The moon has a face
And it smiles on the lake
And causes the ripples in time
I'm lucky to be here
With someone I like
Who maketh my spirit to shine
"Don't Let us Get Sick" – Warren Zevon
Chapter 35
(Katniss's POV)
When I woke up for good a few hours after that very nice wake up in the middle of the night, I was surprised to find myself no longer stretched across Peeta's chest where I had fallen asleep and the other side of the bed empty. I pushed down the initial fear that always comes when I find him gone from our bed and my eyes flitted around the room in the new morning light, searching for clues as to where he might be.
His shorts and t-shirt were missing from the end of the bed where I had passionately cast them aside only hours before so I knew he was somewhere in the house and allowed myself to finally take a breath. It wasn't often that Peeta left for the bakery without kissing me goodbye and after so many years together, I sensed that he was still home and relaxed back into the tangled mess of bedsheets with a yawn. With the panic of waking up alone subdued for the time being, I took a moment to reflect on the discussion Peeta and I had the night before.
"Reflection" is something I'd been taught to do as part of my therapy. It apparently means to consider something carefully. I know this because Dr. Aurelius read the definition to me once when I'd rather rudely (in his opinion, not mine) remarked early on in our phone sessions that what he was telling me to do could be more simply defined as 'thinking'.
He had decided to take it as a personal insult to the entire field of psychology and I'd heard him rustling around on his desk for his official dictionary of psychological terms or some such thing in order to give me the exact definition. Whatever, it was still thinking to me.
Reflecting on my discussion from the night before about starting a family with Peeta caused a flush of warmth and a strange contraction deep in my belly that, I'll admit, I was a little surprised to feel again so soon after making such a life changing decision. Especially a decision I had been so unsure of for much of my life.
It reminded me of when I had thought I was an expert on hunger only to feel an entirely new type
when I kissed Peeta so long ago in the cave and then again on the beach during the Quarter Quell. This new gnawing in my gut surprised me yet again and I grudgingly admitted to myself what I already knew that feeling was. That feeling was the desire to have children with Peeta.
I was still a little hurt by Peeta's surprise that I'd thought about having children with him off and on over the years. Part of me was mad at him for believing that I'd never thought of it, the other part mad at myself for having given him no real indication that I felt otherwise while making a home together for almost 15 years.
How could I not have those thoughts when we ran a bakery that saw dozens upon dozens of children pass through its doors weekly? When I saw the way Peeta lit up at their excitement when he snuck them free treats, or how he demonstrated endless patience with them during the Sunday baking classes?
Soon after we started them, even I began to look forward to those two Sundays a month and not only to watch Peeta's reaction to the children.
I enjoyed watching the way they dumped measuring cups full of different ingredients into the large mixing bowls; how they sometimes fought over who got more stirs of the batter; the funny things they drew on wax paper with piping bags while practicing their frosting skills. I couldn't help but feel a powerful bond with them, some whom we had watched grow from gawky preteens when we first started offering the classes to bringing their own young children in to learn as well years later.
Reflecting on all of these thoughts and feelings I had about the children in the bakery made me realize I rarely, if ever, verbally shared with Peeta how much I enjoyed myself during the classes.
As I lay in bed watching the sun just beginning to rise through the open bedroom window, I vowed to trust Peeta with my good thoughts and feelings as much as I trusted him with the bad ones he helped me battle every night as I slept.
Just as I was making this rather hopeful resolution, the bedroom door opened and Peeta slipped quietly into the room with a sappy, almost shy smile on his face. I couldn't help but feel immensely pleased knowing that I was the one who had put it there.
I was still stretched out on my side of the bed, naked with the top sheet tucked loosely under my arms to cover my body. I propped my head up on one elbow as he moved to sit beside my hips on the edge of the bed. I snuggled closer to him and reached out to lightly scratch his back and yawned out a 'good morning'.
"Morning," He whispered and leaned down to kiss my lips that were still swollen from our earlier encounter.
