CHAPTER 16: Worthy

It was a brisk autumn day, the first of November, when the shipment came. Peeta had gotten up early, as he had made a habit of doing, and gone into town to meet the Capitol train that would be bringing the remainder of the supplies necessary to get his Mellark Bakery cart off the ground. He had decided, rather than buy a shop in town; he would merely bake out of their home and bring the bread to the square once a day to sell. A Bakery cart was a much more manageable prospect than an entire Bakery, which neither of them had felt they had the know-how, or even the will, to pursue.

The project had been ambitious, but in their efforts, they had bonded in the same way that they had the winter they spent updating her father's game book - normally. Peeta, it turned out, was about as good at building as he was at hunting. Fortunately for him, the same could be said for Katniss. She had fixed every wear and tear in her family's home, major or minor, since she was 11. When it came to building the cart, Peeta had spent nearly a week drafting designs for it, and came up with something simple, rustic, and beautiful. She hadn't been very amused by the name "Star-Crossed Buns," but Peeta thought it was perfect; so she had let it go.

Designing it was one thing; however, after a few blackened fingernails before the frame had even been completed, it became clear that Katniss would have to help him with the construction. At first, she had seen it as a chore. She had gone out into the woods, set snares to do her hunting for her, and hunkered down with hammer and nails to just get the cart over with. As they worked, though, her enthusiasm grew, until finally she was the one pushing for perfection in the details - a more thorough sanding, a darker stain to give the would an aged look, and ordering wheels from District 6 that could withstand the worst weather 12 had to offer.

This day was a triumph for both of them. Except that, as Katniss ran her fingers through the rainbow of garments hanging in the expansive hall closet, she had to close her eyes to steady herself as the pain in her chest became sharper. Closing her eyes didn't do much to erase Cinna though; the clothing was as various in texture as it was in color. She could see his knowing smile, hear his gentle voice, and even smell him. She pressed into the garments and it was almost like his embrace - soft, kind, and safe.

She pressed her lips together, and opened her eyes, willing herself to take a step back and continue the task at hand. She carefully removed the garments from their hangers, and sorted them into two separate piles. One would be taken upstairs and absorbed into her everyday wardrobe, the rest... she wasn't so sure.

With a huff, she mentally kicked herself for not starting this task earlier. For good measure, she mentally kicked Peeta too. He should have pushed her harder, but perhaps he'd known that this would be hard on her. He usually was aware of these things before she was aware of them herself, which sometimes was frustrating, but in this case, maybe it was for the best. The less time she had to try to justify each piece of clothing she wanted to keep, the better.

This was one of a few transformations the house was undergoing in order to facilitate the Bakery. The first was the oven. Peeta used the last of his Victor earnings to buy a convection oven from the Capitol. Though Katniss wasn't sure what a convection oven was, Peeta said that it was the best tool for the job, and she trusted his judgment. It had been a strange moment, when she realized that they were suddenly poor again.

Not destitute, starving, and desperate the way they had been as children, but their Victor's winnings had stopped coming to them after the Rebellion. Katniss didn't mind. She never had liked being paid for being a murderer. She and Peeta, however, didn't work, and so had been living off of the winnings they had saved up - not on purpose, but merely because they had never been able to spend all the money they were sent.

For this reason, Peeta spending the last of his money on the oven was a big deal, or at least he thought so. Katniss didn't care. She could still hunt, and trade, and with the Bakery cart, they would have an honest income, small as it was. No more blood money. This meant more to Katniss than the idea of having to scrape by for a few months while they figured out things with the business.

Peeta had offered to install the Bakery in his own house in the Victor's Village, since it had gone to waste since he moved in with Katniss, but she had protested. The idea of him being a house away, baking, had implications greater than the distance. Sometimes, when Katniss was alone in the woods, she would start to think that Peeta wasn't real. That he was a hallucination, conjured up by her insane, lonely mind, and that he might not be real at all. The logical next thought was that the realization of this would cause him to disappear, and then she would truly be alone.

The days those thoughts came, it was everything she could do not to throw down her bow and run home screaming for him. She would calmly walk the trail home, but by the time she got there, she was usually convinced of her own insanity - convinced that no one would have stayed with her through everything that Peeta had. Still, he was there when she returned, always.

