A/N: Thank you all so much for the fantastic response to the last chapter. (Even Gadge-haters seemed to be intrigued by what Gale's crackpot theory might be.) My update schedule seems to be settling in at once a week, and I don't see that changing until my kids are back in school.

Dandelionsunset not only did a great beta job on this chapter, she did it with very little notice and in a week where's she's busy posting quite a bit of her own work.

Chapter 29—skill sets

The alarm on the end table woke Peeta at 4:30 a.m. He smacked it off before it disturbed Bannock or Nikki.

Peeta had lived there less than a week, and already Nikki had done everything she could to convert the living room into a bedroom. The night before, while Peeta had been at the toasting, she had Bannock move an extra dresser behind the sofa, drawers facing out. She'd taken Peeta's belongings and the bedding he used at night, and placed them in the drawers. He had just enough room to open and close the drawers. It was really pretty clever, nobody could see it was a dresser unless they walked behind the sofa.

"We're gonna call it a sofa table," she'd proudly announced when Peeta got home. She'd sat in one of the willow rocking chairs her father had made for her (she had a matching one in the nursery—being the carpenter's daughter had tangible benefits) and looked all kinds of pleased with herself and her nesting abilities. Bannock had rolled his eyes, but Peeta didn't miss the way Bannock looked at Nikki, with affection and a little smile.

Peeta stripped the sofa, put the bedding away, washed up and got dressed. He prepared and gathered up everything he wanted to bring—an empty water flask, sandwiches, an apple, his folding knife, cloth napkins, a couple of old, chipped mugs, a thermos of hot tea, sketchbook and pencils. Those all went into his backpack. Finally, he cleaned his teeth, carefully combed his hair and left.

Had it really only been a week ago that he'd made this trip? He'd been wounded, limping, and grimly determined to tell Katniss the truth, even if it cost him any chance he'd ever have with her. He certainly hadn't known when he'd left the bakery that he would never return.

Now he had a new job, a happier place to live, and Katniss Everdeen giving him kisses.

The only reason he hadn't sobbed with joy when Katniss kissed him last night was because he couldn't completely believe it was actually happening. Here was this beautiful girl, in his arms, giving him the sweetest, most perfect kiss he could have ever imagined. He'd opened his eyes, half expecting to wake up. Instead, yes, there she was looking up at him with tenderness.

He'd come very close to telling her he loved her, but his instincts told him she wasn't ready for that. So instead, he confessed it was his first kiss, and had been rewarded with the knowledge that it had been her first kiss, too. Even as pure as Katniss was, a small part of him—well, no, a huge part of him—had wondered about all that time she'd spent alone in the woods with Gale. Even if they were never boyfriend and girlfriend, surely she'd been curious at some point?

Apparently not. He'd seen her emotional history on her face last night, as clear as if she'd handed him her diary. That kiss wasn't simply a new experience for her. It was a new idea. He wasn't just the first boy she'd ever kissed. He was the first boy she'd ever wanted to kiss.

Untouchable, beautiful, self-contained, ferocious Katniss Everdeen wanted to kiss him. When Will had confronted Peeta last night, he didn't sound disgusted. He'd sounded jealous. For all his idiotic talk about Peeta returning to the Merchant fold once he'd "gotten over" Katniss, Will understood that Peeta had somehow managed to obtain the unobtainable—the affection of Katniss Everdeen.

Peeta arrived at their meeting spot and, just like last week, Katniss materialized by rising out of the long, wet grass. Her eyes shone at him as she took his hand and led him through the small break in the brush that led into the woods.

She led him through the dense trees for several minutes, before she stopped walking and announced, "OK, we'll start here."

"Start what?" Was she talking about the hunting, or the kissing, or...?

"The noise. You're pretty loud when you walk."

"But I wasn't saying anything," he said, a little defensively.

"I know. I mean your footsteps. Here, I'll show you what I mean. Close your eyes. I'm going to walk off and you turn around a couple of times, so that you can't be sure which way you're facing. Then I'll walk towards you while you keep your eyes closed. As soon as you hear me, point at where you think I am, OK?"

Peeta closed his eyes, and carefully turned around a few times. "OK, my eyes are closed." He waited. And waited. And then involuntarily cursed when her sudden touch made him jump.

"I didn't hear you at all," he admitted, once his heartbeat slowed back down.

