Previously in The Road Most Traveled: Ingrid Kolster falls in love with Jacob Everdeen, but eventually follows her family's advice to turn him down. She marries Phillip Mellark the same day Jacob marries another woman. Ingrid and Phillip are incredibly happy together, but are shaken by the brutality of the Games. They're amongst the newlyweds who start families. An existing family stays whole when Jacob's brother survives the arena. Daniel and his family enjoy the victor life so far.

Chapter

Phillip held Ceres even tighter that you'd expect, but he would never hurt his darling girl, oh no. I already knew that the hands so strong in the bakery were so tender in the bedroom, but they were even gentler in the nursery. He could barely stay away from our little girl, which I took as not just a good sign, but the most beautiful sight I had yet known. "I knew it," Phillip said.

"Knew what, my solid crust?" I asked. I had taken easily to calling him that, for the crust supports the loaf from the bottom as well as protect it from the outside, guarding something soft and sweet on the inside.

"That the only other girl I'd ever love would call you mother – when she's old enough to talk, that is," he answered. Oh, that man is so sweet. Ceres had a thin fuzz of golden hair atop her adorable little head. Phillip had just come from mixing dough, and the flour left on his hands turned that minimal blonde hair white. Our love for her would take very different forms as she grew older, but however we changed, she could be stolen from us in twelve years' time. Yet we couldn't let that fear conquer our joy, especially since those rainbows in the dark dulled the other pain the Capitol inflicted. That's one of many things that made the Games so horrible, one way the Capitol masterminds demonstrated their deviousness.

Many men wanted sons, especially one to be named so-and-so the second, but Phillip wasn't so fixated. "I wanted a little girl with you and like you more than anything, and now that I have both in my life, I realize how right I was," he explained once, but a consistent sentiment it was.

Jacob got the little boy he had wanted, but he was no typical full-of-himself man either. He had thought of a Jacob II, and couples that shared an initial often used that initial for all their children, but they decided that 2 J's was enough. It was an easy jump from Jacob II to Andrew II. The plants in his beloved woods offered many names for girls, but not so many for boys.

To hear Jacqueline tell it, Jacob was dearly attached to their little Andrew, to be sure, but Phillip was even more so with Ceres. Jacob relished teaching his child much and more as they grew older. Even in the Merchant Section, we had more than enough work to do with the newborn. I'm not sure how they managed in the Seam before Daniel sent them to Victors Village. In some ways they hadn't, but to some extent, Jacob found a way.

Pregnant and nursing women were given somewhat higher rations by the Capitol, although before Daniel's victory and the resulting general increase in rations, that was a cruel joke. Did the Capitol laugh at the dead and dying babies as they would at those children a decade or so later? Their families begged for more, and the Capitol granted a sorry excuse for that at a heavy price - even more entries in the Reaping. Most in the Seam, especially those without someone as bold as Jacob in their lives, depended on those tesserae. Those of Reaping age could draw tesserae for close relatives as well as themselves, including children-to-be.

Sometimes I could barely let go of the little angel, but Phillip was spending even more time with our bundle of joy than I was, a relief when her cloths needed to be changed. Well, there was that one thing only Mommy could do. When even Phillip's cooing couldn't calm her, it meant I was to feed her. Artificial milk or devices to harvest one's own simply weren't common. I knew how healthy it was not only for Ceres but for me. That was what the globes on my chest were there for, after all. I wish I had the details known to professional medical academics on that and so many other features of the human body. I picked up a squalling baby and held a content one sucking. Phillip carried a sleeping one back to her bed.

I tucked the drained breast away again and muttered "The bite marks…"

Phillip overheard, and thought I was referring to appearance instead of pain. "Nothing would ever change how beautiful you are to me," he said. Like most of the district, he recognized the practicality of the act. Sweet man that he was, he couched the realization as a tender compliment.

"Was it a baker who said that pregnant women have a bun in the oven?" I asked.

"Maybe not, my sweet crumb," he answered. "For bread is universal, and I know of no bun recipe that calls for an egg, plus sausage drippings, at 100 degrees for nine months."

"You're funny, my love. Now care to give me another taste of that sausage?" I said, laughing and teasing at the same time.

And so as Ceres slept, we did anything but. He cupped my butt, the soft skin and cloth gladly sinking beneath his firm yet tender fingers. "I am glad you are not so timid anymore about making your Ingrid happy," I offered. He illustrated that by climbing out of his pants as he pulled down mine.

"We really do bring out the best in each other," he agreed. "Especially as we're in each other," he added while smiling. With that, he wrapped his legs around me and thrust. The bed braced my back as I gazed into his eyes, heard his moan at the edge of pleasure for several minutes, and felt him push forward into me. I rode several waves before his own crested.

There was a third very happy young woman in our little group. Angela had the right of it – Adam was more of a father to Bridget than the boy who has spilled his seed in the Cartwright girl.

Angela and Fergus separated - I thought of it as an annulment, admitting that the marriage shouldn't have happened in the first place. I admit Mr. Larkin had a point when he cited Angela's encounters with Adam as grounds for divorce. Fortunately, the Justice Building staff saw the sense in letting Angela keep her little girl nevertheless. Fergus was teased for being cuckolded by the victor's brother. Some town males, for I hesitate to use the term 'men', joked that Fergus was lucky to get off child support. "I think I'm the lucky guy for having a new daughter, not to mention having her mother," Adam rebutted. "I don't know what Fergus was thinking."

I went with Angela as she moved in with the Everdeens, taking Bridget with her. Bridget and Andrew II's cribs ended up in the same room in Victors' Village – that mansion had more than enough space for separate nurseries, but the Everdeens couldn't accustom themselves to such waste after having had so little. "We can alternate who gets a decent night's sleep," Angela observed and suggested to Jacqueline.

"Lucky you," I told them.

"You know how beautifully Jacob sings," Jacqueline told me. "Well, little Andrew certainly sleeps well with Jacob providing the lullabies." He was putting his son to bed to the classic tune of Deep In The Meadow. I think we all saw Bridget smile at the sound too. Some of us almost cried with joy.

Phillip delivered the freshest bread to those who could now very much afford it. Haymitch preferred his starches fermented, and often wasn't awake at that hour anyway. Even freed of the mines, the Everdeen men still rose early. It was often Adam who took the delivery. Phillip said they talked a lot about their adorable girls and the beautiful mothers thereof.

A/N

I wanted to post something for Father's Day and such material wouldn't have fit in my other stories until later in the storylines. Adam the stepfather provided something somewhat non-traditional. I often have on-topic scenes for holidays, such as last year's Carry On and A Boy Named Gale about Katniss' and Gale's fathers.