I felt a tiny pang of desire as I thought about the way Peeta had possessed me, driving into me in measured, deliberate strokes meant to push me to the edge without letting me fall over until he decided. Bossy-in-bed-Peeta was one of my personal favorite sides to him and it was just as fulfilling an experience for me as I was absolutely sure it was for him.
A soft moan escaped my lips as I remembered how he had forced me up onto my knees earlier, making me hold onto the bedpost while he entered me from behind and reached around to squeeze and fondle my breasts exactly the way he knew I liked. Peeta was nothing if not a reliably generous lover; always giving as much as he took and sometimes, seizing power over my body on the nights he knew I needed to be out of control for a while. It made being quiet for the sake of Zale difficult, but neither of us got the impression based on how exhausted he was after getting sick that we were really in any danger of waking him.
"None of that," Peeta mumbled against my lips with a rasp to his voice that told me he remembered every detail of our tryst just as well as I did.
"I have to head out to work but I wanted to check in on Zale before I came to give you your kiss." He whispered and reached out to play with my pearl necklace as he leaned across me with one hand on the mattress.
"How's he doing?" I asked with a grimace.
Peeta chuckled and shook his head, grimacing as well while he methodically slid the pearl back and forth on the chain.
"Eh, he'll live." He said glancing toward the bedroom door with a warm smile that belied his unsympathetic tone.
"I told him you probably wouldn't mind if he got a little more sleep before his hunting lesson. Hope that's okay." He said sliding the hand playing with the pearl into my hair and effortlessly tying a small section of it into a little knot and then releasing it just as easily.
"Sure, I could use a little more sleep myself after the physically taxing sex I had with my husband last night and this morning." I teased and Peeta grinned and leaned down to kiss a line from my lips to my ear.
"Sore?" He asked with a little growl that sent a bolt of lightning from my eardrum right to the 'sore' places in question. I slid a hand into his hair, threading my fingers through the thick blonde waves lovingly and smiled against his cheek.
"Mmmhmmm," I admitted biting my bottom lip and looking up at him shyly when he'd pulled back a bit. I felt another little wave of heat as I thought of how I'd been a writhing, shaky mess hanging almost upside down over the edge of the bed by the time he'd finally let me orgasm.
Peeta looked positively pleased with himself as he slowly stood from the bed, kissing his way down my cheek, my neck, and across my chest to finally press a soft kiss to my pearl.
"Good," he whispered and kissed across the edge of the sheet where it met my bare skin. I shuddered when he reached the sensitive flesh of my upper bicep near my shoulder.
"Then you'll be thinking about what I did to make you that way all day today…" he said and my eyes widened at hearing such a bluntly sexual statement from my usually more modest partner.
"I certainly will," I chuckled and hooked a finger into the waist of his soft, over washed work jeans. I slid my other hand down to press it against the tender flesh between my legs through the sheet with a sigh.
"Seriously though, Kat, you…still okay with what we talked about last night?" He asked and I looked up into his eyes for a moment, doing more of that 'reflecting' stuff. I knew my answer and I gave it to him as quickly as possible since he was looking down at me with just the slightest hint of doubt shining in his blue eyes.
"Of course I am." I said with what I hoped was a confident tone and returned to scratching his back gently.
"I mean, I've got 3 months to work through any concerns I might have anyway. But I promise I will talk to you about them if I do, okay?" I whispered and Peeta nodded slowly.
"Alright well, good." He said and the strain of uncertainty was gone from his voice for the time being.
"I want you to talk to me about it, Katniss. I want you to be able to talk to me about anything." He said softly. "I know it's not going to be easy but I think in the grand scheme of all we've been through, a pregnancy is going to seem like nothing in comparison."
I smiled up at him again and held the sheet to my chest as I sat upright to lean in and kiss him again softly.
"And we'll be doing it together." I whispered and Peeta rested his forehead to mine, holding it there for a long few moments as I breathed in the scent of toothpaste that was just covering the underlying smell of coffee on his breath.
