Chapter ten

Several faults

"Good evening! Table for..?"

The waitress glanced past Katniss, her eyebrows raised at the unusual group. Already, noting Katniss's demure with dress and the white ribbon that was tied like a headband on her head, she found it quite adorable to spot the mini version of the grown woman just standing a little behind her, and gripping onto her mother's skirt looking bashful. She too was wearing a white dress whit her long hair tied in two braids with white ribbons.

It wasn't only this that made the whole sight unusual, but also the two identically dressed little boys not far behind who were standing so close to each other and talking to one another in really hushed tones. Not to mention the man whose hair, which was peeking from under his black cap, matched that of the boys and his entire attire matched theirs as well.

"Five," Katniss replied, taking the waitress' attention before she could get a clearer look at Peeta. If she did, they'd be surely in trouble.

XOXO

"What do you mean?" Rye whispered back, brows furrowed. "Are you sure you heard her right?"

Luke nodded feverishly, the look on his face as serious as it can get for a five year old. "When I went in, the first thing I heard was that woman telling someone to 'look up the name of Katniss Everdeen in every hospital'. She was already shouting when I came in but that's the first thing I heard clearly. Then she said something about Los Angeles and something about not telling anyone, I can't really remember the words but I'm sure that's what she meant. Then… then there's also that last thing I told you," he finished unsurely.

"'Suspecting that Peeta got Everdeen pregnant'," he quoted, repeating what his brother had told him earlier.

Luke nodded yet again.

"I don't really understand it," Rye admitted truthfully as they walked on into the restaurant after their sister and mother with Peeta tailing them from behind. "Mom isn't married to Peeta. How can she be pregnant? And mom doesn't look big enough to be pregnant," he pointed out smartly, gesturing a hand over his stomach.

"Maybe it's really nothing. We should look for the word 'suspecting' in the dictionary first. We don't even know what that means," Luke said. "And I'm more curious why she would ask someone to check hospitals for mom's name."

"Do you think mom's sick?" Rye asked looking worried now.

"Mom would have told us if she is," Luke said, taking off his cap and scratching his head. "Do you think we should ask Gale about it? He works in a hospital. Maybe he'll understand."

"Yeah, maybe he-"

"Exactly what are you talking about that's gotten you two so preoccupied?"

Luke and Rye whipped their heads toward Katniss.

"Nothing!" they replied in unison.

Katniss raised a brow at them, not at all convinced. Actually, it wasn't at all unusual t see them both talking like this. In fact, she was already used to seeing them huddled together like this especially before she leaves for a date. This time, however, was different. They were both completely blocking out all of them from their conversation, including Willow. They always let Willow in on their plans but this time, they were completely ignoring her, obviously preferring to talk amongst just the two of them.

"Boys…" Katniss said in a questioning yet warning tone.

"Really mom…"

"… it's nothing."

Whit one last suspicious look at them, Katniss turned to Willow and gave her a reassuring smile.

"Why don't we place our orders?" Peeta spoke up.

XOXO

"Glimmer," Boggs said into his phone, trying to conceal the exasperation in his tone. "Peeta just went into a restaurant with the twins. There's also a woman and a little girl with them, but I never saw them before."

"Okay, you can leave there and make the calls to the hospital. Call me back once you get something on Everdeen."

"Fine," he replied curtly before the connection broke off, indication Glimmer ended the call. "What the hell has gotten into her," he muttered with a frown etched on his face. With one last look at the restaurant, Boggs drove off.

XOXO

Glimmer tossed her cell onto the bed and walked towards the large glass window of her room in the suite she and Peeta were staying.

"Why did we have to come back to Los Angeles?" she asked herself, irritate. "This is all your fault Mr. Abernathy," she muttered to herself, sighing deeply. If he hadn't threatened Peeta to take this job, they wouldn't be back in the States at all.

XOXO

"Do you guys want dessert?" Katniss asked, though already knowing the answer to her question.

"Ice cream," the group chorused, Peeta included.

Katniss sent him an amused look before waving a passing waiter over.

"Yes miss? What can I get you?" he replied, bending close to Katniss and flashing her a dazzling smile.

