Chapter four

Parent trap

"Will you make sure they come back to me at this exact spot?" Sae told the rather large, buff man, still very unsure. She can't believe the boys actually convinced her to take them there.

"Don't worry Sae…"

"… we'll be back soon."

She turned to the boys as they said this. "You might get lost, you can't even see past this large crowd," she said, pointing towards the swarm of people gathered around the stage.

"Don't worry ma'am, I'll take care of them," he said with a smile before lifting them easily enough with each arm.

The twins laughed as the man set them on his broad shoulders.

"H-Hold on you two!" the nanny called back as the man with the security uniform made his way through the crowd easily.

XOXO

"Sae just sent me a text message," Katniss said, a frown on her face as she pocketed her cell.

"What did she say?" Gale asked as he circled the lot again in search for a free parking space.

"She said she took the boys over to the stage where a promotional event was going on and that they were taken by some security guy for a closer look."

"Yeah, so?"

"Those kinds of things mean there must be hundreds of people gathered there," she pointed out, thinking if the boys would be okay.

"Katniss, chill," the man behind the wheel said, sending her an assuring look. "They'll be fine. Those boys of yours are smarter than most kids their age; let them have a little fun. Besides, this is their first time ever going somewhere besides the supermarket and the mall right?"

Katniss held a guilty look as he mentioned this. It was true, she never took her kids anywhere besides the supermarket for groceries or the mall for occasional shopping of clothes. It wasn't like they needed to go anywhere else anyway, they were only kids. And she wanted to protect them from all sorts of influences, which is why she didn't want them watching TV or playing video games either.

"I guess you're right," she said with a sigh.

XOXO

"Hey mister…"

"… where are we going?"

The twins were being carried towards the stage but they didn't know why. They were sure however that they were catching a lot of attention. As they passed through the throng of people of different ages and sizes, almost all of them turned and stared at them.

"Backstage," the man below them said as the continued his way towards the stage.

"Why?" they asked in unison, wondering what was special there.

"Those tickets you have are backstage passes," he told them as he nodded at the man who was in the same uniform as he was, and letting them pass through.

Just as he let the two boys down, a woman approached them

"What is this all about?" she asked, a frown upon her face.

Luke and Rye looked up at the tall and slender woman whose eyes were colored a piercing gray and her hair fell just in the middle of her back.

"Ms. Byington, these boys have backstage passes," he informed, pointing down at the twins.

Glimmer looked down at the boys, only just noticing them. When she did, she was caught off guard as she looked into very familiar sets of eyes. And these current pairs of eyes were looking straight at her with a glare.

"Oh my," she said in a whisper before bending down to the boys' level. "How do you do?" she asked politely although a frown was still on her lips.

"Fine…"

"… thank you."

They replied curtly, still looking at her with a glare. They really didn't know why, but it was their gut feeling acting up again, telling them not to trust this woman. Maybe it was because of the sort of look she was giving them.

"Can I please see your tickets?" Glimmer asked, feeling a bit uncomfortable at their scrutinizing glares. 'What's with these kids?' she asked herself.

Taking the passes, she took one last close-up look at the Peeta- lookalikes before standing back up and inspecting the tickets. They were the real thing.

"Excuse me boys, but where did you get these from?"

"Mr. MacLean gave it to us…"

"… last Saturday."

"Mr. MacLean?" Glimmer repeated, making the boys nod. 'Well, they are only children,' she thought, assuming it was the reason why they can't say Peeta's name right. "Very well then, let's go!"

As she said this, the twins looked at each other, doubt in their eyes if they should follow the woman. But Peeta's words filled their thoughts the day he gave them the tickets. He said the workers will know where to take them if they presented the ticket. And they did trust him.

Nodding at the other, the twins held hands before following her.

XOXO

"Sae!" Katniss called out towards the woman she had only just spotted after quite some of searching.

Sae turned and waved them over.

"Good afternoon Sae," Willow greeted the nanny softly with a smile.

"Good afternoon to you too Willow," she said, patting the child lightly on the head.

"Where's Luke and Rye?" Katniss asked, looking around the older woman and seeing no identical faces.

"Take a look for yourself," the woman replied with a laughing smile on her face, pointing towards the stage.

Katniss turned and her breath got caught.

There they were, Luke and Rye, entertaining the laughing and cooing audience with various goofy poses on the stage. But what caught Katniss's breath wasn't the outstanding performance her twin boys made with entertaining the crowd; it was the man whom they stood on either side of.

