A/N: Thanks to everybody for the faves, follows and reviews. Many thanks to greenwool for the pre-read and to francatwild for the beta.
This chapter was originally going to be Katniss' POV, but Peeta distracted her with cheese buns and cut in line. Her mouth was too full to protest, so here he is.
Chapter 32—irons in the fire
Monday morning, Rye met Peeta at Bannock and Nikki's so they could walk to school together. Rye looked tired and upset.
"What is it?" Peeta asked him.
Rye told him. Their father was going to hold on to the bakery just long enough to let Rye leave. Then Farl was going to ditch the bakery, move to the Seam and mine coal.
"He's gonna leave Marigold in charge of the bakery?" Peeta said, incredulously.
"That's what he says," Rye grumbled.
"Unbelievable."
"Yeah. Here's what he's not saying, but wants me to do. I take over the bakery, kick Marigold out, and run it until you come of age." Rye sounded dejected.
"You'd rather walk on broken glass in bare feet?" Peeta guessed.
"Pretty much."
"Do you really think this is what Dad wants you to do?"
"Yeah," Rye said. "I had always planned it to go to you, anyway. I figured Farl and Marigold would run the joint until you came of age, then turn it over to you. You'd keep me on part-time. I'd focus on my music.
"But I can't play toastings and festivals and have rehearsals if I'm running a bakery, Peet. There's book work, bills, orders, supplies—you know the drill. It's 7 days a week."
"I'd do all of that, Rye," Peeta told him. "You could have it in name, I'd run it in practice."
"Dude. You've got two more years of school."
"I know, but I'd be home every afternoon and evening. Then you can rehearse and play your gigs."
They were getting close to school. "It still leaves the Marigold problem," Rye said. "Kicking her out while Dad runs away doesn't exactly thrill me."
They had arrived at school, so Peeta spoke quickly. "If I could make this work for you, so that you don't have to give up the band, would you do it?"
Rye blinked once. "Only if I can lord it over you for the rest of your life." Then he headed to class.
Thoughts of the bakery were temporarily shelved when he saw Katniss walking towards him. As they walked down the hall, a Merchant girl in Rye's class who must have attended the wedding called out to Katniss, "Hey! Good job Saturday night! Y'all are really good."
Katniss was so surprised that Peeta had to remind her to yell back, "Thank you!" Several other students, mostly Merchant kids, stared at him, more with puzzlement than hostility. For his morning classes, he ignored the stares, the whispers and the lesson plans. Instead, he thought about the bakery and Katniss, and he doodled variations on the Five to Twelve sign. Arrows and mockingjay feathers were too provocative? Fine. He'd make them look like something else.
But they'd still be there. Peeta was stubborn about his art.
During lunch, a couple of Merchant girls stopped by to compliment Katniss (she politely thanked them, but otherwise didn't seem to know what to do or say) and then told Rye over and over how amazing and incredible and wonderful the band had been.
Rye played it cool the whole time, even though both girls were quite pretty and rather obviously hitting on him. Katniss, naturally, either didn't notice or didn't care. Madge and Peeta, however, shared a look at Rye's polished nonchalance ("Right on. Yeah. Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it.") Madge hid her smirk by drinking her milk. Peeta gave Rye the same big, shit-eating grin he gave when he would "accidentally" walk in on Rye and his dates.
When they left, Peeta asked, "So, which one of those girls are you going to sneak upstairs?"
"Both, obviously."
"At the same time?" Peeta reached across the table and helped himself to one of the rolls Rye had packed and took a bite. "That sounds pretty interesting," he said around a mouthful of bread. "I think it's time for a late-night visit home."
"Don't you dare. The one benefit to your absence is that I might finally get laid without you interrupting anything."
Katniss, who had been watching the back and forth between the brothers with interest, flushed a little pink and said, under her breath, "Gross."
Rye took her disgust as some sort of personal challenge, and spent the rest of lunch giving very explicit (and completely fabricated) descriptions of what Peeta had walked in on in the past. Peeta tried to rebut the falsehoods—really, he did—but it was hard to do after Katniss whispered to Peeta, "What's 'lube'?"
He spent the rest of lunch helplessly laughing.
The rest of the day passed by quickly. A couple of the people who had ignored him last week greeted him today. He acknowledged it, but didn't feel compelled to do anything further. Will tried to catch his eye a few times in math, but Peeta wasn't going to make this easy on him. Will didn't have any problem insulting Peeta to his face. He could apologize the same way.
After school, he and Rye walked towards town together. Peeta got right to the point. "How long do you think Dad can keep the bakery open?" Peeta asked.