"Now you try," she said. "Leave your backpack, so it doesn't weigh you down." He did, and Katniss closed her eyes and turned around a few times while Peeta walked far enough away that he felt he had room to sneak up, but not so far away that he couldn't see her. Her back was facing him.

"Go ahead," she called out. After a single step, she pointed at him over her shoulder. "Try again." She turned around a few more times, then said, "OK, my eyes are closed." He took one step, and she pointed at him, this time, off her right shoulder.

This sequence repeated itself several times. "Try taking your shoes off," she suggested. He did, but the results were the same. She showed him how to place his feet, how to feel the ground with them to avoid sticks and leaves and anything that might make noise. After another 30 minutes of Katniss pointing at him every single time he moved, Peeta growled in frustration.

"What am I doing wrong?" he demanded, more to himself than Katniss, as he yanked his shoes back on his feet and double-knotted the laces. He couldn't shove down the insecurity and envy he felt at Katniss' ability to move silently. Really, not just at that. She could hunt, she could provide for her family, she could move a crowd to silence when she sang. He was out of his league and he knew it.

"You aren't doing anything wrong," Katniss reassured him. "You just have a really heavy tread. It's how you're built, is all."

"Oh, don't patronize me, Katniss. A 'heavy tread?'" Peeta snapped at her. "Is that hunter talk for 'clumsy oaf?'"

Even as the words came out, he wanted them back. He might as well have just smacked her, the surprised hurt on her face was so evident.

"Peeta, I—no! I didn't say anything like that, I would never say something like that about you!" She abruptly turned away, but not before he saw her grit her teeth and school her face into the mask of indifference he used to see everyday.

Mellark, you're a pathetic, stupid, worthless idiot. This ran through his brain as Peeta tried to figure out a way to undo the damage he'd just done. Just like Marigold. Lashing out at somebody smaller, who only showed me kindness.

"Oh, my god, Katniss, I'm so sorry," he strode towards her. Katniss had retrieved their things and held his backpack out to him. She wouldn't look him in the eye.

"Katniss," he pleaded, taking his backpack from her and placing it right back on the ground, "I know you wouldn't say that, and didn't say that. I know you're trying to help me. I'm really sorry."

She nodded quietly to let him know she accepted his apology, and gave him a long, searching look, doubt clouding her gray eyes. "Why did you think I was patronizing you?" she finally asked.

"I didn't," he admitted. "I just got frustrated, and took it out on you." Nearly 16 years of shame settled onto his shoulders, burned into his cheeks and threatened to leak out of his eyes, so he pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets until he'd pushed everything back inside. He forced himself to look at Katniss. "I'm so sorry, Katniss. This is exactly who I don't want to be. I'm not under her roof anymore but...I guess she still lives with me." He turned away so he didn't have to see the hurt on her face.

Katniss slipped around him until she was looking him in the eye, her trademark scowl on full display. Something about seeing it made Peeta feel better. A wounded Katniss was his heartbreak. But an angry Katniss was familiar to him.

"She doesn't get to win," she loudly declared, eyes flashing with a familiar fire. "I won't allow it." She fixed him with her glare and placed her finger on his chest. "And neither will you."

This. This was his Katniss, this fierce, woodland girl, who gave him courage to face his demons. Peeta snaked one arm around her waist and pulled her right up to him, so he could see that scowl up close. His free hand ran over the top of her head and came to rest behind her jaw, holding her face even closer than before. "You won't allow it?" he challenged.

"I won't allow it," she answered defiantly.

"Promise?" He was looking at her mouth.

"Peeta," she said. He looked into her eyes. "I promise."

He didn't think about it, he just crushed his lips to hers. There was nothing gentle or chaste about this kiss. Katniss didn't move for a heartbeat, but then her hands found their way into his hair. She kissed him back with a ferocity that set something ablaze in him. He slanted his lips. The tip of his tongue slid over her mouth, wanting entrance. Her lips parted for him, and he tasted her, savored her, as his thumb stroked her cheek.

Katniss slipped her hands out of his hair and wrapped her arms around him. Peeta realized it was the first time she'd been able to do that, to properly embrace him, since the rolling-pin. His heart filled with emotion for the girl in his arms. His hands unwound her braid, slipping the elastic over his own wrist. He luxuriated in the feel of her hair slipping through his fingers as her tongue slid over his.

