay with him..."

"That's more than okay!" the younger girl was quick to assure him, with a big smile.

"Well, then. Can he start next week?" he smiled back, feeling happy that he'd made such a sweet girl happy, and hopefully improved his business at the same time.

He'd barely finished the question when Primrose all but barreled into him, throwing her arms around him in a grateful hug. His back actually bumped into the counter from her momentum, causing him to go "oomph!," so energetic was the girl's reaction. "Thank you, thank you!" He laughed at her exuberance. Then she let go of him just as quickly, and with a rushed "I've gotta tell Rory!" she hurried out of the bakery in a blur of white fabric and blond hair.

He was still laughing as she disappeared from view. "At that speed she'll make it back to the Seam in three seconds flat," he said with an amused shake of his head. He didn't forget that Katniss was still standing there, of course. He had to seize his chance to talk to her alone.

She seemed to have something to say to him, herself. "You said the bakery was doing better," she stated abruptly.

"I'm sorry?" he questioned, confused by her sudden change of topic.

His cluelessness seemed to rub her the wrong way. Her grip on the strap of her satchel tightened. It worried him. He didn't know what he had done for her demeanor to have changed so swiftly; he would've thought she would be happy to see her sister so excited. Her next words made it clear. "The first time I traded with you. You said the bakery was doing better so you could actually afford to give me three loaves per squirrel instead of two."

He felt a hole open up in the bottom of his stomach. He knew this would happen. He knew she would figure it out eventually, and he knew she would take it the wrong way. Stupid. "I can-"

"You lied," she cut him off. Her eyes were narrowed, her tone was curt. "You lied to convince me to take the bread. Why would you? Did you think we would starve if we didn't have that extra loaf? My sister and I are doing just fine. You don't have to give us anything."

Once again, he tried to explain. "That's not the way it is, at all-"

"We don't need your charity," she interrupted him again. She wasn't yelling, but her words were tightly controlled, and he thought that might be even worse.

"It's not charity," he assured her, as earnest as he could be. She was misinterpreting his words. She was probably thinking he was a smug townie, rubbing in her face that he had more money than she did, and that he could afford to throw away food on a whim, but she couldn't be farther from the truth. He needed her to understand. "If you'd just let me explain-"

"Don't bother," she sentenced. She grabbed the bags of bread Primrose had left on the counter, took two loaves out and put them to the side, and then spun on her heel, her braid swishing from side to side as she walked the few steps that separated her from the main exit.

Peeta's heart leapt to his throat. He knew if she left like this, she wouldn't come back again. He couldn't let that happen. Without thinking much, he rushed in the same direction, barely getting between her and the door before she could make it out. "Wait. Please, just let me explain."

"It doesn't matter," she started, and this time he was the one to interrupt her.

"It matters to me," he sentenced, and it seemed to give her pause. Or maybe she was just measuring him up, gauging if there was a way she could get past him to make her getaway. He was heavier and stockier than her, so she probably couldn't just push him off. Oh, he was really glad she didn't have her bow and arrow with her, but you never knew with Katniss. She was resourceful.

There was silence, her observing him acutely, and him trying to figure out what he could say, how he could put his beliefs, his actions, in a way she would understand. But despite his intentions to explain himself, it was her that intervened first. "Is this about the burnt bread?"

Once more, she caught him completely off base. He couldn't remember having traded her any burnt bread; he certainly wasn't in the habit of handing second-rate loaves to his customers. But of course, he had; just not recently. "Ten years ago. I was almost passed out in front of your pig pen. You burnt two loaves of bread on purpose and when your mother told you to feed it to the pigs, you threw them my way." She shifted her gaze to the side- not that he could hold his either.

"You remember that?" he asked, frankly a little breathless in his surprise. He knew that moment had marked him, but he had no idea it had been significant to her. Through all those years, she never given any indication that she remembered that night, let alone thought it important.

"Of course I remember," she stated, almost dismissing the question. It almost sounded like she was bothered that she could still recall that moment. "We had had nothing but boiled water with mint leaves for the previous three days. I was desperate. And you..." She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, making it clear that she was uncomfortable talking about this. "You took a beating from your mother to give me that bread. If it weren't for those two loaves, we would've starved."

He tried to say something, wanted to say something, but it was like his throat had dried up completely. Of course he knew they had been living in precarious conditions back then, and she had certainly looked like she was starving that day, but to hear that confirmed straight from her mouth... what could he say to that? Nothing. There were no words.

She shook her head like she didn't want to remember, and her eyes snapped back up, looking straight at him, sharp. "But we're doing fine now. We make enough to get by. We don't need your help anymore, or anyone's help." She took a breath, like bringing this up had made her worked up, agitated. "Bad enough that I can never repay you for that, but then you keep giving us food. Don't."

"You don't owe me anything," he hurried to say. He'd only ever helped her because he cared about her, not because he was expecting anything from her in return. He just wanted to see her healthy and safe. He hoped she could realize the good intentions behind his actions, but it seemed she simply didn't see things that way. She'd been taking care of everything on her own for too long; she simply wasn't used to accepting help from others.