"No idea. I can ask. What do you have in mind?"
"Not sure," he confessed. "But it would help if I knew what sort of time frame we're talking about."
"I'll find out. See you tonight."
Peeta headed to the lumber yard. On his way to the paint shop, he left a message with Mr. Brown's assistant that when Mr. Brown had a spare moment, Peeta had a question for him. Nothing urgent, just whenever.
A 3-drawer dresser shaped like a half-circle was waiting for him in the paint shop. A note from Mr. Brown was on top. It said:
This is for a woman. Make it pretty.
-N.B.
"That's specific," Peeta muttered to himself. He pulled the drawers all the way out, and got to work. In less than an hour, he'd tacked and primed everything. He'd just started sketching out a flower-and-vine motif on butcher paper when Mr. Brown walked in.
"You needed somethin', son?" He looked irritated.
"Yes, sir." Peeta inwardly sighed and hoped this worked. "You know the rocking chairs you made for Nikki? I'd like to make something similar, but I don't know where to start. Nikki thought you could point me in the right direction."
Mr. Brown seemed amused. "Reckon I could. Come find me at quittin' time."
Peeta thanked him, then returned to the drawing. He let his mind drift, as it usually did when he was sketching or painting.
He missed the bakery. He didn't miss his mother, but he missed everything else about the place, including his father. He missed the smell of rising dough. He missed having to scrub flour out from under his nails.
But there were limits to what he was willing to do to get it. If Farl just abandoned it, leaving Marigold in place, Peeta would rather see the bakery fail than stick the mess with Rye.
And even if Farl did make Marigold leave, it was still a risk for Rye. If something happened to Peeta before he came of age, Rye was stuck with a business he did not want in a District with few other options. Of course, if Rye took ownership now and was then Reaped in July, the bakery would be lost, anyway.
When Bannock came into the paint shop to tell Peeta it was time to go home, two hours had passed, and the butcher paper was covered with an intricate design of katniss flowers and leaves, pine cones, evergreen sprigs, ribbons and wheat stalks.
Peeta told Bannock that he needed to talk to Mr. Brown, and would be late for dinner. He expected Bannock to argue, but instead, his brother said, "Just...be careful. Nikki will keep a plate for you."
Peeta grabbed his backpack, and helped his boss lock up. They walked through an older Merchant neighborhood that looked like it wasn't fully inhabited. "Lotta these homes been vacant for decades," he told Peeta. "Some of the original Merchant families that started in Twelve died out. Haven't been enough new Merchant couples to replace them."
Peeta wondered again what the population really was, not only in Twelve, but in all of Panem.
Mr. Brown's house was at the end of one of these nearly-vacant blocks. It was larger than most homes Peeta had seen in Twelve, and sparsely furnished. Peeta was surprised that they walked right through the house, through the back yard, and to the far end of a lot that was mostly weeds. Trees bordered the lot, but it wasn't the dense foliage that was near the water tower. There was shade, but no real cover.
Mr. Brown kept walking, the land sloping downward slightly. Peeta saw the fence long before they actually reached it. Mr. Brown stopped walking. Peeta looked behind them. Because of the downward slope, they were hidden from view, but if anybody actually came looking for them, they'd be easy to spot.
"So. Why'd Nikki tell you to talk to me about this?" Mr. Brown asked. He fished a pipe and a small bag of tobacco out of his shirt pocket, while Peeta briefly explained how he'd suspected Mr. Brown of going beyond the fence.
As Peeta spoke, Mr. Brown's expression didn't really change, but Peeta had the distinct feeling that Mr. Brown was re-evaluating him. His boss tamped the tobacco down into the pipe with his pinky. "What're you really lookin' for out there, son?"
"Game trails."
Mr. Brown raised an eyebrow at this. "You ain't getting' enough to eat at Bannock's?" He lit the pipe and puffed on it a little bit.
"No, sir. I'm getting plenty to eat, but I have people in my life who aren't." That wasn't the whole story, but it was true enough. And it seemed better than saying I've got something to prove to myself.
"So I hear. Anyways," he said, "there ain't a lotta pryin' eyes out this way but them's that here ain't fools, neither. Ain't no reason for you ta be out this way. I ain't the kinda boss that entertains his employees."
"How do you get your willow to the shop without being seen?"
"I call it kindlin' and carry it in plain sight. That ain't an option for game. Now I respect you wantin' to put meat on the table, but this ain't the Seam, son. Nice Merchant boy like you starts walkin' down my street with game in your belt, people gonna notice."