Because of her irrational fear that losing sight of Peeta meant that he might actually disappear, him baking anywhere but their home was out of the question. This was why she was cleaning out the hall closet on the first floor. It was being converted into a pantry for all of the flours, yeasts, and spices necessary for the expanse of recipes Peeta wanted to make - all sorts of exotic flatbreads, fragrant sweet breads, and even, in the future, jams, butters, and meat pies.

The closet where Katniss had locked the ghosts of her past in the form of the beautiful outfits Cinna had made her would become a place for the future. It was good.

Anyway, most of the clothes either no longer fit her or were unsuitable for everyday wear. She had changed; her body had changed. Her buttocks and hips had filled out, her breasts had gotten bigger, and she had even gotten a thin layer of fat around her midsection.

This would upset most women. Katniss had seen the grotesque lengths women went to to stay thin in the Capitol, and even some of the wealthier Districts like 1 and 2. Katniss wasn't horrified by her weight gain, in fact, she was proud. So much of her life had spent starving, that a little extra weight was a luxury she would have never imagined possible. She was still in good shape, and Peeta didn't mind. He said she looked... "more womanly," whatever that meant. The assessment usually came with a kiss on the forehead or a squeeze of her hand, though, so she knew it was positive. The negative side of this was that some of Cinna's work, tailored to fit her like a glove now pulled in weird places, or rode up to compensate for a curve that hadn't been there previously.

The long flowing pants, the frocks, the coats, and most of the things that Katniss actually wore, still fit her. It was just so hard to know what to do with all of the things that didn't. She had tried to imagine donating them, or even selling them. Haymitch teased that, especially since there were no Games anymore, people would pay a great deal to have an outfit that once belonged to the Girl on Fire. The thought of selling Cinna's garments to the kind of person who mourned the end of the Games, of course, made her sick.

Since she never planned on having children, it wouldn't be practical to save the clothes for a daughter, and since Prim was dead, and would never bear children either, then there would be no nieces to inherit it either. She had thought about sending it to Annie, seeing as the wedding dress had fit her so well, and made her so happy, but even that... felt wrong somehow. The closest she had gotten to a good idea was to send it to Rue's family. Her younger sisters would probably just about die having their pick of so many beautiful outfits, but with the ever-present guilt of having survived what Rue did not, Katniss realized that she had no way to get in touch with Rue's family. She didn't know if they still lived in District 11, or if they still lived at all.

No. These clothes were designed to be worn by a young, beautiful, strong, Seam girl.

Peeta too, had clothing to spare. Some of his clothing still fit of course, more than Katniss's anyway. Peeta's problem was different. He had never starved in his youth the way that Katniss had. When he was tortured in the Capitol, he had lost so much weight that, his body never quite recovered, even with the abundance of food they had at their disposal now. Many of his suits merely served as a reminder of a steady boy that used to be, and the broken man who had replaced him.

Katniss sighed, and placed a few more garments in each pile gingerly, when she heard the front door open. Her head snapped to attention as she tried to make out whether the door had been blown open by the wind, which happened in the fall sometimes. She even considered that Haymitch may have stumbled him way over. She knew Peeta was getting his flours shipped in today, but had thought it would take him more time to return.

The trip itself, only ½ mile each way never took long, but she was sure the shipment had caused a stir; all of District 12 seemed to notice when his oven had arrived, mysterious and alluring in a crate stamped with the Capitol seal. However, their assessment of what it might be - a crib - hadn't been as humorous to Katniss as it had been to Peeta. She was just glad that it was him, not her, who had to explain that there would never be a crib shipped to them. Ever.

As Peeta stepped into the dining room, she could hear the slight tell-tale limp that Peeta had had since their first games. It had gotten better, over the years, but Katniss had the feeling it would never disappear completely, and she wasn't sure that she wanted it to. It was part of him, part of the paradigm of sounds that she associated with Peeta - and it was a sound that had remained unchanged, even through the hijacking. It was a small reminder, even when things got hard, that Peeta was still the boy with the bread.

