Author's Notes:

I want to thank chele20035 and pm addict for their lovely read throughs of this chapter! Both of them are wonderful people and give wonderful feedback! So thank you ladies!

I first wrote this for a drabble challenge (D12Drabbles) on Tumblr. The prompt was "children" and as it was graduation time here, my first thought was, "Katniss and Peeta's daughter is graduating. What would happen?" I hope you enjoy the TeenageToastBaby fluff!

"Here it is dancing girl, just the dress I was looking for," Mother says as she climbs out of the back of her closet. It's way back there, in the part of her closet no one ever seems to go. Where "those" dresses are hanging, the ones that are special. The ones that Cinna made. She unzips the bag, and I see it hanging there. A beautiful orange dress with a print of autumn leaves.

"You haven't called me 'dancing girl' in years!" I laugh at her.

"Oh, humor me, would you!" She smiles back, stroking my braid that has fallen over my shoulder.

I remember, when I was little, mother showed me all of those dresses. When I was five they were the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. Now that I'm about to graduate from high school, they are still the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Mother used to tell me I could look but not touch. Today though, today is different. Today, I get to wear one of these dresses, and I think my mother has one picked out for me.

"Wow. It's just as beautiful as I remember it," I say with awe as my hand smooths down the fabric, feeling the cool cotton under my fingertips. Cinna was genius with fabric, and a needle and thread. I have heard over and over about Cinna and Portia. "Father must have loved this when he saw you in it." I smile at her.

"Did he? I don't remember," Mother says wistfully. "I do remember thinking he would like it. It was just after I'd learned orange was his favorite color. We had just begun our Victory tour. I wore this when we were in 11… Why don't you try this one on?" she asks me as she hands it over.

It seems so natural now, to talk about her past like it was nothing too big. To talk about events from "Before" and from the "In Between". Like it was just another party. Like she wasn't a Victor of the Hunger Games. Like she and Father weren't responsible for inspiring the country into a full out rebellion.

It's taken Mother a few years to get to the point where she can accept the past for what it was, and live in the now, realizing she can't change the past but she can change the future. I know that Father was a huge part of Mother's recovery, but I also know that my little brother and I also played a part.

Father wasn't the only one who struggled with 'real' and 'not real'. Mother did too, just in a different way. When we were younger, Mother's bad days still seemed to come more frequent. There were days when she struggled to get out of bed. It was on those days that she would need to touch us the most, as if she was seeing if we were really there, really 'real'. Mother was always afraid that we would leave, that we weren't real enough. So on those days, when she would force herself away from her pillow, she would hold our hands more when she spoke to us. There were more touches as she'd leave the room, or as we would come into one. She struggled to let us out of her sight, as if we would disappear if she couldn't see us. The fear that we could be gone in an instant was always in her eyes.

The week before I first began school was the hardest for mother, she told me not too long ago. She knew, at that point, that she could no longer protect me from her past. That, whatever she did in the Games, in the Rebellion, I would find out about, and it would be up to me to decide what I thought.

Father and Mother spoke to both me and my little brother. We knew their story, that they were in the Games, that they fought in the Rebellion. Before I started school, I used to love to look at The Book. I loved to look at my mother's beautiful handwriting, and my father's lifelike portraits. I knew all of their names, all of their stories: Aunt Prim, Finnick, Cinna, Boggs, Mitchell, Cato, Clove, Rue, Thresh… the list went on and on. So when I got to school, when I would open up my history books and see Mother and Father in them, both from the Games and from the war, I wasn't shocked. I knew the story. But I didn't know the full story. Not until I had heard all sides.

Everyone knows our name- Mellark. When I was younger, I thought it was because my father was the best baker in Panem. But as I grew, I found out differently. From the press who would randomly show up at our door, to the tourists that would stare at us as we walked down the dusty lane to town to get ice cream. I learned that we were "special" whether Mother and Father wanted that or not.

In primary school we learned of the Mockingjay, how she led our country to freedom. I remember having a counting book of Panem. Twelve-12 Districts standing up together. Eleven- 11 Heroes the fighting Star Squad (I always found it funny that Mother and Father weren't included there). And the numbers went down from there until we got to Two- 2 Victors, the Star Crossed Lovers. One- 1 Mockingjay to lead us to Freedom.

Mother always rolled her eyes at that book. Father just shook his head and went back to whatever he was doing. Both of them were always uncomfortable with the notoriety.

As I moved up in school, I would learn more and more about the history of Panem. I learned of the reapings, of the Hunger Games. It was always the worst when we'd watch a documentary about them. I found out later that it was Cressida who put the movie together, and she interviewed all of the surviving Victor's, including Mother and Father. I hated that part of school, because not only did I have to listen to my parents and their friends talk about the Games, I had to do it with my entire class staring at me. Those were rough times for me with my parents.

It's not that I wasn't proud of them, or the others. It's that I hated being singled out, and for a time I blamed them. I think it was easier to blame my parents than to actually think about what they had to go through. It was easier to be upset at how I was being treated, than to think about how they were treated.

A few years ago, my friends lent me a series of novels about my parents. I thought Mother was going to march to the Capitol and start another rebellion. It was a long while before Plutarch called the house, not that he was ever really welcome here to begin with. But after that, whatever we wanted, Plutarch would be sure to send.

As much as I knew it was an invasion on our family's privacy, I didn't really care at the time. I just wanted to be a normal kid in Panem. I just wanted my parents to be the baker and the hunter. I wanted the Star Crossed Lovers to be a thing of fiction, or someone else's parents. But after that incident, I started to look at things from their perspective. And I realized, no matter how much I may want it, the fact of the matter is, my parents were the Star Crossed Lovers. My mother is The Mockingjay. And as bad as it is for me as their daughter, it's ten times worse for them.

I never once thought of my parents as murderers. But finding out that they could kill people was hard for me. I always knew my parents loved me, and they never laid a hand on me or my brother. They were not vicious killers. They were kind and gentle. Coming to terms with that part of their past was hard on all of us, my brother included. But finding out that we didn't blame our parents for events that they couldn't control was the beginning of a second round of healing for our parents. Our family was always close, now it was even closer. We would always stand together, protect each other.

"So, how about it? I think it would be perfect for your graduation," Mother says, interrupting me from my thoughts.

"I can't believe you're letting me touch this, let alone wear it," I say with awe. But I unzip it, and slip it on. It fits me almost as if it was made for me.

"Hey! Who knew you and I were the same size," Mother smiles at me. "You look perfect. Will you wear it?"

"Hurry up! It's time to go!" My father calls up to me. My high school graduation is this evening, and apparently we are in a hurry to get there.

As I walk down the stairs, I see my father's eyes light up, "Hey, I've seen that dress before. It's been a long time. It was beautiful on your mother, and it's just as beautiful on you." He seems to get a bit misty-eyed. Mother comes up behind him, kisses him on the cheek as she grabs his hand. My brother has gone to get Haymitch, and we all make our way to the high school. It's time for one of the Mockingjay's babies to spread her wings.