Mr. Brown wedged the pipe between his teeth, and used a long stick to draw a crude map of the Merchant district in the dirt. He marked a place east of the tannery. "There's a tree line to hide your movements. Not a lot of folk out there 'cuz a the smell. And if you get somethin' large, the Buckings might take the leather, and send for Rooba ta buy the meat." The Buckings were the family that ran the tannery.
"Bring a weapon and don't go alone. Take somebody who knows what the hell they're doin'. Lotta predators in that part a the woods. I ain't been there myself in years."
Peeta thanked him and Mr. Brown erased the map with his foot.
Mr. Brown had finished his pipe and knocked the ash out of it. "You be smart about this, hear? Keep up appearances." Peeta knew what he meant. It was one thing for a kid from the Seam to leave the district and hunt for game. For a Merchant kid to do it would be a scandal.
He and Mr. Brown walked back up the hill. Peeta said goodbye to his boss, then he trekked his way back to Bannock and Nikki's. Nikki had kept his dinner warm for him, which he appreciated. While he ate, he told Bannock and Nikki about the bakery.
"That isn't right," Bannock said. "It isn't right for Dad to abandon the bakery, and it isn't right that Rye should have to take over a business he doesn't want. Dad needs to kick her out, get a divorce and hold the bakery for you."
"If you know of a way to make it happen," Peeta said, "I'm all ears. But he's never stood up to her before. Why would he start now?"
Bannock looked at Nikki, then reached for her hand. She took it and gave her husband a gentle smile. He turned back to Peeta. "See if Rye will come to dinner tomorrow night. Maybe the three of us can, I don't know, figure something out."
"Uh, all right. I will," Peeta said, surprised by Bannock's suggestion. Bannock tended to flee from issues surrounding their mother, and the bakery wasn't really his problem.
When Peeta walked Katniss home that night, they finally had enough privacy that he could tell her about the bakery. "I want it," he said. "I've always wanted it. But I don't think I'm willing to take it like this, with Dad just escaping and Rye and I having to pick up the pieces."
"What happens if your father leaves, and nobody takes over?"
"Then the bakery fails," he said, not bothering to hide how much this bothered him.
Katniss had that little crease in between her eyebrows, that meant she was troubled. "Then where will people get bread?"
"Nowhere."
When they got to Katniss' house, he pulled her in for a hug. In very hushed tones, and speaking in code, he whispered into her ear about about getting through the fence by the tannery, that there were predators and he needed a guide.
She whispered back, "Saturday morning. Bring a knife, I won't have my things." That's right, he thought. She doesn't have a bow out in that part of the woods.
In the few minutes they'd been embracing, a certain part of his body had decided to stand up and make its presence known. Katniss realized that as they were kissing goodnight. Much like the day before, she basically panicked, giving him a hurried goodbye, and fleeing into her home.
Peeta mentally stamped out any shred of frustration, remembering what Nikki had told him yesterday. This is all brand new ta her, honey. Give her time ta catch up. He walked home, smiling about the girl who could take down predators and sell their pelts for cash, but ran and hid from physical proof that her boyfriend found her attractive. Well, Mellark, he told himself, get comfortable. This is going to be a long, slow courtship.
Dinner with Bannock and Rye the next night was memorable, to say the least.
Nikki set the tone as soon as Bannock and Peeta walked in the door after work. "You!" she pointed at Bannock. "Sit down!" Bannock rolled his eyes, put a I'll humor my hormonal wife look on his face, and sat down at the table.
"It's twins." She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at her husband.
Bannock looked like he was about to pass out. He gaped at Nikki for a moment, while she fumed. He swallowed a few times before gasping, "How do you know?"
"Mrs. Everdeen came over this mornin'. Said she felt both babies, and heard both heartbeats." Nikki looked like she was trying very hard not to burst into tears. She had started pacing around the kitchen.
Bannock, who had regained his composure (although he was still very pale) pulled his wife onto his lap. "Nikki, we'll manage," he said soothingly, and kissed her cheek. Peeta marveled that Nikki could pull this sort of tenderness out of Bannock. He was kind of a dick to everybody else.
Somebody knocked at the front door, and since Bannock and Nikki were having a moment, Peeta went to answer it. He let Rye in and and told him in a low voice about the twins. "No wonder she's so fuckin' huge," was Rye's only (thankfully quiet) observation.
Nikki was still Bannock's lap when they walked into the kitchen, her face in her hands. Bannock rubbed her back soothingly with one hand. Rye put his guitar down, looked at Peeta and jerked his head towards the stove. He and Peeta put dinner together while Nikki calmed herself down. They cheered her up by suggesting pairs of terrible baby names.