"Together." Peeta whispered back and then stood reluctantly from the edge of the bed. It was always hard for him to leave me in the morning but I suspected it was a little harder on that morning after the breakthrough we'd had the night before.
"I better go…" he murmured and rubbed the back of his head in that shy way that always reminded me of 11-year-old Peeta. It amazed me that even after all he'd been through, there was still so much of the person he was before left in him and it made me love him even more. Once again Haymitch's words from the past snuck up to whisper in my ear.
"You could live a thousand lifetimes and not deserve him."
How right you were, Haymitch. But I planned to give it a hell of a try for the remainder of this lifetime.
"I'll be sure to think about you today…" I teased and glanced down at my lower body with a wicked smile. Peeta gave me the same smile back and couldn't help but lean over for one more kiss.
"Damn right you will." He mumbled against my lips and gave me a light slap on the outer part of my left buttock making me yelp and then chuckle.
I watched him walk to the door and smiled shyly at him when he looked back at me one more before as he opened the door and slipped out into the hall. I listened as he couldn't resist peeking in on Zale once more, then he headed down the steps and said something to the kitten who I could hear meowing at the front door. I smiled at the soft tone he used with the cat and sighed as I heard the door shut with a soft rumble that went through the frame of the house.
I lay there for a few more minutes, making sure he was gone before I got up and stripped the bed to wash the sheets. I pulled on a lightweight pair of long pants and a dark short-sleeved shirt that would protect against any prey spotting me when I took Zale hunting later.
I was glad that Peeta had told Zale to sleep until he felt well enough to hunt, especially since I had a little excursion of my own planned before our hunting trip; one that I needed to make on my own. I may have made the decision last night to start a family with Peeta, but as much as I hated to admit it, I needed the reassurance of the one person I knew who could be as broken, bitter, and set-in-their-ways as I sometimes was.
I just hoped he hadn't drowned in a puddle of liquor on his kitchen table yet that morning.
Based on the time of the morning and Haymitch's history of not passing out until the sun came up, I decided to knock. Partly because he constantly gave Peeta and I crap about walking into his house uninvited and I just didn't feel like listening to it, but also a little bit because I received a certain amount of sadistic joy listening to him curse at every piece of furniture he stumbled into on his way to the door.
When the door finally flew open, I was met with Haymitch's signature scowl and the beginning of what was sure to be a lengthy and profane rant until he saw my face. Instantly he looked like he did whenever Peeta or I dumped a bucket of cold water on his head to wake him up.
"What's wrong? Is it Peeta? Is he—" I cut Haymitch off with a quick shake of my head and moved past him to stand in his foyer shifting from foot to foot. He turned around in the doorway to look at me and I briefly regretted my decision to come see him when it was obvious by his wobbly state that he probably wouldn't remember this conversation by the afternoon.
"Well?" He barked and waved the half-filled bottle in his hand through the air once for dramatic effect. "I'm on pins and needles here, Sweetheart."
He smirked and I blurted it out.
"Last night Peeta and I decided to start trying for a baby."
I counted to thirty while Haymitch's face displayed a range of emotions from confused to shocked to proud back to shocked again and finally, to uncertain. He looked down at the bottle in his hand, up to my face and then back to the bottle before he thrust it forward into my hands and stepped past me headed for the kitchen.
"You look like you could use that more than me." He mumbled and I looked down at the bottled clutched to my chest and rolled my eyes before I followed after him.
The house was in such a state that I knew Greasy Sae had not been by yet that week to clean up after him, something I had been telling her pretty bluntly that she was getting much too old to be doing. Cleaning up after Haymitch was a young person's job.
Not that I was interested in filling the position since Peeta and I already fed him most meals, helped to care for the farmyard worth of geese and chickens he'd acquired over the years, and made sure he never ran out of his precious white liquor. I was however, willing to screen applicants if it got the process moving any quicker and allowed Sae some peace and quiet in her twilight years.