Peeta moved his kisses down her jaw. Katniss made this little noise—a barely audible gasp of surprise and pleasure. She whispered his name so tenderly, it made him unsteady. He sank to his knees, pulling her with him.

As soon as they were both kneeling, Katniss leaned into him, so that their bodies were touching from knee to chest. His arms instinctively pulled her closer, pressing her groin into his.

Yeah. No way he could hide his erection this time. He opened his eyes as she broke their kiss, and saw her momentary confusion as she pressed back into him, which made him throb. "Oh!" she gasped, realization and deep embarrassment flooding her features. She didn't pull away. She just stared at him, her mouth half-open in confusion. She couldn't seem to decide what she wanted to do. Terror, uncertainty, desire and curiosity all flickered across her face.

Peeta felt a little torn, himself, as the temptation to grin at her expression battled with the temptation to distract her with more kissing. Instead, he untangled his arms from around her waist, giving them a little space between them, and held her hands in his. He gently kissed her fingertips and leaned his forehead against hers. He gave her a too-innocent look. "Too soon?" And this time, he gave into the temptation to grin.

Katniss exhaled a breathy laugh. She looked so relieved that Peeta knew he'd made the right call. "Only what you feel ready for," he promised her. "I'm not in any hurry."

True, his erection vehemently disagreed—but, but, she's right there, it was telling him, begging to be let out—but he'd take care of that later. Wouldn't be the first time.

"My mother's Slag Heap lecture makes a little more sense, all of a sudden," she said, looking a little embarrassed. They stood up and brushed the dirt off their clothes.

"Does she even know we're out here together?" he asked, slipping the elastic from his wrist and handing it back to her.

"Um...no?" She had a sheepish smile on her face, and for just a heartbeat, she looked like a normal, teenage girl who was bending the rules. "I mean, I always go hunting on Sundays. If she asks, I won't lie, but I didn't exactly wake her up at 4:30 in the morning to tell her, 'I'm leaving for several unsupervised hours with Peeta.'"

He watched her braid her hair. Something occurred to him. "Did she ever give you the Slag Heap lecture for all those unsupervised hours with Gale?"

"Nope. Just you," she smiled at him. Peeta felt ridiculously pleased about this.

They held hands as they made their way to the fence, Peeta having no trouble getting through it this week. When they stopped to pick up her bow and quiver, he asked her, "So. I'm too loud to hunt. What are my options?"

"Snares and gathering," she told him. "Snares are more reliable, anyway, when they're done correctly. They work in almost any type of weather and they stay in place 24 hours a day."

They found their way to the stream and boulder they'd been at last week. Along the way, Katniss showed him how to recognize signs of animal activity. "See that run?" she asked him, pointing to what looked like a miniature trail. It was a path in the grass that was only a few inches wide but stretched away from them until he lost sight of it. "That's a small game trail."

Katniss showed him other things, too, things he would never have thought before. Scattered, brown pellets? Those were droppings. Masses of leaves on high branches in trees? Squirrels. Bark scraped away on trees? Also squirrels, occasionally deer.

She pointed out a patch of honeysuckle. The leaves were covered in oily-looking dribbles about a foot or so off the ground. "Something's marking its' territory," she informed him. She checked the ground and the tree trunks nearby. "That explains why there isn't a whole lot of small game around here," she mused.

"Can you tell what it is?" he asked.

"A large coyote, or maybe a coywolf. The tracks are too small to be a wolf, and anyway, wolves won't come this close to the fence," she replied. She showed him the neat, straight line of tracks in the soft, damp earth.

"What's a coywolf?" Peeta had never heard of such a thing.

"A coyote-wolf hybrid."

"Aren't you nervous that there's one nearby?"

"No. Cautious, sure, but coyotes don't go looking for fights with humans."

They had arrived at the boulder and stream, and Peeta set out their breakfast on top of the boulder. He poured tea and sliced up the apples and sandwiches, while Katniss explained the basics of setting snares. "You're playing the odds," she said. "You want as many snares as possible in an area with as many runs as possible. There really isn't enough game out here to make it worth your while, but we'll find a place for you. Are there any places to get through the fence over by town?"

"No idea. I wouldn't even know where to look or what to look for. Have you tried before?"