As expected, she rejected this idea. "Yes, I owe you. Don't you get it?" She sounded frustrated that he wasn't understanding her point. Well, it was nice to know he wasn't the only one who was displeased by this train of conversation. Or maybe it wasn't nice at all, because it only served to remind him how different they were, and he didn't want to think about that, not when he was standing so close to her, for once. "You saved my life that night. You saved Prim. Nothing is enough to repay that."

"I'm not asking you to," he reiterated, emphatically. If he couldn't make her see, they'd be going back and forth for who knows how long, and he doubted she would have the patience to hang around all that time while they came to an agreement. "I didn't do it so you would pay me back, I did it because..." Because I love you. "...Because it was the right thing to do." He exhaled in an exhausted sigh. He could only hope he was getting through to her. "And giving you those extra loaves for your squirrels is also the right thing to do," he added, extending one arm to signal the bread she had left on the counter.

"Not if you can't afford pity," she shot back immediately.

"That's not what this-" He stopped himself before his agitation got the better of him. Boy, could this woman get under his skin, and at the moment he both loved her and hated her for it. He rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand, and tried again. "Let me put it this way," he re-started his argument. "Do you pity me because my father is dead?"

"No," she said right away, in a tone like he had just asked her the stupidest question in the world. With that and how quickly she had responded, there was no doubt she was sincere.

"Well, it's exactly the same for me," he concluded, intending to use her own argument to make her understand his. "I mean, obviously I wish that you, or anyone else, didn't have to suffer just to get by. It's not fair." He shook his head, cursing the misery and inequality that plagued their district. "But that's not pity. In fact, it only makes me admire you even more," he admitted.

One of her eyebrows raised in sync with her next question. "You admire me?" she asked, like she thought the mere idea was blatantly ridiculous. Once again she looked at him, examined him, as if trying to figure out where he was going with this, what the trick was.

There was no trick. In fact, at that point his true feelings were just pouring out of him, uncontrollable. More than he thought he'd ever reveal to her. "Of course I do!" he exclaimed, certain and irrefutable. "You've kept yourself and your sister alive and well, on your own, for almost ten years. That's amazing, Katniss. I mean, I don't think I could have the strength to resist everything you went through when you were just a child, let alone make it even one day in the woods."

He didn't miss the movement: she pulled the strap of her satchel closer to her torso, almost like she was hugging herself with it. And one more time, she shrugged his words off. "Hunting? It was the only thing I could do to find food. Anybody would do that if they were in the same-"

"No, they wouldn't," he didn't let her finish the thought. Surely she couldn't believe what she had just been about to say. Everybody in District Twelve was in the same situation. Two meals a day was a luxury for people in the Seam, and the rest of the District wasn't too far behind. Everybody knew what it was to want for basic necessities. But not everybody actually risked life and limb to go get food among wild dogs and bears. She had. Yet she seemed intent on passing it off like it was no big deal. "You... you really don't see it, do you?"

She frowned, not understanding his question. For a moment, he wished she could see herself as he saw her. Maybe that way she'd get it. But this wasn't about him, or about his feelings for her; it was about fair trade, and trust. His shoulders sagged, the tension leaving him in one breath. "Just take the bread. I know my Dad felt differently, but I really do believe your squirrels are worth three loaves. I wasn't lying about that, I swear." He lifted both hands, as if to convey that it wasn't a bluff. "I wouldn't feel right if I only give you two. I have to honor my side of the bargain, even if that means skimping a bit on dinner," he finished with a shrug.

He took a couple steps to the side, no longer blocking the door, so she could leave if that's what she wanted. He could see she contemplated just that for a couple seconds. After some thinking, though, she made her way to the counter, picked up the two loaves she'd left there, and put them back in the paper bags with the rest of the bread. He smiled.

She said nothing more as she walked past him and made her way out, but when she reached the exit, she paused, the hand that wasn't holding the bags resting against the doorway. She looked at him over her shoulder. "See you around," she told him. She wasn't smiling or anything, but he knew that meant things were okay between them. She walked out, heading to her next destination in her rounds, and that was it. Next time she caught a squirrel, she'd come by, and they'd trade, just like always.

He couldn't ask for anything more.

.

.

Author's note!-

I can't shake the feeling that I had a note to make about some nerdy little detail in this chapter, but now I can't remember what that was. Huh.

Anyway, I do have a something to say about the previous chapter: Prim and Rory's promise of "no volunteering" is just between the two of them. That means: Rory can't volunteer as the male tribute if Prim gets chosen, and Prim can't volunteer as the female tribute if Rory gets chosen. Basically, they don't want to be in a position where they might have to kill each other in the arena. Remember, the events in THG never happened so there's no precedent for two tributes being allowed to win because they're in love. The idea wouldn't even have crossed their minds.

However, that does not stop them from volunteering to save someone else. So if, say, Vick were to get reaped, Rory could volunteer for him. I'm sure Prim wouldn't want him to do that, but she wouldn't ask him NOT to do it- it's his choice.

But rest assured, Vick will not be reaped. I say this for y'all's peace of mind. You guys are already crying over Prim, I don't even know how you're going to handle everything that's coming. ^^;;;

Anyway, I hope you liked this! I brought back Peeta's PoV, I gave you some Peeta/Katniss interaction, AND it's the longest chapter to date- hope you're all satisfied for the moment. Now go honor YOUR side of the bargain and tell me what you thought of this chapter! Reviews are always appreciated.