"Cletus and Otis, if they're both boys," Rye offered. "Go full hillbilly."
"Perfect and Atrocious," suggested Peeta.
"How about, Lily and Her Sister?"
"Or First and Second! Name them after their birth order."
"Dude! Last and Second-to-Last! Give them a complex from the start."
By the time dinner was on the table, Nikki seemed much better, actually giggling at some of the names. After everybody settled in to eat, Bannock brought up the reason all three brothers were there.
"So, Rye. What do you want to do about the bakery?"
"Burn it down."
Bannock huffed a little. "You know very well that isn't what I mean."
"Fine. Dad said he can keep it going for another four to six weeks, before he has to close up shop. I'm willing to hold it in name-only until Peet comes of age, but not if Marigold is still there. If Farl wants us to take it over, he gets rid of her first."
"Exactly," Peeta declared. "Dad needs to nut up. Another black eye? Go to Bay's apothecary. Katniss needs to get home at night? Call the Mayor. Bakery's in trouble? Rye can cancel his future, and kick out Marigold." Peeta felt anger and disgust rising up like bile at the back of his throat. "It's always somebody else who fixes things. It's never him."
"I agree," Bannock stated. "I'll leave it up to the two of you whether you want him to keep working there, but I think at a minimum, he moves out and takes her with him. He can get them a flat, or a room at the boarding house. Or they can go to the Justice Center and apply for new housing. But whatever, she needs a new legal address so she can't just come back into the place whenever she wants. He doesn't get to just walk away from her, and leave us to fix what they broke."
"'Us?'" Rye looked suspiciously at his older brother. "Ban, no offense, but why the fuck do you even care? You didn't take the bakery. We wouldn't be having this discussion if you had. This isn't your fight. It's mine and Peet's."
Peeta waited for the bickering to start. Ban and Rye rarely got along, and when they did, it didn't last for long. One of them (usually Rye) would pick a fight.
"Because Marigold happened to me, too," Bannock muttered, looking at his hands. "And this talk with Dad is long overdue."
Peeta and Rye looked at each other. "What talk with Dad?" Peeta asked.
This time it was Nikki who spoke. "Ban and I, we'd already decided that we was gonna have your father over, explain ta him that Marigold ain't allowed around the baby—babies," she corrected herself. "But now, well, we think you should be here, too. Y'all three explain ta Farl about takin' over the bakery."
"When?" Rye asked.
Bannock looked at Nikki. "Best make it soon, darlin'," she patted her tummy. "Mrs. Everdeen said it's only a week or two away." They decided to have Farl the following evening after dinner. Rye would cancel rehearsal. And whatever happened, happened.
The guys cleaned up after dinner, while Nikki told them all about her visit with Mrs. Everdeen. After twenty minutes of hearing about mucus plugs and placentas and cervical thinning, Rye and Peeta were so ready to leave. "Peet?" Nikki called after him as he was making his escape. "If you want Katniss here tomorrow night for this talk, tell her she's welcome."
"What about me?" Rye asked, winking at Nikki. "Don't I get to bring a girl?"
"You ain't got a girl, mister."
"If I get one between now and tomorrow, I'm bringing her," he called out and he and Peeta left. "You know," he said to Peeta, "if there's one thing I like about Bannock, it's his wife."
Rehearsal went pretty well. Madge, Prim and Katniss showed up not long after he and Rye did. Rye wasted no time getting started, having Katniss work on the songs even before the rest of the band arrived. By the end of the evening, they had another half-dozen songs ready for performance.
Peeta walked Prim and Katniss home. Prim did most of the talking. She'd heard about Nikki's twins from Rye, and was desperately hoping she'd be able to assist her mother with the birth.
When they arrived at the Everdeens, the downstairs lamps were lit and Mrs. Everdeen was sitting on the porch, sipping tea. "Good, you're here. Peeta, come on in. I want to check your back."
This idea did not exactly thrill Peeta, but he walked in anyway. Katniss mouthed the word sorry behind her mother's back. Mrs. Everdeen made him take off his shirt (he caught Katniss checking out his chest), then she started poking him. His back was much better than it had been when he'd left the Everdeens, but the healer somehow managed to find every single spot that still ached.
"Did you finish the yarrow tea I sent home with you?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Any more blood in your urine?"
"No, ma'am."
"How are things working out at your brother's house?"
"Things are good."
When Mrs. Everdeen was finished, she handed him his shirt and told him he was healing up as expected and reminded him of his restrictions. "Peeta," Mrs. Everdeen continued, "I'm glad to hear that things are going well for you at your brother's house, but that may change once the twins arrive. You won't be getting a lot of sleep. Bannock and Nikki are going to be incredibly tired and stressed. Tempers may flare. Just, promise me that, no matter how bad things get, you won't move back in with your mother."
