One-Shot: The Cycle is Repeated and Broken

by WizMonCruWil

I wanted to write a story in which Katniss and Peeta essentially become their parents. History repeats itself: Katniss marries her first love young, and then she loses him. Another man who pines for her carries a torch for her from afar. When Katniss's daughter and Peeta's son are Reaped together for the 99th Hunger Games, will the spell of grief of be broken? Can Katniss love agai

One-Shot: The Cycle is Repeated… and Broken

Katniss Everdeen experiences her first kiss the morning of her final Reaping, two months after she turns 18.

She and her hunting partner and best friend, Gale Hawthorne, are just walking back across the Meadow from a hunt with their contraband. At the fence, Katniss is prattling on about how they'll divvy up the game when Gale suddenly cuts her off mid-sentence by taking her face in her hands and kissing her on the mouth deeply.

She is completely unprepared. But after a few moments standing rigid in his embrace, Katniss feels herself ease into the kiss, her mouth turning into his as she tentatively kisses him back. She would have thought that, in all the years she has known the man, she would have had cause to wonder about his lips. How they would taste (divine). Or how his hands, which she has seen set the most intricate of snares, could so easily entrap her in a manner that is intimate, rather than intricate.

When they finally break apart with a reluctant POP!, Gale smiles and even tries to laugh it off. "I had to do that…. at least once." He smirks. "You'll need the luck anyway, Catnip."

Katniss smirks at him in skeptical bemusement. She doesn't buy his story that he made out with her on no warning to give her a Reaping Kiss – not for a minute – and she tells him so. "Boy, you're a horrible liar. Ain't your mama ever taught you to ask a girl before kissing her?" Secretly, she is pleased, as the knowledge of what has just passed between them hits her: He kissed me. Gale kissed me!

Gale smirks. "Sure enough. But I ain't so sure if this one girl would have let me kiss her if I'd asked."

Katniss snorts and rolls her eyes. She knows he's talking about her. "So you thought you'd up and plant one on me out of the blue instead of asking me all sweet-like."

Gale nods, the smile still tugging at his equally very-kissed lips, but the piercing quality of his gray eyes betrays to Katniss that he's scared. "A Reaping Kiss is a Reaping Kiss, honey. How many slips you got in the bowl this year?"

"42," Katniss shrugs. "Guess the odds aren't exactly in my favor." Gale had the same odds when he aged out of the Reaping two summers ago.

"See what I mean? It's only natural I'd kiss ya – and about damn time too!"

Katniss smirks bemusedly again. "You've never believed in all that Capitol hocus-pocus." Though in truth, the Reaping Kiss is a superstition with Twelve origins, the best that anyone can figure it. Legend has it that if you and a partner share a kiss on or before Reaping Morning, you're both guaranteed not to be picked. Katniss has already sailed through half a dozen Reapings just fine without locking lips with some fella – although she has no reason to believe the Kiss doesn't work.

A thought strikes her. "And hang on just a minute, Gale Hawthorne – if you ain't eligible for Reaping any longer, how do you know that kiss of yours did its work? Don'tcha both have to be of Reaping age for a Reaping Kiss – Mmmm….."

Gale cuts her off with another deep, dizzying kiss on the lips again. When they break the kiss, Katniss sways a little on the balls of her feet, dazed.

"Yeah…." She mumbles. "That'll work…."

Gale laughs, shouldering the deer carcass across his strong back. "Hurry on home to Prim and your mama. Wear something pretty." He winks at her.

Katniss smiles and shakes her head. She's worn the same faded blue frock to every single one of her Reapings for the past six years, and he knows it. Still, she doesn't leave the Meadow right away, letting Gale go on ahead of her – just in case there be Peacekeepers watching. She takes a seat on the boulder – their favorite meeting spot – and runs her tongue over her tingling mouth as she tries to decide how she felt about the kiss, whether she liked it or resented it.

Her kiss-swollen lips eventually curl into a beaming grin.

Liked. Definitely liked.

