Chapter 6: Cheaper by the Dozen

I don't slow my pace until I have cleared myself far from the Merchant side of town. Even then, though, I find myself stomping back to the Homestead. Stupid! What a stupid, insensitive thing for you to say! I only have enough wits about me to avoid banging open the door in my seething self-loathing and regret.

The household is loud, and lively. Children are running around and screaming with delight.

"Rory! Winnie! Both of you, stop chasing your brother with that spider!" A pretty, blonde woman of 26 comes flouncing down the stairs as she calls after her scampering daughters. My baby sister, Prim... who isn't a baby anymore. Rather, she is now a mother of three, and happily married. I hug her. Right away, she senses that something is off.

"What happened, sis?"

"Nothing," I bat aside.

"Whatever you say," she shrugs, before turning to the oven.

"I said it was nothing!" I snarl to her back, silently scolding myself for losing my temper so easily. Still, I have my reasons for lying; I can't talk to Prim about it. But there is someone who I can talk to. At a washing tub underneath the far window, I can see my sister's mother-in-law, Hazelle Hawthorne, doing laundry. She looks up with a smile as I approach.

"Katniss, dear! You're finally home! Had a good day in town? How was the woods?"

"They cancelled each other out," I shrug. "Can I talk to you?" Glancing around, I pull Hazelle to the kitchen table, ignoring the shouts of the children in the next room. They're playing; they won't eavesdrop. But my sister damn sure will try, which is why I keep my voice low.

"I saw Peeta today."

Hazelle raises her eyebrows. She is one of the few people, other than Prim and my dead father, who knows of my marriage to Peeta. "Where? How was he?"

I sigh. "As gentlemanly as ever. But... he caught me in a vulnerable moment and paid way too much for the squirrels I sold him. I think he was trying to make me feel better..."

Hazelle smiles gently. "Well, what's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, until he wished salutations to my family and I echoed back 'Yours, too,' like an idiot!" I bury my head in my arms. "Why does it have to be so complicated with him and me? And why can't time turn back and make things happier? Simpler?"

Hazelle gawks. "Katniss, he lost his entire family! I know it's not your fault, but try to be a little more understanding! And tactful!"

I raise my eyes to her. "Isn't it my fault, though? I'm the one who kept him away from them. Except for that one goddam day..."

FLASHBACK: We rise together, from the bed we share, just like every morning for the past two years. We shower together, kissing and fucking all the while, though quietly enough to not wake Prim. Hey, we're 18, we're adults, but that doesn't mean we're not aware of other people's privacy.

At the path beyond my Seam home, we part with a lingering kiss. "When are you going to tell your mother about us?" I whine impatiently.

"Today," Peeta promises with a smile, kissing me again. "I just have to make sure there's a rolling pin within arm's reach to defend myself when she inevitably attacks me!"

I pull back in his embrace, frowning, not amused. "If she even so much as touches you, I will send an arrow up her ass faster than you can say the President's name!"

Peeta laughs. "That I can believe!" We kiss again passionately for several minutes, before I forcibly have to extract myself.

"Go!" I laugh. "Before she gets suspicious! I'm amazed she's not gotten onto us for this long! I love you!"

"Love you too, babe!"

There is nothing out of the ordinary about my hunt that day, nor about my standard Hob run during lunch. Prim is safely in school. No longer do I have to rush back to check on my father, who finally succumbed to the injuries of his accident the year before. All that's left to do is go make my clandestine delivery to my husband's bakery... which hopefully, after today, won't be as clandestine anymore.

But as I approach, my eyes go wide with shock and fear, as I round the corner to see my husband's bakery in flames.

"PEETA!" I bellow, running for the structure. "PEETA! PEETA!"

The building has already been cordoned off. Firefighters are trying to quell the blaze. I am so panicked that I impulsively fight with the Peacekeepers who hold me back. If our marriage was not secret, I would scream for the heavens to hear that my husband is inside, and perhaps then they would let me pass. But I cannot do so, especially in front of government officials. It's too dangerous.

"We got a survivor here! Take him to the hospital!"

I wheel around at the call to see a figure being carried towards the back of an ambulance. Soot covers the victim, except for a crop of ashy blonde hair.

I nearly want to cry in relief. My husband. He's alive. As the ambulance screams for the hospital, I take off running after it. I'll be damned if I don't get to see my husband before... before...

I take up my post in the waiting room and refuse to move until the nurses take me to see Peeta Mellark. When asked of what relation I am to the patient, I lie and say family friend. The fib fills me with shame. We are family by marriage. I am his wife. Why must I continue to speak ill or falsely of he who is my husband?

At last, a nurse leads me into Peeta's room. There he lies, an exhausted smile on his face once he sees me. Monitors hook into him every which way. As soon as the nurse leaves, I launch myself upon him, covering his face with kisses. My tears fall on his upturned face, and I kiss those away, too.