"I promise," he assured her. "And I need to discuss something with you and Katniss." He told about the three Mellark boys talking to Farl the following night. "Nikki invited Katniss to come lend moral support, if that's OK with you."
Rosemary frowned at her oldest daughter. "If I allow this, you have to respect what it means for you to be there. You're there to support Peeta, not engage Mr. Mellark in an argument, understand?"
"Yes. And I will, Mom."
Mrs. Everdeen patted her hand. "Good. It's bedtime, so everybody say goodnight."
Prim said goodnight to Peeta, and, of course, gave him a hug. He was a little surprised, though, when Mrs. Everdeen made a point of hugging him, too. "If anything goes wrong, you come here, OK?" she said seriously, looking him in the eye. Then she looked at Katniss. "Fifteen minutes, no more."
Katniss and Peeta walked outside and sat on her porch steps. They held hands and leaned against each other. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Katniss said, "I wanted to thank you."
Peeta thought about what, if anything, he'd done that deserved thanks, and came up empty. "What for?"
"For, um...being so patient with me. After last night. And in the woods."
It was only the embarrassed expression on her face that clued him in. She's thanking me for not grinding my erection into her every chance I get? "Katniss, you don't have to thank me for behaving myself. Look. I waited over ten years to talk to you. If we spend another ten just holding hands, I'm happy, OK?"
"OK." She chewed her bottom lip, looked up at the night sky, then down at her shoes, and basically fidgeted. Something was bothering her.
"What is it?" Peeta asked softly. She put her head on his shoulder, and he put his arm around her, so they could speak very quietly and still hear each other.
"I've never wanted a boyfriend," she began and his heart began to sink. "Not with anyone. Not ever." He knew this. That first morning in the woods, she'd explicitly told him—she was never getting married, never having kids. He had hoped that, if he were patient enough, she'd change her mind. She took a breath, about to speak, and he prepared for what he knew was about to be the biggest heartbreak he would ever face.
"And now, all of a sudden," her voice was equal parts disbelief and wonder, "I'm your girl."
Peeta exhaled the breath he'd been holding, but didn't feel any relief. He couldn't tell from her voice if she thought this was a good thing or a bad thing. "You are?"
"Well," there was a hint of a smile on her face, like it was slipping in there without her really knowing about it, " that's what I hear. From the Mayor's daughter, no less, so it's pretty reliable information."
He squeezed her closer and closed his eyes. "Do you want to be my girl?"
"Hmm. I don't know," she twisted around so he was basically cradling her head and shoulders in his lap as she looked up at him. Now she had a real smile. "What does being your girl involve, exactly?"
"A lot of trouble for you, most likely," he kissed her forehead and brushed a stray lock of hair off her face.
"Madge and Prim said people are talking about us," she whispered, the smile from her face vanishing.
"Does that bother you?" As if he needed to ask.
"Yes! This," she indicated the two of them, "is important, and they're just...they don't..." She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together in frustration.
He took her hand and kissed it.
"You want to protect this, and they're invading our privacy," he guessed.
She breathed a sigh of relief at his understanding. "Yes."
Peeta studied the freckles on her nose. "We're breaking a lot of rules, here, Katniss. We can't stop the gossip. Your parents got married over twenty years ago, and people still talk about it. The only alternative is to not see each other anymore."
He grinned at the scowl that idea put on her face. There she is, he thought. "And they don't get to win," he let go of her hand so he could touch her face, repeating her words from the woods. "I won't allow it." he kissed her nose. "And neither will you." He kissed her gently on the mouth.
He pulled back and looked at her. Her silver eyes were full of emotion. "Well, then," she whispered, "I guess I'm your girl."
Peeta let out a bark of happy laughter, then leaned down. "What was that?" He pretended to be heard of hearing. "I didn't quite catch that, could you repeat it?"
Katniss's scowl was fighting with a smile. She untangled herself, stood up and held her hand out to him to get him to stand up, too. "What I said was, your 15 minutes are up."
"Oh my god," he protested, "you're cruel. You know that, don't you?"
"I know," she said sweetly. Her eyes sparkled at him as he pulled her into a hug.
"Will I see you tomorrow?" he asked.
"Yes." He leaned down and kissed her. It was soft and sweet and he could swear he felt her heart beating just for him. He walked home feeling lighter than air. Katniss Everdeen's eyes were sparkly again, and she was his girl.