---

The Reaping Kiss must have worked its magic, for Katniss is not picked as tribute for the 76th Annual Hunger Games. As the 18-year-olds cheer and many embrace, with more than a few boys kneeling before their sweethearts with rings and proposals as is custom, Katniss searches the crowd for her mother and sister.

The top of Prim's head nearly comes up to her sister's breasts now, as the blonde, pigtailed girl throws her arms around Katniss's middle. The youngest Everdeen daughter is 14 and now with three Reapings safely under her belt. Only…. four more to go…. Katniss blanches at the thought.

The Everdeen women host their good friends and neighbors the Hawthornes over at the family homestead that night to celebrate Katniss's release from the Reaping.

Katniss and Gale keep stealing shy glances and smiles with each other. The pair eventually slip out and go for a long moonlit walk to the Hob, where they order a bowl of rabbit stew from Greasy Sae.

Gale is uncharacteristically nervous as he picks at his bowl. "I think this hare's the same one we caught this morning," he declares.

Katniss grins weakly and bows her head in her lap, feeling quite shy.

It's late when he walks her home and leaves her off at her porch. "Least now, I can say I took you on a proper date."

Katniss tilts her head and smiles. "Is that what this was?"

Gale blinks, thrown. "Well…. I figured…"

This time, it is Katniss who cuts him off, throwing back her head with a laugh before stepping in and softly pressing her lips to his. When she draws away, Gale appears thunderstruck.

He wants to say I love you. Katniss can see it in his eyes, but he doesn't say it, and she appreciates how it's just as well that he doesn't. She beams thoughtfully. They have time.

---

Gale and Katniss go on a few more dates after that, reveling in the thrilling intimacy of friendship turning into something more.

All throughout the district, Town and the Seam alike, there are Toastings – their homeland's marriage custom – being planned and consummated amidst their peers.

"Heard tell the Baker man's son is getting hitched," Gale throws out conversationally as he and Katniss stroll back from a hunt one morning in mid-summer.

Katniss jerks, so startled she nearly drops her… her boyfriend's hand (in any other context, her face would break out into an idiotic grin thinking of Gale in such a way). "R-really? To who?"

Gale gives her a funny look. "You all right, baby? You look as though a bear's caught you dead to rights!"

Katniss ducks her head, flushing, as she runs her fingers through the braid in her hair – a nervous habit. "Yeah. Just…. which of the Baker's sons? The lazy ass from your year who clerks in the Justice Building?"

"No, not Rye!" And Gale shudders at the thought of that lay-about marrying. "The other one. The youngest. Peeta."

Hearing the name, Katniss feels like she gets tunnel vision, and her hearing has abandoned her. Peeta Mellark! Oh, no. Not him, she thinks.

She honestly doesn't know why she should be feeling this way, and about a total stranger. Well…. not total. She and Peeta Mellark were classmates in school, though they never spoke at all. Their only real interaction, outside of bread trades on the back loading dock of his family's bakery, was once, and it was years ago. She was 11, nearly 12 and starving. It was just after her daddy, and Gale's daddy, had died in that mine collapse. Prim's baby clothes weren't selling. Then a boy with ashy blonde hair and eyes as blue as a summer sky tossed some bread to her in a driving rain. That bread saved her family's life… and Katniss has been in Peeta Mellark's debt ever since. She's never even thanked him, to her shame.

"Catnip…? Katniss!"

"Hmm?" Katniss hums, blinking out of her reverie.

"…. I said, it's a nice time for a Toasting…."

Katniss blinks at him in utter shock. "Gale Hawthorne, if that's your way of….. proposing to me, I'll… I'll…" She's spluttering, red-faced and speechless.

"I don't have a ring," Gale tells her. Katniss blinks at him dumbly. "Not quite yet, but I've been saving up."

She stares at him, slack-jawed. "Gale, I…. I love you…." And she does. Oh, how she does! It frightens her how she's fallen in love so fast. "…. But I'm not ready to get married!"

"Why not?" Gale asks. He keeps his voice calm and steady, slipping his hands in his pockets and watching her expectantly.

Haltingly, Katniss explains. And much to her pleasure, Gale listens. That he's willing to hear her side of it, considering that her lover can be a bit of a hothead, impresses her.