"I'm serious, Haymitch." I said plopping down in one of the kitchen chairs and setting the bottle on the table in front of me while he fell into his usual seat. "Scary as this fact might be, you know and I know that we were both cut from the same crumpled up, scratchy old cloth and well…you're the closest thing either of us has to a parent close by…"
"—You could give your mother a call on the phone." He suggested and I could tell that having this conversation was one of the last things he was interested in adding to his to-do list for the day.
I sighed in annoyance when I realized that talking to Haymitch was probably a pretty stupid idea.
"You know what? This was a bad idea," I started and stood from the table shaking my head. "Sorry I bothered y…"
Haymitch cut me off again, barking at me to just sit down and shut up for a moment so that he could think.
I dropped into my chair again like a child being scolded and reached out to toy with the label on the liquor bottle, unable to meet Haymitch's eyes.
In my peripheral, I could see his head turn toward the side of the house that faced mine and Peeta's home and he made a small noise of understanding.
"This wouldn't have anything to do with a certain young visitor you have staying with you for the week, would it?" he asked knowingly and I shrugged.
It still ticked me off that Haymitch was so perceptive when it came to my relationship with Peeta so I felt the need to make it a little harder for him to put together the pieces of this puzzle.
"That's part of it, I guess…" I mumbled and he nodded wisely and shrugged his shoulders back at me.
"Well, that makes sense." He replied and I was shocked to hear what sounded like understanding in his tone rather than the usual mocking I was met with when I first brought a problem to Haymitch.
"It's a stupid way to decide you're ready to bring a life into the world, but it makes sense." He said casually as he broke the seal on a bottle he pulled out from under the table.
I glared at him and Haymitch glared right back. After a few moments he started softly laughing to himself as he shook his head and raised the bottle to his lips.
"Well I certainly hope the little bugger has Peeta's personality, Sweetheart. I can only take one of you, that's for sure…" he said and continued to laugh even as I folded my arms over my chest and continued to stare him down.
"If there's a point in this conversation where you plan to stop insulting me and start giving me advice, let me know so that I can start paying attention to you then." I growled which only made Haymitch laugh harder, even having to hold his stomach in pain because he was so tickled by my response to everything he was saying.
When I started to stand to leave again, Haymitch raised a hand defensively and waved me back to my seat.
"Alrgiht, alright, alright! Just…sit down and stop being so damn touchy. Sheesh…" he said with a yawn and rubbed his eyes.
"Pregnancy hormones are going to be a blast with you…" he mumbled and I groaned and slapped a hand down on the table.
"So is that your way of saying I should have a baby with Peeta?" I asked exasperated and Haymitch set his bottle down and raised both hands defensively.
Sometimes it felt like the amount of time needed to invest in having a conversation with Haymitch that might lead to something resembling valuable advice was almost more trouble than the advice was worth.
"Excuse me, but I've been telling you for years to just suck it up and pop a kid or two out, have I not?" Haymitch asked with a big, fake grin and in such an amped up, saccharine sweet voice that I wanted to punch him. However, I restrained myself, which I felt showed a lot of personal growth.
"Yes, but that was when it was still a theoretical possibility sometime far down the road. Now we're actually going to start trying…" I said willing myself to be patient with him. Even in the state he was in, I could tell he was trying to gather all of the mental capacities he had into trying to be serious.
"What, like…tomorrow?" He asked raising his eyebrows and I shook my head and told him about my shot not being up for a few more months. "Well, that's a lot of time. I figure if you get to that month when the shot wears off and you still want a baby, then I suppose it was meant to be."
Say what you might about him, but Haymitch has always had a way of breaking a situation down to its simplest components, making it easier to see where things do and don't match up properly.
That is of course, if you're willing to go on the long-winded verbal journey it would take to get there with him.
"But I certainly don't think it's a decision you should come to because you're enjoying playing house with a kid who's nearly grown and will be going back to his own mother in a few days time." Haymitch pointed out and I nodded in understanding even though, at the time, I had NO idea what the day to day care of a child of my own would entail.