"No. I'm so obviously Seam that it would look suspicious to have me skulking around like that."

As they ate, Katniss told Peeta about the lake. "I'll teach you to swim when it gets warmer. And how to set up a fishing line." She told him all about the plants he could gather and harvest. She told him about her family's plant book, which had been passed down through generations of Bays and now Everdeens.

Katniss is downright chatty here in the woods, he thought.

After breakfast, Katniss showed him the basics of setting a snare. The process was fairly straightforward. Using some wire, two sticks she found on the ground, her knife and a sapling, Katniss had a snare set up in less than 30 minutes. Peeta quickly sketched each step so he could study it later. She took it all apart, and handed Peeta the wire and the sticks. "This can be your first snare once we find you your own grounds," she explained.

They followed the stream out for some time, until the woods gave way to a meadow dotted with wild flowers. It overlooked a deep valley with dark, rolling hills obscured by a pale, smoky mist.

Peeta stared. And stared. He'd never been able to see so far before in his life. He'd never seen this much sky. In the distance, a hawk lazily drifted on the current. It was far and away the most beautiful place he'd ever seen. He knew he would be sketching and painting this scene over and over, but for now, his eyes just drank it all in.

Katniss stood next to him. She didn't talk or urge him to keep moving. She just let him be. Peeta looked over at her. He'd never seen her so relaxed or happy, not since they were children. He wished they could move out here when they were grown, maybe build a little house together. He'd do just about anything to give her a life where she looked like this every single day.

Just standing here is a crime punishable by death, he remembered. That fact shattered his fantasy of the idyllic life he'd been building in his mind. Who would pull the trigger? Peeta wondered. A handful of the Peacekeepers in Twelve abused their power, but honestly, most of them were decent people. What would it do to say, Purnia, if she were forced to execute Peeta and Katniss? She admired Katniss for her hunting, and had eaten her game. She'd been a customer of the bakery for years.

Peeta didn't doubt for once second that if Purnia refused a Capitol directive to execute somebody, she'd be executed herself in short order.

Peeta remembered something. "Katniss, last week you told me that you never wanted to get married or have kids. I was so wrapped up in my own issues that I never bothered to ask you why that is."

She looked at him, no anger or wariness in her glance, but her eyes were filled with a pain that made her look much older than 15. "After my dad died, I saw what happened to my mother. I never want that to be me, to love somebody so much that I can't function without them."

"But you lost him, too. And I know how much you loved him, I saw the two of you together. When he died, you not only functioned, you took care of everybody else."

"That's different," she muttered.

"You aren't giving yourself enough credit. Even if your mom had been present, you'd still be out here putting food on the table. You're stronger than you realize."

"That's different, Peeta! I can still do something! What am I going to do if my child's name gets drawn from the Reaping bowl?" Katniss' voice was ragged. She had tears in her eyes, but was looking at Peeta without any embarrassment. "Know which Reapings terrify me the most? Prim's last four. I'll be too old to volunteer in her place."

Peeta reached for her. She dropped her bow, quiver and game bag, and stepped into his embrace. She wasn't shaking, or sobbing, or making any noise at all. She was quiet, just letting the tears in her eyes spill onto his shirt.

Nobody in Twelve volunteered. Many families actually had a "no volunteering" policy in place, to prevent feelings of guilt among surviving siblings. The Mellarks had never discussed it, but Peeta knew that he and Rye would never volunteer for each other. It wasn't that they didn't care, just the opposite. It was that they each wanted the one who was safe at home, to stay safe at home.

Rye or Peeta probably didn't stand a chance against a well-trained career. But they both would last a damn sight longer than Prim could ever hope to. Of course Katniss would volunteer if she could. She'd never forgive herself if she didn't.

And suddenly, the injustice of their lives in Twelve crashed down on him. The Capitol had turned Katniss' childhood into one Hobson's choice after another. Starvation vs. slips in the Reaping bowl vs. possible execution. Small wonder she didn't want children. The only future he'd ever really wanted—raising a family with Katniss—had been stolen from him the day her father died.

He tightened his arms around her. "I wonder how many other people feel the same way you do," he thought out loud, "about having children."

Katniss shrugged, indifferent.