She set down the few garments she was still holding and moved down the hall towards the kitchen to greet him. He was flushed from exertion, and sweating, even though the day was windy, and cool. Pulling the cart of flours back from the Square must have been trying, even as strong as he was. Katniss was surprised he hadn't asked one of the undoubted onlookers to help him pull the cart back. She thought about asking him, but her question caught in her throat.

Peeta's face was strange, and upon seeing her, he just pursed his lips and gave her a small nod to greet her. She had thought he would have been ecstatic, perhaps even that he would twirl her about of pull her out by the hand to show her his cargo. Such incidents were few, far between, and precarious, since they had just begun to trust each other fully again, and Katniss supposed she should tell Peeta how secretly happy it made her when things between them felt like before.

When Peeta had gotten his wood and tools to make the cart, for example, he had come home early in the morning from the square. He had burst in the door, grinning like an idiot and proceeded to point to each piece of wood and explain to Katniss - incorrectly - what each piece of wood had become. She had feigned annoyance, but when she was in the woods, alone, later that day, she had beamed.

"Peeta?" she asked tentatively, hoping his name might snap him out of his silence. Cold sweat broke out over her palms, and for a moment, she was nervous this was some sort of hijacking regression. She bent her knees slightly, readying her legs to carry her upstairs and away from him, if necessary. He took a deep breath, and gave his head a toss, in an attempt to remove the matte of blonde curls that was sticking to his forehead. He was lucid, clearly, but still his only response to her inquiry was to pull out an envelope from his pocket and offer it out to her.

It was torn on the corner; obviously, he had opened and read it.

Katniss didn't have to read it. A chill crawled up her spine, and her breath caught in her throat. It felt like seeing the dead in her dreams, surreal, and far away, but so immediately painful. She swallowed, hard, forcing down the scream that had tried to escape her throat. The graceful, looping letters, announcing that the letter was for "Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark" was familiar to Katniss. Not because she had received many letters, ever, but rather, from years of doing homework alongside this careful handwriting. The letter was from Madge.

Katniss licked her lips, trying to find her voice, and remained frozen. Strangely, her stillness seemed to bring Peeta to action more than her words had. He removed his shoes, and stepped out of them, careful to give Katniss space to process. Finally, after he had removed his jacket and hung it on the hooks by the door, he asked, "How is emptying the closet going?"

"Fine," she spat out, automatically, but his question caught her so off-guard. She had expected him to press the letter on her. Encourage her to read it, tell her what it had said, or even just to say who it was from; her surprise must have been plain on her face, because Peeta answered her unspoken question patiently.

"Katniss, I'm not going to push this on you."

"Why not?" She couldn't figure out his angle. Was something wrong? Was there something he didn't want her to read?

"Because," he sighed and rubbed at his forehead, finally dislodging the curls that were glued to it with sweat, "The wedding's not for a few weeks, so I just don't think we have to make up our minds-"

"Wedding." Katniss cut him off, unable to suppress her incredulous tone. "She invited us to their wedding?"

"Well," Peeta faltered. "Of course she did."

"Well," Katniss was suddenly overcome with burning hatred. Hatred of Madge for looking so perfect on TV, hatred of Gale for disappearing, and hatred of Peeta for not hating them - and hatred of herself for caring. "Good for her then!" She shouted. Using the momentum of her anger to propel herself, she tore past Peeta; she ripped the letter out of his hands, and flew out the door as fast as her still-bare feet would carry her. She ran past the cart of flour, past the fence, past the rock where she and Gale used to meet; feet flying, mind racing, until finally, she stopped, gasping for air. She had been running for at least an hour, but it was as if no time had passed. She was still angry, and the letter in her hand seemed to weigh on her, more than a piece of paper possibly could.

Her head was spinning as she tore the letter out of the envelope. She tossed the envelope aside and clutched the letter in her shaking hands. It took every ounce of concentration she had to make sense of the shaking words, as she read them, and struggled to make them make sense. Her lungs began to burn and she realized she was holding her breath. This was wrong. This was all wrong.