"I don't want to end up like my mother, waiting on a husband who might never come home. Or worse, left alone with young'ins to feed. Think of how it was, with your mother!" When Clay Hawthorne died, he left a widow with three little ones and a fourth on the way; Hazelle's stomach had been out to her feet.

Gale nods thoughtfully. "…. It won't be like that for us, Catnip."

Katniss chuckles dryly, shaking her head. "Babe, you can't promise that…."

"Maybe not," he concedes. "But I can promise you a lifetime of love." And with that, he gets down on one knee. Katniss draws a hand to her mouth to hold in her gasp. "Marry me, Katniss."

She appraises him, bemused and a little skeptical. Finally, even though he doesn't have a ring yet, Katniss takes his hand and helps him to his feet. She takes pity on the confused look on his face by swaying into Gale and kissing him softly.

"…. Yes…." She whispers into his mouth. "On one condition: if we get married, you can't ever tell me what to do!" Her voice is a fierce whisper.

Gale smirks against her lips. "Wasn't gonna neither. Couldn't, even if I wanted to."

Katniss smiles. "And we won't have children."

"Well, now that's two conditions," Gale chuckles.

"Do you agree to them, Mr. Hawthorne?" Katniss ripostes wittily, though she searches his face anxiously. She's delivered the terms for this potential marriage; will he accept them?

She knows Gale well enough to know that the no-children stipulation is a heavy lift, but he purses his lips and nods at last. Perhaps he thinks once they've wed, he can change her mind. Katniss decides that he can try, but they both know she's stubborn.

"All right…."

Katniss beams, exhilarated. "OK, then. We'd best tell our mamas. Snow knows they've been waiting forever and a day to see us get hitched!"

---

It's a whirlwind engagement. Katniss and Gale set a Toasting date for the end of the summer. Their mothers are beside themselves; Prim and Gale's little sister Posy in particular are ecstatic at the thought of a wedding and being in-laws by marriage.

As they plan their own nuptials, Katniss is surprised by the delivery of an invitation to another Toasting in the mail. The honor of her presence is requested at the wedding of Peeta Mellark to Delly Cartwright.

Katniss knows Delly Cartwright from school. She's the daughter of the shoe cobbler, who incidentally is always in high demand to play his fiddle during Toasting season.

Reading over her shoulder, Gale tssks, appearing a little taken aback. "A Townie wedding?"

Katniss sends him a chiding look. Gale has developed the prejudices against Merchant folk that have plagued many a Seam man, to the point that he seems to forget that he is about to take a woman with some Townie blood as his bride. Katniss and Prim are half-Merchant, descended on their mother's side. "They get married the same way that we do."

"You're not actually gonna go, are you?" Gale stares at her.

Katniss shrugs. "Why not? It was right sweet of him to ask..."

Gale chews on his bottom lip. "Maybe. But Catnip, you realize you'd probably be the only Seamer there?"

"Wouldn't neither," Katniss scrunches up her face, bemused. "I'll have my fiancé with me!" and she squeezes his bicep while staring up at her husband-to-be lovingly.

Gale merely taps on the calligraphy-inscribed envelope with emphasis. "It's only your name on the invitation, Catnip." And he leaves her with that thought.

Years later, Katniss will regret that her future husband managed to talk her out of attending her classmates' wedding, resulting in her sending her regrets with the explanation that she is planning her own wedding. Delly is one of the brightest lights in a district that is perpetually dank and dreary, and Peeta... well, witnessing him get married would have been a way to make good the debt she has long owed him.

The future Mrs. Hawthorne will feel her regret at not being there for Peeta all the worse come her own wedding day.

She and Gale marry in the dying days of summer. They first wed in a civil ceremony, signing their marriage license before the District Justice of the Peace, so they may be recognized as married in the eyes of the district law. Katniss wears her mother's wedding dress for the occasion - the practice actually stems from a Merchant tradition, since in Town, a woman's wedding dress is seen as a rite of passage, handed down from mother to daughter. Someday, Prim shall wear the garment.