Peeta had a sudden urge to punch his face.

"Uhm, yes," Katniss said, inching slightly away from him. "What flavors of ice cream do you serve here?"

"We have all the basic flavors, chocolate, vanilla, mocha, strawberry, cookies and cream and rock road. If you're more interested in something a little different, we also have Butter Pecan, Green Tea, Coconut, L-"

"Great!" Katniss cut in. "Well, we'll have two scoops a cone each please; two chocolates, one vanilla, one with a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of vanilla, and a strawberry."

Writing it down on a little notebook, the waiter left. But not before flashing another dazzling smile at Katniss.

Peeta glared after him.

"Mom," the boys said.

"How did you know that Peeta's favorite…"

"… is chocolate and vanilla ice cream?"

This caught Peeta's attention. He hadn't even thought about that until the boys mentioned it. He glanced up at Katniss whom, he noticed, visibly tensed up.

"I…" Katniss cleared her throat at this. "I didn't. I ordered two flavors just in case," she told the boys before turning to Peeta. "Lucky guess, huh?"

With an eyebrow raise, Peeta shrugged. "Lucky guess," he agreed, although halfheartedly.

The boys look at Peeta, then at Katniss before looking at each other.

XOXO

"Wipe your hands first," Katniss instructed, handing Luke, Rye and Willow a wet tissue each before replacing the packet in her bag.

The three hastily wiped their hands and held them up for her to inspect.

With an approving nod from her, the three held each other's hands and ran off to the mini playground set up in the mall they were currently in.

"Be careful! And boys, watch over your sister!" Katniss called out before she and Peeta headed towards an empty bench close by.

XOXO

"What are you guys looking at?" Willow asked, trying to look over her brothers' shoulders. They were slightly taller than her, and with both of them in front of her, she couldn't see a thing.

They boys broke her gaze from their mother and Peeta who were now sitting on a bench alone together and turned to Willow.

"Nothing," they replied in unison, making her frown slightly.

XOXO

"Where are they?" Katniss asked, mostly to herself. So when Peeta replied, it was quite a shock to her.

"They went over to the slide I thing. Don't worry so much. Those boys are smarter than you think."

Katniss blushed and looked down, ceasing her attempts to look past the other kids to find her own. "I'm not saying they aren't smart," she said, slightly defensive. "I know they're smarter than kids their own age. They prove that to me time and again. Luke's only older by a few minutes, but he acts like the big brother to Rye and Willow. Rye's the more outspoken one; some might describe him as the ruder one, and Will-"

"Who described them as being rude?" he interrupted with a frown, looking straight at Katniss.

This made her uncomfortable. She couldn't very well tell Peeta that the previous guys she had dated, or rather attempted to date, found the boys rude. Who wouldn't? After all, they did always try to scare them away from her.

"Some of my friends at work," she half lied. Some of her dates were her colleagues after all.

Peeta didn't look into her reply. "Well, they probably don't know them very well. Not as much as I do I'm sure."

"Probably," Katniss echoed, now fidgeting on her seat.

Looking straight ahead, Peeta sat quite still. "Katniss," he began. He's been itching to ask her a lot of questions and now's a good a time as any. "I-"

"I want to thank you," Katniss cut in, talking rapidly, making Peeta look at her in bewilderment. Seeing the look on his face, Katniss breathed in a few times before speaking again. "I- I want to thank you Peeta… for agreeing to come out today with us. You must have a busy schedule but yet you still agreed to come. So, thank you. My boys have really taken to you."

"Our boys," Peeta corrected.

"Excuse me?"

"Our boys Katniss," he repeated almost harshly, giving more emphasis that they belonged to him as much as they did to her.

XOXO

"What are you guys talking about?" Willow asked, jumping up from behind Luke and Rye.

"Willow!" they chorused in surprise at the arrival of their sister.

"Where are Prim and the others?" Luke asked, looking past her shoulder to the new friends they had made in the playground.

Willow pointed towards the swings where a little girl slightly older that them was swinging by herself with a few kids nearby jumping around and laughing.

"Why did you leave her?"