She fell to her hands and knees and stared at the letter as it soaked up moisture from the ground beneath it. The ink began to run, but Katniss was finally able to read:

Dear Friends,

I first have to apologize I haven't written you sooner. I can't say we've been terribly busy, but I haven't been sure what to say. I thought about writing you when Maysilee was born, but things were a little messy at the time. Since then, I guess I have no excuse but that the years have passed quickly. Gale and I have been living in District Two, not in town but out on the edge where the trees are just a little bit like home. With things getting a little more exciting with the upcoming election, we're hoping to add a little bit of stability to our lives. We've decided to get married. We could easily get married here, but neither of us can imagine getting married anywhere but District Twelve. Of course, it would be a private ceremony, very quiet. It would mean so much to me if the two of you would be there for us. I consider the both of you to be good friends and hope that our wedding can bring the four of us together. I know that Gale misses you. Even if you decide you'd rather not be at the wedding, it would be nice to see you, and of course we would love for you to meet Maysilee. We're hoping to arrive in a few weeks. I'll send you a formal wedding invitation when we firm up our dates. I would love to hear back from you before then, just to know how you're both doing.

Love,
Madge.

Before Katniss could really absorb what the letter actually said, she blacked out.

When she came to, so many words were spinning around her cloudy mind. Maysilee. Madge. Married. What had she come out here to do? Why was she lying in a pile of leaves and mud in the middle of the woods? She tried to make sense of her surroundings, but her memory of how she got there was... lacking in any detail. She had simply taken off. She tried to focus, to recognize anything - a tree, a rock, anything. Nothing.

She decided to try Dr. Aurelius's game to backtrack and assess where she was, but only one phrase came to mind.
My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am twenty years old, and I am lost in the woods.

She sat up, slowly, and tried a different game, one that made her stomach knot and teeth grind. "You are in the arena," she ordered herself, "Take stock of your supplies." She inspected herself; she didn't seem to be injured, except for a few small cuts and scratches on her bare feet and arms. Besides that, she was in bad shape; she had nothing more than pants, a shirt, and a letter to protect her from the elements. Where was she? If she could only figure out where the hell she was.

She took a few steadying breaths and looked around. It was the arena. She had to be in the arena. She began to shake, and panic. She wanted to run. Climb a tree. Hide. Find food. She had no weapons. She had nothing, no one. No allies. She was on her feet. She knew the cameras would be watching her, and she had to seem like she knew what she was doing.

She considered the position of the sun. This was bad. It was late afternoon. It would be getting dark, soon. She had to start a fire... but the other tributes, the Career Pack, they would find her.

"No." she said aloud, as if this would help to convince her. She wasn't in the arena. She couldn't be. She was a Victor and that meant you never had to go back... until you did - like the Quarter Quell, or the Capitol. "NO!" She said louder. She just needed something... a token to show her that this wasn't the arena.

She clenched her fists and heard it crumple. Madge's letter. Madge. Gale. They have a baby. They're getting married in District 12. Yes. My name is Katniss Everdeen, I am 20 years old, and the Rebellion is over. There are no more Hunger Games. I am not in the arena. I am not in the arena. I am not in the arena, but I am lost.

Lost. She had never been lost before. She had thought she knew the entirety of the woods around District 12, but this turned out to be a very foolish assumption to make. Right. So stop being foolish. She took a deep, steadying breath, and willed the trembling in her knees to subside. She found a flat rock to sit on, and pressed her hands to her temples, as if pressure would help her brain sort itself out.

It did help, bringing to the surface a distant memory. Her father had told her once, "If you get lost, Katniss, you should stay put. Stay where you are and I will come and find you." Yes. She needed to stay put... but then what? Her father was dead. If she stayed put, no one would come to look for her. She was on her own.

The light was beginning to wane. She knew that she could start a fire, spend a sleepless night, and perhaps follow her own path of destruction back to District 12 the next morning. Either way, this was going to be much easier in the light of day.

She was just gathering kindling when she heard it. The kindling clacked to the ground unceremoniously as she strained to listen, frozen in place, holding her breath. It was Rue's 4-note song that signaled the end of the work day in the orchards of District 11; it was the signal they used in the arena... But it couldn't be.

Katniss whipped around, searching for the source of the sound. Just as she spotted the bird, small, black and white, and unassuming, an uncanny feeling washed over her. This was like... the beginning of so many dreams that she has had, in which she follows a Mockingjay she knows to be Rue, but wakes up before reaching the destination.

The bird chirped again, and it was unmistakable.