"Peeta," she whispered, wanting to faint but found that her body didn't feel like fainting.

"Do you see them clearly from here Willow?" Katniss's gaze turned to Gale who was carrying Willow in his arms and pointing towards the stage with the three identical looking boys. "Well, that man they're playing with on stage is a very popular actor," he added but Willow's face remained unfazed. She kept silent but stared on to where the twin boys stood on stage.

XOXO

"Lady…"

"… where is Mr. MacLean?"

They asked as Glimmer went back inside the room she left the twins in.

"I just went out to talk to him, he says he wants to see you now," she said with a now gentle but unsure smile at the boys. She was still shocked however at Peeta's confession that he's actually been meeting these boys for a while. "Please follow me boys."

Luke and Rye did as they were told and followed her through the backstage where it was full of stacked boxes and racks of weird clothing until they reached an area with a lot of curtains hanging from a distance above theme.

"There he is," she said, pointing to the unfamiliar man who was smiling and shaking the hands of different people who came up to him.

"That's no h-"

Luke didn't finish his sentence as Peeta turned to them and saw the man's eyes. It is him. This was the first time the twins actually saw him without a large hat on to cover his curly hair which they only just noticed, matched theirs along with their similar blue eyes.

XOXO

"Come here," Peeta mouthed to the twins with a wave of his hand, completely ignoring the very talkative teenager in front of him.

"… 'cause you know, you were like, really, like, hot in that movie and…"

A wide grin spread across Peeta's features as he watched the twins walk up to him side by side.

"… my friends also thought you were, like, hot of course, and I was like, I- Oh my God!"

Peeta turned to the teenager as she exclaimed in surprise when she saw the twins walk up towards the table from the curtains.

"They look exactly like you!" she said, watching the twins as they stopped right beside the actor.

"You lied to us…"

"… your name is Mellark…"

"… not MacLean…"

"… and you never told us…"

"… that you're a movie star either."

"Oh my God! That was too adorable!" the teenager exploded, and getting the attention of the rest of the crowd who hadn't taken notice of the twins' presence.

"Sorry about that, I thought you two might recognize me and give me away. I can't have people bothering us during our ice cream breaks right?" he said with an apologetic grin.

"We forgive you then…"

"… but you owe us twice as much ice cream next week."

They said, holding up two fingers each.

"Fair enough," he said, smirking at the boys. "Want to help me entertain this group?" he asked, pointing towards the sea of people below the stage whose hands were now in the air, trying to reach out to them and screaming how cute the three of them looked together.

Luke and Rye grinned at each other and grinned up at Peeta who led them towards the front of the stage with him.

"Mr. Mellark! Who are these kids?"

Peeta looked down and spotted that the media had somehow found their way back towards the front of the stage again, large cameras and video cameras in hand along with their microphones.

"Meet Luke," he said pointing to the twin on his left. "And Rye," he said pointing to the twin on his right.

The twins looked at each other and up to the man in between them with the same thoughts in mind. 'How can he tell us apart?'

"Hey kids!" their attention turned to the man who was holding a camera. "Do some poses for us will you!"

That said, they started doing all sorts of cool poses for them, and Peeta joined in on the fun, earning laughs from the crowd as he did.

Bright flashes blocked their sight from the crowd in front of them and the sounds of cameras clicking only increased as the trio laughed and posed even more for the audience's entertainment until their poses ended up wacky and until it turned out to be just plain silly.

"Okay, okay, let's get back to the autograph signing everyone!"

The twins immediately turned to the woman who appeared behind them, a glare on their faces. Peeta looked down at them bemused before turning to Glimmer himself.

"There's still a long line, and a lot of posters and photographs left, you have to finish all that," she whispered into his ear and pointing to the still full table behind them.

Peeta nodded at this with a concealed sigh.

"C'mon boys, let's go back to th-"

"Glimmer, leave the boys here," Peeta said, suddenly getting an idea. "And bring up two more chairs, and a few pillows too."

XOXO

"What are they doing?" Sae asked incredulously as chairs were set up, one on either side of Peeta.

As the twins got up and sat on the chairs whit pillows to add to their height so to reach the table, Gale laughed as the boys joined in the autograph signing. They were greeting and shaking hands with Peeta's fans as he signed the photos and posters for them to take when they leave.

"Catnip, those boys of your really are something!" he said without looking at her.