"Taking care of an infant, full time, day and night is a whole different pot of stew than what you've been doing for what…3 days?" he said and laughed softly, shaking his head at my naivety.
I wished I could tell him that it wasn't the taking care of a child part that I needed to be reassured about, I had spent most of my life taking care of people and at least with a baby I would have Peeta's help. His episodes had become less frequent and intense, the one the week before Zale arrived being the only time he needed the red X on the door in quite some time. I supposed there was always still the possibility of having to care for a baby on my own when Peeta was having an episode, but for the first time in all of the years we had been together, that was a responsibility I was beginning to feel I could handle.
"I get it, Haymitch…babies are tough on a normal relationship and Peeta and I both come with a lot of emotional baggage that it wouldn't be fair to lay on an innocent child." I admitted and then looked toward the same side of the house Haymitch had when he was considering Zale's part in our decision.
"But we also have a lot of love between us too." I said quietly and almost smiled as I thought about how happy Zale was to be with us and how capably we'd managed caring for him so far. How proud I'd been of Peeta for the mature and honest coming-of-age discussion he'd had with the boy in which he had perfectly balanced factual information with the strong morals my husband was so well known for. How we'd cleaned him up and gotten him back to bed when he was sick the night before and how trusting Zale had been of our ability to do so.
"Sure you do." Haymitch admitted after fussing with a loose thread on his shirt pocket and then stifling a belch.
"Anyone who's been around the two of you for more than five minutes can see that." He said rolling his eyes and then went on under his breath.
"I've certainly been sickened beyond what alcohol has ever done to my stomach watching the two of you carry on all these years." He grumbled and the smile that had been threatening to stretch across my face finally did so.
"Listen, Sweetheart…" Haymitch began with a smile of his own as he grabbed a hunk of bread from the loaf Peeta had undoubtedly placed on his table on his way to work that morning.
"I have no doubts in my mind that the two of you would make a fine set of parents for any little ankle biter to call their own." He said softly before ripping a piece of the bread off with his teeth. He chewed and swallowed it before he raised his eyes to mine.
"The question is what doubts do you have and what do you plan to do about them to keep from breaking your husband's heart?" he asked around another mouthful that he'd bitten off.
I took a deep breath and opened and closed my mouth a few times before I slumped down in the chair with a groan.
"It's…it's not doubts in the way you're thinking. I...I'm just…I'm happy and scared and excited and nervous all at the same time and I don't know if that's how I'm supposed to feel or if it means that I'm not ready or…"
Haymitch cut me off with an abrupt laugh around yet another bite of bread and I noticed he was sitting up straighter in his chair.
"Is that all?" He asked and washed the bite of bread down with a swallow from the new bottle.
I would have been offended by his mockery except that the unexpected tenderness in his voice made me think it might not have been mockery after all.
I frowned and waited for him to continue because I wasn't sure what exactly he meant. Haymitch shook his head and smiled at my look of confusion and looked off out the window as if lost in some ancient memory. Watching the years pass over his eyes brought into sharp focus just how much I still had to learn even with all I'd been through in 30 years of life.
"Being terrified isn't reason enough to question a decision like this?" I asked when he hadn't said anything for so long that I wondered if his pickled brain had carried him off on some other train of thought.
He turned back to look at me, probably taking in my wide eyes, the rise and fall of my chest as my pulse quickened, forcing my lungs to take in and push air out more quickly.
"Well, obviously I've got no personal experience to draw from myself…" he said patting his stomach as he sat back comfortably in the chair again. "But as I understand it, a healthy mixture of endless joy and paralyzing fear was a common trait of parenthood long before this place was called Panem and the Hunger Games hung over every child's head like a guillotine." He said with a decisive nod.
I wasn't sure exactly what to make of what he was saying at the time, but now, years later, I know that even without the threat of the Games I still worry about my children, these tiny centers of my universe, every day of their lives and likely always will. That's just what good parents do.