"Rue?" she asked the bird. It cocked its head, and blinked. Of course. This was not a dream. This was real, and this bird was not Rue. It called out to her again, the same four notes, as if waiting for a response. Katniss wasn't sure it would help, but maybe at least, it would help her feel less alone to sing back and forth with this Mockingjay for a while. She licked her lips and whistled out the four notes.

She was aware of pain, aching and instant. The kind of pressure on your chest that never quite lifts away, that makes it hard to breathe; hard to go on living. The bird sang back to her, and together they chorused Rue's beautiful song, overlapping and building until the song had grown into a tune of sorts, broken, and sad, but beautiful - like her, she supposed.

Just when this harmony had started to put her at ease, the Mockingjay took off, into the woods. Without a second thought, Katniss tore after it, opening more cuts in her feet and on her arms, but still she ran.

"RUE!" She called after the bird. "RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUE!"

She could just make out the bird as it moved ahead of her through the forest. A flash of wing here, a melodic call there. Just enough to keep her following, exhilarated and exhausted at the same time. She ran for what felt like a long time, though she knew that, realistically it must only be about 30 minutes.

The bird had lead her to a small clearing of sorts, and now it was dusk, the last few rays of sunshine all but swallowed up by the thick tree cover. Katniss strained her eyes, but couldn't see where the bird had gone. Great. Now she was more lost because she was chasing a bird she was convinced was a little girl for whose death she was responsible.

Suddenly, the energy that had carried her gave out, and exhaustion set in. She leaned on a tree, and was about to slump to the ground when she heard it. The sound of feet, crackling through the underbrush, loud, graceless, and... limping. "PEETA!" she called.

Abruptly, the footsteps stopped.

Peeta's voice came from far away, but not as far as she would have thought, uncertain, but filled with relief, "Katniss? Katniss where are you? I'll come find you."

Katniss was unprepared for her own response to this. Tears, hot and immediate fell from her eyes, and she choked down a sob. Peeta had come for her... even though he was so terrible in the woods, afraid of them even. Even though she had left him without saying a word about where she was going. "Peeta!" Her voice was thick with sobs. She began to cautiously cross the clearing towards the sound of his voice.

"Katniss!" There was more rustling, and a light began to show through the thick of the forest, warm and soft, just enough for Katniss to make out the bearer of the lantern - Peeta, looking scared, but determined, and making his way to her. He had a machete, and was chopping away at the bramble and bushes that made passage through the woods hard.

Good, this was good. If Katniss's path were not obvious enough - though she assumed if Peeta had been able to follow it here, it must have been - they would certainly be able to follow the path that Peeta had slashed to get home.

She found herself moving more quickly, running even to cross the distance between them. He spotted her finally, and his face lit up. He adjusted his direction to move more directly towards her. Through her sobs, she felt herself smiling. Why was she so surprised that he had come for her? She would have come for him. Why then, was it so surprising that he would come for her?

Because she didn't deserve saving.

This thought pulled her up short. She stopped where she was in the clearing, and her stinging, bleeding feet drank up the moisture from the cool grass. She had outlived the good she could do in this world, surely everyone knew that. She dug her toes in, reveling in the feel of the soft mud. No, she realized. Not everyone knew that. Peeta didn't know that. Peeta, in fact, thought the opposite, that there was no limit to the good that Katniss was capable of - and this new life they were sharing, the one full of lake trips, bakery carts, and even friends' weddings was helping her to believe that maybe she could still do good. Maybe she deserved saving after all.

Peeta seemed to let her stopping propel him with even greater momentum. He was tripping all over himself as he finally broke into the clearing which Katniss had about half crossed. She waited for him, patiently as he made his way to her. He reached her, and embraced her for a long moment, his arms steady, and strong, and sweet. Katniss drank in Peeta in all his imperfection - the smell of his sweat, the burn scars on his forehead, and the slight unsteadiness in his stance. She held on, tight, as he lifted her off the ground, squeezing hard.