Katniss merely watched on in silence as the boys sat there and helped the actor in doing his job. Worry was clearly written all over her face as she deliberated within herself a way out of this mess if worse comes to worse.

XOXO

After giving away the last of the signed posters and photographs, Peeta sighed in relief and watched as the security personnel started to turn the crowd, making them leave the stage area.

"Mr. Mellark, I'll take the boys back now."

The twins looked up at the large buff man that had carried them earlier and jumped off their seats.

"No, I'll take them," he said with a wave of his hand. "I have to go thank their mother for letting them come."

The man nodded at him before rumpling the twins' hair and messing it up, making them complain.

"Hey! It's hard enough to fix our hair…"

"… for you to just ruin it."

The man and Peeta laughed as the little boys attempted to fix their hair.

"I don't know about you Mr. Mellark, but seeing these two reminds me a whole lot of you. It's like they're your sons or something," he joked before leaving the stage.

Peeta laughed, can't help agreeing with him. If he had sons, which he didn't, he'd imagine them to be like these boys too.

"Okay, c'mon. Do you know where your mother is?" he said, standing up from his seat.

The boys looked over towards the dispersing audience and spotted Katniss already there.

"There she is!" they both said excitedly.

Peeta looked over to where they pointed, but they were pointing in the direction of a woman whose back was turned, a man who was carrying and talking to a little girl.

"Wh- Ah, there," he said, spotting Sae (A/N: let's just pretend that, in this story, Sae is not as old as she's in THG… just a little bit younger, ok?) standing just by their group and waving in their direction. "Let's go out back. We need disguises."

"Disguises?"

"Well, you two are really popular now. You saw all those people taking pictures of you, now you need a disguise so they won't bother you when we go out there."

XOXO

"Here they come," Sae said joyously, spotting Peeta with the twins walking towards them, their similar hair covered with similar white baseball caps.

Katniss was officially panicking now. 'Calm down Katniss, it'll be fine. Breathe,' she told herself, while making sure Gale was covering her from sight.

XOXO

As the twin boys spotted their family, they started tugging on Peeta's legs to make him go faster.

"There they are!"

As they reached them, Peeta shook Sae's hand after she gave the twins a kiss on the cheek each for the wonderful job they did on stage.

"Thank you for letting them go up there," he said with a smile. "And I'm sorry I never told you guys I'm actually an actor," he added with a guilty grin.

"Yes, it would've been a lot easier on my nerves if I actually knew who you really were from the start rather than assuming you were some nice stranger, but it's fine," the nanny replied with a smile. "And you should thank the boys' mother, if she hadn't consented, I would've dragged those boys right off the stage!" she said with a laugh in her voice.

This confused Peeta. "Excuse me? Their mother? Aren't you their mother?"

"Heavens no, I'm their nanny!" she corrected.

Frowning, it was only then that Peeta saw that the twins were missing from her side.

"Mr. Mellark!" Gale greeted, surprising Peeta as he suddenly appeared beside Sae. "I'm a real fan of you films!" he said, excitedly shaking Peeta's hand with his free one. "Aren't I Willow?" he asked, looking at the child in his arms.

Peeta could literally feel his whole world stop.

"Willow?"

He repeated the name in a very faint voice, as he stared at the little girl the man was carrying. Her hair was the color of the night that ended just above her shoulder and her eyes were round and innocent, in a magnificent grey color. She looked exactly like…

"Katniss!" Gale called behind him. "Come and meet Mr. Mellark!"

Nothing else would've snapped Peeta's attention from the very familiar little girl in front of him except for that.

'Crap', Katniss squeaked in thought as her eyes fell on Peeta who was now openly staring at her.

"Mother…"

"… meet Mr. Peeta Mellark!"

The boys said, grinning from ear to ear as they stood on either side of her in front of Peeta.

"Peeta…"

"… meet our mother!"

Peeta and Katniss stared at each other, not uttering a single word.

XOXO

So here's chapter four! And for some of you (which I thinks is everyone) Peeta and Katniss finally meet!

I wanna thank all of you for your reviews. Thanks for being so understanding with me, for not being able to update the other day. I could say I swear that won't happen again but I can't promise anything, but I'll try my best.

Thanks again to everyone and hope you enjoyed this chapter.

And, as usual...

DISCLAIMER.

The Hunger Games character belong to the amazing Suzanne Collins. And the idea of this story belongs to The Dreamer.