"I'd love to know what the population numbers look like, and not just here in Twelve. The Capitol feeds us all this propaganda about it being our patriotic duty to help repopulate the planet. Then they turn around and starve us, allow our reproducing adults to die in preventable accidents, and murder two children every summer. It's gives us every incentive to have as few children as possible."

"I should get you and Gale together," Katniss said wryly as she broke the embrace and picked up her things. "You sound just like him."

Huh. Well, if anybody had cause to hate the Capitol, it was Gale. "You don't agree?" he asked.

"No, I completely agree. It just doesn't help me put food on the table."

They wandered around the field, Katniss showing him a few plants that were both easy to identify and safe to eat—onion grass, mint and sorrel. "Take some home," she told him. "They grow anywhere, and if Nikki doesn't mind, you can just plant them in their yard."

While she was digging up some onion grass bulbs, she suddenly got very excited. "Hey, maybe you could—" and then stopped abruptly, looking embarrassed.

"Maybe I could..." he prompted.

Katniss looked reluctant to say anything, but Peeta gently coaxed it out of her. "I was thinking about my family's plant book," she finally admitted. "I've been wanting to add my own knowledge for a long time, but I can't draw. And detail is really important. Eat the wrong plant and you're dead."

"And you'd like help with the drawings?" Peeta guessed.

"Yeah, but I don't want to impose."

"Katniss, doing one my favorite things with one of my favorite people is not an imposition. Besides, what better way for me to learn about these plants than to draw them?"

Katniss didn't appear to reject the argument out of hand, so Peeta decided he would just make it happen somehow.

Around mid-morning, Katniss announced that they were going to a small pond to gather katniss tubers and anything else that "looked promising." They crossed the clearing they were in and entered a new part of the woods. Peeta privately wondered how the hell she never got lost.

They were nearly out of the trees when Katniss stopped walking and touched his wrist to make him do the same. He could hear honking. About 75 yards past the tree line lay a small pond ringed with cattails and reeds. A few dozen Canada geese were noisily swimming, floating, waddling around or just resting in the grass. Katniss handed him her game bag, then barely edged into the clearing.

She silently nocked an arrow, pulled the bow all the way back and aimed. Katniss let her arrow fly, instantly nocked another arrow, tracked the flight of one of the birds for less than a second, and shot it out of the air. She lowered her bow. The rest of the flock made a noisy escape.

"You got one!" he exclaimed, coming out of the trees.

"I got two," she replied, with quiet pride. One goose lay dead near the pond, while the one she'd shot out of the air lay in the clearing. Both had been shot through the eye.

Holy shit, thought Peeta. My girlfriend's a bad ass. "You're a danger to the bird population, you know that?"

Katniss grinned. "The flocks are heading back north," she explained. "It won't be like this next month."

Katniss field dressed the geese after showing Peeta how to use a stick and his bare feet to dig for katniss tubers. He actually enjoyed that quite a lot. It felt like playing in the mud. While Katniss washed up, Peeta wrapped each goose and the tubers in the cloth napkins. It was nearly noon, so they decided to head back.

Katniss insisted that Peeta take one of the geese home to Nikki and Bannock. "I thought you usually split your hauls with the Hawthornes," he said.

"Not every time, but yeah, we do share quite a bit," she admitted. "But you're the one who's been out here getting dragged around all morning. Besides, Nikki's pregnant. You can't tell me she wouldn't love some fresh meat."

"She would," Peeta agreed. He was about to take her up on the offer when he remembered who it was he was talking to. "So, if I take one of the geese, who gets the other?"

"The Hawthornes. Peeta, I just earned more money last night than Hazelle sees in a week of washing. And somebody loaded me up with sandwiches. We're OK for food right now at home."

"How about this," Peeta offered. "The Everdeens and the Mellarks split one bird and the katniss. The Hawthornes get the other bird."

"Deal," she agreed.

They made their way back to the fence. They walked through trees and passed the place where Peeta had lashed out at Katniss. He stopped suddenly and gathered Katniss up in his arms. "Thank you," he murmured into her hair.

"For what?" Her voice was muffled against his chest.

"For bringing me. For sharing so much with me. For not smacking me earlier when I snapped at you, even though I deserved it."

Katniss' head snapped up. She stood on her toes and put her hands on either side of his face, eyes ablaze. "If I'd snapped at you, would I deserve to be smacked?" she demanded.

"What? No!" Peeta's mouth dropped open in shock at the suggestion.