Finally, he set her down and as he pulled away, she could see his lips start to move, as if to speak. Katniss kissed him, full on the mouth. His lips were salty, and chapped, but had a softness, a kindness to them that was so unmistakably Peeta, that she never wanted to let go, to break the contact between them. She wrapped her arms underneath his and pulled him in tight to her. It was the hunger, the spark in her belly - no, in her very being, the one that had caught her off guard in both arenas. She had thought that this hunger had to do with life and death, but here they were, safe and sound, and there it was. Cloying at her, begging her to get closer to Peeta, to feel him more, taste him more.

She slipped her tongue in his mouth, feeling his soft tongue, tasting his breath, his heat. He opened his mouth, and their heats became one, a fire feeding the hunger that had awakened inside her. She found herself exploring him with her hands, running them through his hair, trailing them down his back, feeling everything - interlocking their fingers, releasing them, and interlocking them again.

How had she forgotten the gentleness, the goodness that was Peeta? In Peeta, there was always the Dandelion in spring. There was always hope. Even for a wretched fire mutt like herself. Finally, she broke the kiss, and let her eyes wander over Peeta's loving face. That was it then, even if he didn't say it; whether he was unready to confess or unready for rejection - she knew that look. Peeta was in love with her again, and she... did she love him?

He put a hand to her cheek, smiling gently. She stared into his eyes, as if imploring them would lead her to an answer. Katniss's hand went to his face, tracing with her hand what she already knew with her eyes, and she felt the smoothness of his cheek, the mottled skin of his scars, and the curve of his lips.

"Peeta, I-"

And that is when she heard the rattling. In a moment of pure reflex and instinct, uncomplicated by thought or feeling, she braced herself by digging her heels into the ground and used all of her might to shove Peeta back. He fell back; face revealing his surprise over her sudden change in behavior. She met his eye, panic rising in her throat when she felt the sting of needle sharp fangs sinking into her ankle. She cried out, and looked down.

The snake had already readied itself for another strike. Katniss propelled herself backwards, away from the creature with all the effort she had left. Then the pain set in. Sharp, throbbing, tingling, like thousands of tiny red-hot needles being repeatedly jammed into her flesh, but somehow without piercing the skin. She moaned, and began to writhe.

"Peeta..." she managed, before another wave of pain made her vomit.

"Katniss!" He rose to his feet, and used his machete to remove the threat of more snake bites in one fell-swoop. He then dropped to his knees next to her, taking shallow breaths and looking extremely upset. "Katniss, what do I do?" He helped her to sit up and pulled up her pant leg to look at the wound. "Katniss," his eyes met hers. "Are you going to die?"

She couldn't answer, because she couldn't say. She hadn't gotten a look at the snake, and may not have been able to identify it anyway. "Your machete," she put her hand out for it, knowing that asking Peeta to cut her would not yield quick results. She took the blade, and, though her arm was shaking, was able to make two intersecting cuts across the bite. Peeta was shocked, so much so that he didn't even get out a protest before she was finished.

"Katniss!" he grabbed her hand that held the machete.

"Suck the poison out." she ordered. This was not the time for discussion.

"W-How do I do that?"

"Suck it out, and spit... It is really important that you spit or you'll get sick too."

The pain had begun to spread up her leg, reaching her upper thigh. She groaned, and slapped her hands to her thigh, squeezing hard to try to impede the circulation. The poison was spreading, even as Peeta obediently sucked and spat from the bite, sending more stabs of pain through her leg.

"Peeta!" Her hands flailed wildly, finding his, and holding fast. This made him panic.

"Katniss," His voice was shaking. "I don't know what to do... Did I get it?"

"I don't know." Katniss hissed through gritted teeth.

"We have to go back." Peeta announced, and scooped Katniss up in his arms. This caused pain so extreme that white flashes of light danced across Katniss's vision.

"No, Peeta..." she found her voice thick and slow, like trying to talk through a mouthful of molasses.

"It's going to be okay Katniss," Peeta told her, though he sounded terrified. "I'm gonna get you back to District 12." Katniss's lips were going numb. She tried to speak, to tell Peeta something she had never had the words to say before... how much she loved him, and how he helped her believe she could forgive herself... how she never regretted that he was the one who returned to 12 and not Gale... but it came out as nonsense. As she slipped into unconsciousness, she found her mind numbing along with her face. One thought, however, penetrated the haze.

If I die right now, Peeta will never know that I love him... and she did love him. She knew it in that moment, just as blackness became her only reality.