"Being afraid isn't good enough of an excuse anymore, Sweetheart." Haymitch said grinning and leaned forward in his chair, obviously preparing to make a point.
For once, I was hanging on his every word. I wanted so badly for him to solve this particular mystery for me so that I could move on with my life with Peeta and be in a truly comfortable place where we could start a family of our own.
"All of those people who died for you and for Peeta….the tributes in the Quarter Quell, the soldiers in your squad…Mags, Finnick, Boggs…"
He hesitated only briefly but I already knew next name that would leave his lips and I had to fight the deeply ingrained urge to slug him.
"…Prim."
"Prim didn't die for me, she died because of me…" I said through clenched teeth and tried to control the anger bubbling up inside of me.
I wasn't really mad at Haymitch, or even myself so much anymore, I was just mad at the whole world and the injustice of losing my sweet, caring little sister. After all, how fair could life be when someone as selfless as she had been at such a tender age, who had only been trying to tend to wounded children when she herself was killed, could be ripped from this world?
"No, she didn't." Haymitch bit back just as fiercely and leaned forward with his elbows on the table to point between my eyes with one slightly wrinkled pointer finger.
"You took her place in almost certain death when you volunteered for her in the reaping and she took it back when those parachutes fell in front of the president's mansion." He said emphatically.
"All of them took your place so that the revolution could live in you. What? You think they weren't fucking scared? Of course they were!" He grunted and I could see he was trying to actively repress his anger with me as much as I was trying to repress my own anger toward him.
"But they did it anyway because for them, it was the only right thing to do." He said slapping a hand down emphatically on the table top.
"So…you're saying even though I'm scared to have children I should do it because…why? Because Peeta deserves them and deep down, I really do want them too?" I asked quietly and folded my arms protectively over my chest.
Haymitch rolled his eyes and shook his head as if he couldn't believe my seemingly endless capacity for stupidity.
"No, no! Damnit, that's not what I'm saying at all…" he said and started with that irritating pointing-a-finger-in-my-face thing again.
He waited and I knew he wanted me to be the one to figure it out, that I needed to be the one to figure it out on my own in order for it to mean anything to me.
I dropped my eyes to the worn table cloth, just staring at it for a long time as I tried to puzzle out where Haymitch was going with this lesson. It had to have been more than 5 minutes of me staring quietly at the table while Haymitch finished off the small loaf of bread before I cleared my throat and finally lifted my eyes to his.
"I think…that what you're saying…" I began quietly but raised my voice to be sure Haymitch heard me loud and clear. "Is that all of these fears I have, like 'what if I can't do it? What if I'm no good as a mother? What if I fail?'... Shit, Haymitch, I'm more afraid of this than I have been of anything in a long, long time."
When I paused, he nodded slowly but let me continue.
"But what it keeps boiling down to for me…and what I think you're trying to say is, that I've been given the chance to life by all of these people who died for me so how insulting is it to them if I don't actually fucking live?" I finished with the sort of straightforward simplicity that Haymitch and I had always appreciated in each other. I could see that I was on the right track when he smiled and raised the new bottle in the air to me.
"Well, there you have it." He said with a little smirk.
I picked up the half-empty one he'd shoved at me when I first entered the house and raised it to him as well.
So, tell me now, Katniss." He said and I couldn't help startling at his uncharacteristic use of my first name. "Just what do you want from this life you so eloquently stated you are supposed to 'fucking live'?"
I smiled as all of the images I'd turned away from for so long finally rushed freely down the river of my soul.
"I want it all, Haymitch." I whispered and raised my eyes to his so that he would look into mine and know that everything I was saying was the truth.
"I want babies who will never go hungry and who I can teach things my parents taught to me. I want to raise them to be kind and brave and to know that it's okay to be silly and play. I want them to look forward to each birthday as a new year to grow and learn and not as a step closer to their name going into the reaping ball. I want to watch them grow up and find jobs that make them happy and not ones they had to take because they were born in District 12 and in District 12 you're either a miner or dead…or a dead miner." I whispered as the pain of losing my father surged through my veins as fresh as if it had happened only yesterday.