With their families and a few of Gale's colleagues on the digging crew standing in as witnesses, Katniss and Gale embrace and kiss upon the Justice of the Peace declaring them man and wife. Tears of happiness prick in Katniss's grey orbs as she and Gale deepen their wedding kiss to applause and cheers. Standing before their guests, the new Mrs. Hawthorne tries to ignore the fact that the only guest here on her behalf who's not related to her (now by marriage as well as blood) is Madge Undersee, the Mayor's daughter. She had considered surreptitiously sending an invite to the newlywed Mellarks, but thought it might be awkward after declining to attend their happy day. Awkward further still it would have been if she had invited Peeta and Delly, they had shown up and her now-husband would have wondered what they were doing there.

Katniss Hawthorne puts these thoughts out of her mind as she and Gale burst out onto the steps of the Justice Building, lawfully wedded, with their loved ones and well wishers at their backs.

The policy upon two people getting married in District 12 is that they are then assigned new housing by the government. Taking Katniss by her hips, Gale lifts her onto the back of a rented cart, which he pulls to their new homestead in the Seam.

Immediately upon arrival, the men set about preparing the hearth, while the women sequester Katniss upstairs to change her out of her bridal gown. Letting Prim and Posy pull her blue Reaping frock over her lithe frame, Katniss finds herself shaking with delight and excitement.

She may be a lawfully wedded wife, with a husband, as the District and the Capitol understand it... but it is the Toasting that counts. What will truly seal her and Gale's union.

With poise, the bride descends the stair. There is a roaring fire going, Gale standing before it in his father's old suit and looking solemn. Approaching her intended, standing opposite him, Katniss copies him as they each take a bit of bread and hold it over the flames, using pokers.

As she watches the crust turn golden brown, Katniss finds herself vaguely wondering if this is how the Baker's son bakes bread. Then she and Gale are each breaking off a piece and feeding each other.

Now, with the firelight dancing in her grey eyes, Katniss solemnly tilts her head and, with lips slightly parted, permits her husband to kiss her once more. As she wraps Gale in her arms, Katniss Hawthorne (neé Everdeen) tosses aside her bridal bouquet of dandelions, primroses and pine needles. Prim and Posy catch and playfully fight over the flowers; the pine needles scatter upon the floor.

Mr. Cartwright is on hand to play his fiddle, and the Hawthornes dance the reel at their wedding. Katniss doesn't think anything can damper her happiness, at least until she hears a commotion by the front door.

Rory and Vick, her young brothers-in-law, now come in, grappling with what appears to be a cake box. Her blushing-bride cheeks uncertain whether to flush further or blanche, Katniss dashes over to them. She recognizes the insignia on the box itself.

More tellingly, she recognizes whose hand had to have decorated the frosting on the immaculate wedding cake. Katniss recalls sometimes walking home with Prim from school, only to have her baby sister tug at her skirts and beckon her over to the bakery window to oooh and ahhh over the cakes. Sometimes, they would catch a certain someone placing the confectionaries in the window or at work on one with the icing pipe.

A spasm of guilt and debt courses through Katniss, gazing down at this wedding cake - this present - that Peeta Mellark baked for her... and at no charge! There's a receipt taped to the box's side, declaring the dessert delight to cost the newlyweds nothing.

From his frown, Katniss can tell that Gale isn't pleased to be in the bakery's debt, even over what was clearly meant by the Merchant family to be a wedding present. His bride merely smiles weakly, reaching up to kiss him softly as she gushes how it's just a wonderful surprise! Katniss hates herself for sounding like Effie Trinket, their district's Hunger Games escort, when she says this.

That night, husband and wife retire to bed. When Gale reaches out and finds her in the darkness, Katniss is nervous, all the more so since she only has a vague idea what is about to happen. But she's also incredibly curious, and lust is what compels her to roll onto her back and spread her legs for her husband.

Gale mounts her and takes her.

They have sex.

The next morning, the Hawthornes slip the fence and honeymoon at the cabin by the lake where Katniss's own parents once celebrated their love after their Toasting. Katniss and Gale hunt game, they skinny-dip, and make love in the shallows and the dirt until they both pass out.

---

Seven years pass.