"Really? I say thoughtless crap all the time, Peeta. My father used to call me 'cantankerous Katniss.' You even have a sketch of me griping out Rye when I was 10 years old. I could very well bite your head off every single day for the rest of your life. Would I ever deserve to get slapped around just a little bit?"

Peeta was so horrified at the thought that he cradled her against him, as if he could somehow protect her from what she had just suggested. "No, my god, Katniss, no!"

"And neither do you," she said right into his ear. "Neither do you." He closed his eyes just so he could concentrate better on her words. "Not this morning. Not a week ago. Not five years ago. Not ever. Not once."

At the surface, Peeta understood that what his parents had done to him wasn't his fault. But in his heart, in his bones, lay the certainty that it was it his fault, was all his fault, that he deserved it. Katniss' husky voice telling him otherwise was like balm on an open wound.

Katniss slid back down out of his arms and looked up at him. "She doesn't get to win," she reminded him.

"You won't allow it," he whispered, his forehead touching hers.

"And neither will you," she whispered back, and kissed him gently.

They walked back to town. To say that Nikki was happy to have half of a goose for dinner was an understatement. She squealed, hugged them both, pulled out knives and started carving up the bird.

Bannock, who had made his strong disapproval of "fence jumping" known to Peeta the night before, somehow managed to keep his objections to himself in the face of 10 pounds of free goose. He was even polite to Katniss.

"Sugar, your momma's a healer, ain't she? You think she'd be able ta come see me in the next day or so? My own momma passed a while back, and I was never all that keen on having Mrs. Bay as a midwife."

"Yeah," Katniss agreed. "You shouldn't scare a newborn like that." Peeta and Nikki chuckled, and Bannock hid his smile behind a cup of tea.

Katniss divided up the tubers and issued instructions on how to cook them. After Nikki had wrapped up the meat going to the Everdeens and handed it to her, Katniss had to leave. Peeta walked her to the front porch. "See you tonight," he told her, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

"Prim will be with me," she reminded him, as she walked towards the Seam. Right. No making out tonight. It was all right, though. He really liked Prim.

He went back into the kitchen, where Nikki had found his supply of herbs. She'd held a few back for the kitchen, and had ordered Bannock to plant the rest in the backyard. Bannock was out there now with a shovel.

With Bannock out of earshot, Peeta quietly asked Nikki if she knew any place on this side of town where he could get through the fence. She wasn't the least bit surprised by his question. "Gonna take up huntin'?" she asked.

"Sort of," he told her, and then explained that he was too loud to actually hunt, and wanted to find an area where he could set snares.

"You don't have ta do that, Peet," she told him, mincing some of the onion grass with her butcher knife. "Don't get me wrong, honey, I appreciate the game. But we get by and you're earnin' your keep."

"You've got another mouth to feed on the way. Besides, I'm only here until my last Reaping. After that, I'll be in the boarding house. A part-time job painting furniture won't be nearly enough."

"No, I reckon it won't," Nikki agreed. "But honey, that's two years away. Don't it seem like a big risk ta take?"

"Yes, it does," Peeta admitted, "but I'm willing to take it."

"Tell me why," she asked, as she sprinkled salt, pepper and the minced onion grass on the bird.

"Because the last person that really, truly took care of her took the risk," Peeta answered. "And I'll be damned if I ever become one more person she skips a meal for."

Nikki looked at him approvingly. She slid the bird into the oven. As she washed and dried her hands, she said, "Well, to answer your question, no. I don't know. Listen, it's time for my afternoon stroll. You're comin' with me, make sure I don't topple over." The tone in her voice left no room for argument.

She opened the window and told Bannock that she was talking a walk, and that Peeta was going with her. Bannock nodded, looked at Peeta and said, "Don't let her walk too far. And don't let her walk for more than 30 minutes or her feet swell."

"'Don't let her,'" Nikki muttered as she waddled out the front door. "As if he could stop me." They set out in the general direction of the shop. After several minutes of small talk, they got to a part of town that was basically empty lots.

Nikki quit walking. "Tell me why you asked me about the fence," she demanded. She put her hands on her hips and waited for his answer.

"I told you," Peeta replied, a bit confused. "Snares and edible plants."

"No, I mean, why did you ask me?"

Ah. "A hunch," he replied.