"Oh, God... Peeta... Mmmmmm... Mmmmmmm... I can't believe... thank God you're alive... what happened?"

With a raspy voice, Peeta explains everything. The way he tells it, the fire starting was a complete accident, not of his doing, but of his mother's. When she found out that her youngest son had been secretly wed to a Seam slut for more than two years, she went ballistic, just as Peeta feared she would. It was apparently the first time Peeta had fought back against his mother, or even defended himself at all, as she came at him with a rolling pin. At one point in their struggle, the rolling pin went into one of the open ovens, causing sparks to burst forth and land on the tabletops, setting them ablaze. The fire moved quickly, smoke separating the family as they frantically tried to find a way out. Peeta was forced into the basement, jimmying open a window down there and just managing to squeeze through.

"I didn't want to fight her, sweetheart. But when she slandered you, an innocent bystander... I felt I had no choice. It was bigger than me at that moment. I had to protect your honor."

I chuckle, capturing his lips with a tender kiss. "Innocent bystander? Hardly."

"Now, don't you go demeaning yourself. I was the one who proposed marriage..."

"... and I was the one who agreed to it! Besides, I kissed you first that night! I initiated that good fuck we had in the woods!"

Just then, a Peacekeeper enters Peeta's room. "Mr. Mellark, I have some news for you."

I shrink away to the side of the room, flushing madly, as Peeta addresses the man. "Yes, Officer? What is it?"

"I... regret to inform you that your family has... passed away. In the blaze. My deepest condolences for your loss..."

Dead silence. For a long moment. And then, Peeta's sobs begin to wrack his body. Flustered, the Peacekeeper takes his leave; as soon as he is gone, I fling myself into Peeta's arms, holding him close. He sobs into my shirt.

"None of this would have happened if... if..."

"If what?" I ask, suddenly afraid over what the end of that sentence might be.

"My family is dead because of me, and my choices. And how many others might be killed, too?"

I read into what he is saying. He thinks that if we hadn't impulsively gotten married, none of this would have happened. But is he right? Wrong? I don't have an answer. Still, I bristle.

"Well, I don't regret marrying you," I throw out there. "And I've grown tired of this... deception we've been running; I don't care if the district knows we're married! They're just... elitist snobs!"

"Elitist snobs who hold a lot of sway, and could ensure bad things will happen!" Peeta suddenly takes my hand and looks me right in the eyes. "Katniss... I want a divorce."

The world stops turning. My mouth falls open. I burst into uncontrollable tears. "You don't love me?"

"That is not it at all! It's because I love you that I'm sparing you!"

"From what?" I shriek. "From what exactly?"

"Them! Anybody who might cast judgement! Or render things far worse! And do you really want to be with someone who could be as crippled as your father was?"

"I do if it means I hold up my wedding vows!" I snarl, gripping his hand in a vice. "We promised each other: for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health!"

But Peeta is staring at me sadly. His mind is made up. He thinks that cutting me free will be sparing me of some unknown torment? But he loves me! And I love him!

Which now begs the question: do I love him enough to let him go?

It is the hardest decision I have ever had to make, but I finally relent. Peeta and I sign the divorce papers in the hospital, presented to us discreetly by the same clerk who officiated our wedding in my living room. And then, step by step, I will myself to walk out of the hospital and out of my beloved's life forever...

I hardly realize that my tears are now flowing down my cheeks and hitting the tabletop as I return to the present in the Hawthornes' kitchen. I hear giggling coming from the stove that thankfully masks my sniffles.

"Gale! Stop!" Prim's laughter is like sweet music, as she tries to dodge the feather-like kisses her husband, Gale Hawthorne, now adorns all over her face and neck - even as she's trying to finish making dinner. My vision of the happy sight is suddenly blocked by my niece, Winnie. Of my sister's three children, I secretly believe her middle offspring is my favorite. Perhaps it's because - and Prim has told me this herself - Winnie resembles me the most. I suddenly find myself wondering if any child Peeta and I might have had would have looked like the little girl now facing me.

"Auntie Katniss? Why are you crying?"

I quickly wipe at my eyes with my sleeve. "Nothing, precious."

"Are you sad because you have no one to kiss you the way Daddy kisses Mommy?"

I stare at her in astonishment. Winnie definitely inherited my sister's intuition. Brains, too. Before I can stop myself, I find my voice murmuring, "I did have someone... once..."

"Was he my uncle? What happened to him?" Winnie asks so sweetly it breaks my heart. I bite my lip, fearing I have said too much. Peeta would have loved these children, his would-be nieces and nephew, had we stayed together. But before my niece can press me further, my sister is calling for everyone to come to the table. "Dinnertime! Ben, don't run to the table!" She warns to her son. "Rory, set the dishes, please..."

I eat with my family, but in silence, and remain silent and removed from them the rest of the night.