"What are you guys talking about? You've been talking like that since we left the hotel," she pointed out, ignoring Rye's question.

The boys looked at each other before smiling back at her.

"It's nothing important…"

"… it's just about Peeta."

Willow frowned. "What about him? Why can't you tell me?"

"It's about mom and Peeta…"

"… we're not really sure either…"

"… so we can't say anything for now…"

"… but we promise to tell you later, okay?" Luke assured her with a smile.

Willow nodded but didn't say anything.

XOXO

"Y- Yes, our boys," Katniss agreed, looking away. 'I shouldn't have listened to Gale!" Katniss screamed in her mind. She couldn't believe she actually agreed to Gale's plan of befriending Peeta. But then, 'I'm doing this for my kids. The kids Katniss! Remember that,' she reminded herself. Breathing one last deep breath, she forced a natural smile on her face, or at least as natural a smile as she can manage in this situation. "So…" she said, still sounding slightly awkward. "What did you and the boys do since you picked them up?"

Peeta raised a brow at her but said nothing.

Another lapse of silence ensued.

"I-"

"We watched a few movies back in the hotel," he supplied, looking away from her. "We had a lot of dessert and we went out to eat. We weren't very good at cooking." (A/N: I know we all imply that Peeta is the cooker and Katniss the hunter, but in this case, let's just pretend that Peeta can't cook as good as we know)

Katniss smiled at this. Peeta hasn't changes as much as she thought after all. "Maybe next time I can pack food for you guys instead. It's never healthy to always eat out. Home cooked meals are always healthier."

"I agree," he replied. "They really take up a lot from me don't they?" he added, nodding slightly to the side.

Following his gaze, Katniss spotted the three now back on the swings nearby.

"They do," she agreed. "I really do see you a lot in them, even in Willow."

Peeta looked at her incredulously. "How's she like me?"

Katniss was taken aback by his tone. By the derision in his voice as he said 'she' he might as well have referred to Willow as a brat or something else equivalent to a brat. "Well," she started somewhat hesitantly. "She's far more silent than the boys at first with people, which in not unlike you when we met." (A/N: me again. I'm adapting Katniss's personality from when she was little, before her dad died in the book. And Peeta's shyness from when he wanted to talk to Katniss after the bread)

He snorted as she said this, making her brows furrow.

"She's really quite serious too," she added, earning her a glare from Peeta.

"Don't assume she's anything like me just because she's too silent or too serious for her age," he said, trying to contain his anger. "For all you know, she got all that from Hawthorne," he added, and as he did, Gale's smiling face popped into his head, making him sourer.

Katniss frowned at him. "What's Gale got to do with this?"

"Well, that brat seems to spend loads of time with Hawthorne, she might have gotten her personality from him," he said, looking away from her yet again. "She's just an attention seeking brat who-"

"How dare you!" Katniss interrupted, her voice a notch louder as she stood up. "H- How dare you call Willow a brat! And an attention seeker?"

"I can call her whatever I please," he replied coolly, trying to keep from losing his temper as she obviously now did.

"No you can't. Not when she hasn't even done a thing to you or to anybody else to deserve to be called such names!" she retorted, now shouting openly.

Peeta noticed a few people glancing their way as they passed and this only irked him more. He was trying his best to keep a low profile to avoid people form recognizing him and yet Katniss was, creating a scene and gathering unwanted attention.

He glared at her. "If you know what's good for you, then shut up," he hissed, trying to pull her back down to her seat on the bench.

"I will do no such thing!" she screamed, slapping his pulling hand away from her and drawing back a step away from him.

"What the hell is your problem!" he growled, now standing to his full height, making Katniss have to look up at him.

"Mom!"

"You are!" she said with the most contemptuous glare she can muster. "You have no right at all to insult Willow. She hasn't done anything to you at all and yet you treat her like she's nothing! Ever since you came along, you've ignored her and I didn't mind. But now you even go as far as insult her when she hasn't even done anything to you?"

"Mom!"

"And whose fault do you thing is that?" he barked, immediately forgetting his intention of being low key.