She raised her eyebrows. Not good enough.

Peeta sighed and started listing his reasons. "Here is what I know. Your family apparently evaded the Capitol for some time, but then were 'relocated' to Twelve when your grandfather was a boy. Your great-grandparents were Merchants from the moment they arrived. Despite living in Twelve—in town, no less—for a few generations, your family insists on keeping your mountain accents. And your father, the carpenter, is known for his willow furniture."

He waited to see if Nikki had any objections. She had a ghost of a smile on her face, but didn't correct him on anything.

He continued, "Here is what I suspect. Your great-grandparents fought in the last war. They were captured, had their ancestral lands confiscated by the Capitol, and their family taken into custody. But they also had something else the Capitol wanted pretty desperately, I'm guessing information of some kind. In exchange, they were allowed to live and given Merchant-class status. So whatever they traded must have been pretty important to the Capitol.

"Your family keeps the accents as a way to either remember where you came from, or as a badge of honor that the Capitol can't completely control you. Basically, the picture I see tells me that your family has far more resentment towards the Capitol than the other Merchants."

"And the willow furniture?" she asked, one blond eyebrow raised.

"The Capitol doesn't ship willow to the lumber yard, but there's lot of willow in those woods."

"The Ozarks," she said softly, as she started walking again, but more slowly. "They was from the Ozarks. They didn't fight for either side and they didn't trade for information. They witnessed somethin', war crimes of some sort. My daddy knows the details, but he ain't tellin'. Their placement here was just supposed ta be temporary. Witness protection, they were told.

"So, they was sent here, told ta open a lumber yard, help with the rebuilding. The Capitol promised ta send them home after the dust had settled. Instead, the Capitol outlawed private property in the Districts. Our land became part of District Eleven.

"Well, my great-granddaddy done somethin' foolish. He threatened to tell what he saw if he didn't get his land back. Peacekeepers just walked into the house a couple nights later and shot him dead in front of his family. A month later, his daughter, my granddaddy's sister, was Reaped. She'd just turned twelve. The year after that, her twin brother was Reaped."

Peeta remained silent as they walked.

"They got pretty quiet after that. My granddaddy married the carpenter's daughter. Him and Granny merged the businesses together, had my daddy and his brothers. But we all remember what the Capitol stole." She held her hands and arms protectively across her swollen belly.

"We keep the accents 'cuz we're stubborn. And yes, my daddy gets the willow outside the fence. You'll need ta ask him."

They had started walking towards home again. "Um, I don't know how comfortable I am asking your father—who is also my boss—about going through the fence."

"Oh, don't let him scare you, honey. If he don't want ta tell, he won't, but he sure won't think less of you for askin'. Just be careful how you ask it. And listen. All that stuff I told you 'bout my great-grandparents and their twins? It don't never get discussed indoors."

"Ok," Peeta frowned. "Why not?"

"Learned paranoia. It was a rule growin' up. No talkin' 'bout the Capitol where they might be listenin' in. Now it's mostly just habit."

"Does Bannock know all of this?" Peeta asked.

"Yep."

"What did he say?"

She grinned and did a spot-on imitation of Bannock's pompous cadences. "'If I can survive the dysfunction that is Farl and Marigold Mellark, I can survive your family's ancient tragedies.'"

Nikki had started huffing a little from the exertion. Peeta slowed down their pace. She changed the subject. "So, tell me, honey. You gonna marry that girl?" she teased.

"I'd love to," he said sincerely. "But she's pretty firm that she's never getting married and she's never having kids."

"Well, then, you need ta be extra careful with her."

"Careful how?" Peeta asked. Nikki's statement was open to several interpretations.

"Honey, how long you been in love with her?"

"Little over 10 years."

"And how long has she been lettin' you clutch her like a teddy bear while you take a nap on the porch swing?"

"Um," he said, amused at her characterization, "about a week."

"OK, then. This is all brand new ta her, honey. Give her time ta catch up." They were back at the house. Peeta held out his arm, which she used to hoist herself up the steps. "I think, with enough patience, she'll maybe change her mind about what she wants. Love does that sometimes." She smiled down at her belly.

Peeta opened the door for her. "She's not in love with me."

"Oh, yes she is, honey. Yes, she is." Nikki patted him sympathetically as she walked into the house. "She's just a long way off from knowin' it."