When the baby makes its presence known in her mother's womb, she isn't planned. It's a surprise, and to Katniss's mind, not so nearly as "wonderful" as receiving her Toasting cake gratis.

She considers having an abortion - there are ways for a woman to deal with such matters, and as Healers, Mother and Prim know all the remedies. But the absolute joy on Gale's face when she finally tells him she is carrying his baby, the giddy glee in Prim's voice as she boasts of how she is going to be an aunt, her mother and Gale's mother sewing knit wool caps and booties for the baby makes Katniss take pause.

She's never wanted children, and has always thought Gale foolish for wanting any, what with the Reaping hanging over their heads. They were lucky to see all their siblings sail through seven summer suns in the Square, from Prim and Rory on down to little Posy.

But she feels the pressure from all sides. Their mamas have fantasized about having shared grandchildren, and now that she is engaged to Rory Hawthorne, Prim is prattling on and on about how any kids of hers and her sister's would be double first cousins! Or something.

So... Katniss goes through with her pregnancy. Days after she turns 25, she gives birth to her and Gale's daughter, whom they name Juniper. Gale shows off their little girl to anyone who will listen, and even takes out a birth announcement in the district local paper - a rag that does little more than parrot Capitol propaganda and list mining quotas. But it is through said rag that Katniss learns, while breastfeeding her baby, that the new Baker and his wife have recently become parents themselves - to a boy. Kern or some-such name.

Four years later, Katniss has another daughter, whom she names Chrysanthemum - Chrissy, for short. Prim thinks it's serendipitous, that her nieces have the same age gap as she and Katniss did when they were growing up.

Gale provides for his family well down in the mines. Every evening, he returns home exhausted, yet always with a treat for his girls and a kiss for his wife.

... Until one night, he doesn't.

---

It happens the same month as the mining collapse that claimed the lives of their fathers. A bitterly cold morning in late January.

The explosion is strong enough to shake the Hawthorne homestead on its foundations, and at first Katniss thinks it may have been an earthquake. At least, that's what she tells herself. But then she spots the smoke from where she is doing dishes at the meager picture window and she runs for Abernathy mine, the district's largest mineral deposit and named for their most recent Victor, her heart in her stomach and her mouth seemingly all at once.

It can't be... Katniss is only in her mid-thirties, not much younger than her own mother was when she was widowed. Her girls are school-aged, 11 and 7, respectively - it would be a sick joke that Juniper and Chrissy would be the exact same age their mom and aunt were when... when they lost... their dad...

Katniss waits with baited breath as the mining elevators scream up and disgorge both smoke and shell-shocked miners before plunging with a screech back into the depths of the earth again. It is a small relief to spot her sister's husband amidst the survivors. Rory is clutching at Prim, while barking at the Miner Foreman and gesticulating anxiously, waiting on word regarding his big brother.

Eventually, however, the lifts stop coming. Katniss and a small handful of wives are eventually approached by the Foreman and told, I'm so terribly sorry, but...

Katniss sinks to her knees with a wail, tears streaming down her face. Her worst nightmare, the one fear that had made her reticent to even accept Gale's hand in marriage in the first place, and it has come to pass.

On her knees is where Juniper and Chrissy find her. Her girls have to help their mother back to the house.

Katniss goes to sleep inconsolable, lying on her side of her and Gale's bed and crying all night.

She doesn't move at all for nearly two weeks. Prim and the girls have to force her out of bed and into the washtub to make her reasonably presentable for the medal ceremony at the mines.

For the second time in her life, Katniss accepts a medal for heroism on behalf of her family, this time for her deceased husband instead of her father. A kindly Peacekeeper with chiseled features, long red hair and an understanding smile drapes the medal around Katniss's neck.

When they arrive home, Katniss lethargically allows her daughters to strip her of her black clothes of mourning before she goes right back to bed. She is still in bed when she hears of her mother-in-law's passing, dead of a broken heart. By the end of the winter, her own mother has also passed on from whooping cough, the house is a mess and Juniper Hawthorne, at not quite 12 years of age, is the head of the household. One evening, Katniss spots her eldest slip back into the house with her grandfather's hunting jacket across her shoulders. The widow Hawthorne tries to recall the last time she went hunting.