"I want to grow old with Peeta and watch our children raise happier and safer children that even they will have been. I want it all." I repeated.
Looking up I found Haymitch giving me the full Abernathy, 'See? You aren't such an idiot afterall!' smile.
"Well, I guess now you know how you feel huh?" he grinned and I had to admit, I felt as though the entire world had been lifted off of my shoulders.
I had always seen Peeta as a father, even when I thought of his theoretical children as we carried on with the fake pregnancy in the Quarter Quell. There was no question that he was meant to be a father.
What had always been in question and what I had just discovered after searching deep within the most private and secret recesses of my heart, was that at that point in my life, I was finally ready to be a mother.
"Yeah…I guess so." I said with audible relief in my voice.
Haymitch smiled and winked at me.
"Good." He said plunking his bottle down on the table again with a belch and shooed me away with his free hand. "Now get out of my kitchen and take that boy hunting so that you have something to feed me for dinner."
I tried to frown but was having a terrible time managing to do so when I was just so happy with him. It settled my nerves to know that I'd made the right choice in seeking out Haymitch and even more so when I realized as long as he lived, Haymitch would always be a mentor to Peeta and to me.
"Oh yes," I said with a gasp, still fighting the smile and placed a hand dramatically to my chest as if shocked by my own bad manners.
"Please won't you come to dinner tonight, Haymitch? You know our nights are just an absolute bore without you!" I said with enough Effie Trinket-esque dramatic flare to make Haymitch roll his eyes and begin a new round of shooing me toward the door.
"Off you go," he said matter-of-factly as I stood from the table with a grin and walked to the door feeling lighter than air. It must have shown because when I turned back around as I reached the door, Haymitch was smiling widely.
"Oh and Katniss…" he said as I was twisting the doorknob and turned back to him with my own wide smile.
"It's nice to see you smiling like that." He said sweetly and if possible, my smile grew even wider.
Until of course, Haymitch belched again and waved a hand in his face to clear the air of the smell.
"Improves your looks quite a bit." He joked and I groaned and pulled the door shut behind me, blocking out only the last few proud chortles from my neighbor, mentor and friend.
I couldn't believe how peaceful I felt just for having vented my soul to Haymitch. I'd never be able to admit it to him aloud, but I didn't think it really mattered since so much of the affection that existed between the little family Peeta, Haymitch and I made up together was unspoken.
When you've been through seven levels of Hell and back together with two people like I had been with Peeta and Haymitch, there are ways of communicating that don't require words at all.
I had just let my mind wander off as I gleefully remembered the unspoken communication between with Peeta that had left me delightfully sore in some places when the screen door to our house flew open as I was placing my foot on the top step and Zale almost ran straight into me.
"Whoa there, where's the fire?" I asked placing my hands on his shoulders to keep him from ramming straight into me.
Swaying a bit from the sudden stop, Zale leaned forward with his hands on his knees to catch his breath.
I was worried that he might have gotten sick again and I regretted having left him alone in the house without telling him where I was going.
"Are you still sick?" I asked placing one hand on his back and placing the other palm down on his forehead to feel for clamminess or a fever.
Zale straightened up with an exasperated laugh and swatted my hands away as I continued checking him over for any sign of illness or injury.
"No! I'm fine…" he said bending down to tie his shoes that I noticed had obviously been pulled on in a rush as he hurried down the stairs to find me. "I just thought you left for hunting without me and I didn't want to miss out on my first lesson!"
He groaned and shook his head as he picked up the smaller of the two bows I had left leaning against the porch. I had made one specifically for him to use for the visit and Zale had been eyeballing it since the first night he arrived.
"Jeez, I thought I left my mom back in District 4…" he mumbled as he bee lined for the edge of the forest. "You guys used to be cool, now you're starting to act just like her…"
As he continued to grumble, I just picked up my own bow and a quiver of arrows, grinning like a fool as I followed my young charge off into the summer morning.