The instant his voice raised, Katniss jumped back a couple of steps in surprise. With a glare to math the one she was still aiming at him, Peeta strode closer to her.

"You're the one spending all your time with her and not with the boys! You've been ignoring them most of the times and just leave them with Sae!" Peeta's glare hardened even more as a look of surprise crossed Katniss's features. "Oh yes, I know all about that Katniss, the boys told me themselves! Why do you thing I insisted to take them away yesterday? So don't even try to deny it!"

Katniss's shoulders sagged. She didn't know the boys felt left out whenever she went to bring Willow to get check- ups at the hospital. What more she couldn't believe Peeta's nerve to tell her in such a way. If he did know that whenever she and Willow are together that they were always in the hospital, they why is he being so heartless about it when it concerns Willow's health?

"Y- You really are a heartless monster Peeta," she stammered in barely a whisper.

"What?" Peeta barked, not at all hearing her.

Standing more upright, Katniss looked at Peeta straight in the eyes. "I said, you really are a heartless monster Peeta Mellark!" she screamed into his face.

Neither of them said a thing after Katniss's loudens outburst yet. Nor did they get the chance. The people who have apparently stopped to watch their exchange without them noticing, were now whispering to one another but they were able to catch a few of what they were saying.

"Mellark? Peeta Mellark? That actor?" a middle- aged woman asked her husband who was now squinting his eyes in Peeta's direction.

"Oh my God, it is him. It's Peeta Mellark; you can clearly see his hair even with a cap on. It's the same color and length!" said an excited teenager to her friends who were nodding and staring even harder now, trying to make sure before they made any attempt to approach.

Peeta looked around him before glaring back at Katniss.

"Now look what you did!" he hissed at her fiercely as he gripped his cap and pulled it further over his face.

"You deserved it!" she shouted back before turning on her heel and towards the playground, leaving him with a crowd, which was slowly closing in on him.

Peeta bent his head down and placed his hand in his jacket pockets and followed after her.

"Excuse me?"

Stopping dead in his tracks, Peeta turned to the person who was tugging at his jacket sleeve.

"Is it really you Mr. Mellark? Can I have an autograph?"

The moment the words left the young boy's lips, shrieks erupted.

"Peeta! Peeta!"

"Hey Mellark! Look here!"

"Peeta! Please sign this!"

Ignoring all of their requests, Peeta walked on towards the playground.

"Mr. Mellark, I'm you number one fan!"

"Peeta!"

"Peeta" Your last movie was the best!"

"Oh my God, it's really Mellark!"

"Mom! Willow! Willow, please wake up!"

"Mom! What's happening to Willow? Willow!"

Regardless of all the voices of people unknown to him shouting from every direction, Peeta couldn't miss those voices even from a mile away, especially not now when they're all coated with deep concern and anguish.

"Excuse me please, this in an emergency," Peeta said, making his way through the crowd towards the playground, its plastic fence still erect and the employees standing by the gates keeping the now large crowd away from the area completely since as there were still kids inside.

"Willow!" Rye shouted. "Please wake up!"

"Mom! Don't leave! Please!" Luke shouted back at Katniss's retreating form.

Peeta looked at Katniss as she went into the small office to the side and talking to the person in charge of the playground, throwing her arms in the air, obviously getting hysterical.

"Please get a taxi outside for us! This in an emergency! My daughter just collapsed!" Katniss shouted, loud enough for even Peeta to hear despite the distance and the loud chattering of people beyond the fence.

"Peeta!" the boys cried out, getting his attention. "Help, please!"

Nodding, Peeta knelt down and picked up Willow's unconscious form. "Follow me boys," he instructed as he strode towards Katniss whom he now saw had tears streaming down her face. "Let's go. You should've called me. You know the car's just parked outside," he bit out angrily at her.

Katniss glared at him in spite of all the tears still present on her face.

"And how do you expect us to get out of here with you when all your fans are crowded outside ready to ambush you?" she pointed out sourly.

Peeta glared at her as she said this before striding along towards where he came, meeting a large crowd.

"Please let us pass everyone! I'm sorry I can't stay, we have an emergency here! This child needs to go to a hospital! Please understand!"

It took a few minutes before the picture taking from nearby fans ceased.

"Thank you," Peeta said gratefully with a nod. "I really appreciate it. We need to pass," he said repeating this to those nearby him as he wound his way through the crowd until he reached the end of the immensely large hoard of people.

"Peeta! Willow!" Luke said in a worried voice, pulling onto his jacket.

Seeing the look on both boys' faces, Peeta understood just how much their sister meant to them.

"Let's hurry," he said.

XOXO

Gale looked on through the glass window with a frown before pressing onto a button of a speaker just beside it.

"How is she?" he said into the mouthpiece, and he heard his own voice echo in the room beyond the glass.

One of doctors looked over towards him at the window and gestured OK with his hand.

With a relieve smile, Gale nodded slightly. "I'll be right back," he told the other four doctors who were observing with him in the room, all of whom having serious looks on their faces.

XOXO

"Will you please sit down?" Peeta said in a calm voice.

Katniss stopped her pacing just to glare hard at him before resuming.

They've arrived in the hospital almost two hours ago and still no word from any doctor or nurse from the special room they had brought Willow to. Doctor after doctor have gone in and none of them had come out. One can only wonder just how large that room inside was.

"I don't get why I have to wait here with you," Peeta said, half irritated and half confused. Sae had arrived earlier and had taken both Luke and Rye to the waiting area to distract them so they don't have to linger and worry about Willow. Gale had insisted the boys be brought there but that Peeta stay with Katniss while they see to Willow in the room. This was what confused him. Why did he have to stay here and wait with her? He'd rather go see if the boys were okay and ensure they weren't experiencing any emotional trauma of some sort. They were really shaken up ever since they left the mall, all the way to the hospital when Willow was placed on a stretcher and rushed to the E.R.

"Leave if you want then!" Katniss shouted in a whisper.

Peeta glared back at her. "What the hell is your problem?" he hissed, starting to get angry yet again because of Katniss's nasty attitude.

Katniss turned on him. "Well sorry if I didn't thank you for supposedly saving Willow's life from you fans!" she said sarcastically. "If your fans weren't around to block us in the first place, we would've gotten Willow here sooner!"

"Don't even go blaming me for what happened! You should be glad I even helped! If it weren't for the boys asking me to help, I wouldn't even have bothered!" he yelled at her although personally, even if he didn't like Willow, he would never have ignored an emergency like that.

Expecting for Katniss to lash out at him like what she's done all night, Peeta was surprised when nothing came from her but sobs.

"W- Why do you hate her s-so much?" she shouted at him in between tears, her voice breaking and losing all it derision. "What has she e-ever done to you"

Peeta didn't answer, instead he just watched Katniss fall to the ground, her back against the wall opposite him.

"She's just a child P-Peeta, she doesn't d-deserve this kind of attitude from you!" she cried out, more tears streaming down her face. "N-no child deserves that, especially n-not Willow."

Still, Peeta kept silent, face void of emotion.

"Say something! Why are you being so heartless?" she shouted, getting hysterical yet again. Her emotions have been unstable ever since they left the mall and it looks like is still is now.

Looking at her, Peeta still hadn't uttered a word.

"She doesn't deserve this," she sobbed out brokenly in whispers, looking at the ground now. "I know you hate me after what happened five years ago but you can't take it out on her. She's innocent. What has she done not to deserve the sort of attention you give the boys?" Katniss looked up at him, tears still streaming down her face but her eyes starting to blaze. "Is it because she looks like me? Because every time you look at her, she reminds you of me?"

Peeta glared at her, hating her with every word she's saying.

"Answer me Peeta!" she screamed, starting to get angry yet again. "I want to fix this! I don't care what I have to do to get you to like her, I'll do it!"

"She just collapsed! These things happen! What's that got to do with me liking her?" he barked at her, unable to hold his anger anymore.

"Why the hell is it to hard for you to like her?" Katniss shouted back, getting to her feet and glaring harder at him than even before. "Why the hell is it to hard for you? Can't you even at least try? She's your daughter for heaven's sake!"

Peeta could literally feel the world crash beneath his feet.