... She can't remember.

---

Four Years Later

Chrissy is calling for her to get up and out of bed. For a moment, Katniss considers being obstinate and feigning sleep, but her youngest girl flounces in and sends her a lifted eyebrow that leaves no room for argument.

"You just have time to wash... Juni should be back from the fence any moment now, and she said she couldn't get you a medical waiver."

Katniss trudges for the washtub. She is silent and still, staring straight ahead, as Chrissy scrubs her skin baby-pink clean. Ever since losing her husband, she has managed to get out of Mandatory Attendance in the Square for the Reaping as often as not. But you have to get a medical waiver to miss out on this, one of Twelve's few holidays besides the Harvest Festival. She's pretty sure that her eldest daughter's failure to obtain a Peacekeeper's signature means the Justice Building is beginning to tire of Katniss's citation of bereavement as an excuse for her inability to be a patriotic Panemian citizen.

By the time Katniss is washed and has let Chrissy dress her, Juniper is back, gushing over her baby sister's Reaping frock - a hand-me-down, but soaked and laundered to look like new.

"Better tuck in that tail, Silly Goose..."

"I laid something out for you too..." Katniss's voice is a raspy croak from severe lack of use. She has to hold back a cough that rears up from what no doubt is the strain on her vocal cords from vocalizing half a dozen words. She says this, even though all three women know full well that it was Chrissy who laid out her sister's dress.

Juniper doesn't even turn her head. "... OK..." She directs this to Chrissy, smiling weakly.

Juniper washes. Chrissy helps her into her Reaping frock - not the blue one of their mother's, which Katniss now wears. Katniss manages to find the strength to pin up her baby's hair, inspecting Juniper in the mirror.

"Now you look as pretty as your sister..."

"She's prettier than me," Chrissy grumbles from the love seat, trying to sound envious and doing a pretty good job.

"No one's as pretty as you, Silly Goose..."Juniper chitters, joining her sister on the settee. "Say, wanna see what Aunt Prim gave me...?" She holds out a grimy, golden pendant. From across the room, Katniss sees it, and her mouth drops open in a pained grimace. She bought that same mockingjay pin for a song in the Hob when Prim was Chrissy's age.

"It's for luck," Juniper explains. "So that you won't be picked."

"The Reaping Kiss is for luck!" Chrissy chitters, moon-eyed.

Juniper makes a face that is identical to one Katniss herself might have worn, once upon a time. "The Reaping Kiss is bullshit."

"Language," Katniss admonishes, but it's half-hearted. She can't be even that wounded when Juniper ignores her completely.

The women are interrupted by a knock at the door. "That'll be the welfare check," Juniper rises and bustles to the door.

She opens it to find a handsome man in a Peacekeeper's uniform, helmet framing a chiseled face and long flowing auburn hair. "Miss Hawthorne," he tips the cap to Juniper, glancing up and watching as Chrissy leads Katniss into the foyer. "And here is the lovely Mrs. Hawthorne." Katniss has to work hard not to flinch at the sound of her married name.

Officer Darius Freeman is what might be called "your friendly neighborhood Peacekeeper," if such a concept exists in despotic District 12 and Panem in general. Katniss figures he has to have been deployed here since before the girls were born. Maybe even before she was married. Reaching back into the fuzzy recesses of her memory, she could swear she knew a Darius in the Hob, who would flirt with her while she and Gale traded game.

"She's ready, Officer," Chrissy reports.

So it's to be an escort, then. Wouldn't want to lose a member of the district citizenry on Reaping Day. But Darius is pleasant and gentlemanly as he offers the widow Hawthorne his arm. "Madam? May I have the pleasure?"

Katniss takes his arm and the group set off down the dusty path that will eventually give way to the cobblestoned streets of Town, then the Square beyond. Darius is amiable, answering all of the girls' questions - well, really, all of Chrissy's questions.

"Did you really know my mom and dad when they were teenagers? I didn't think Peacekeeper deployments were that long..."

"Sure as I'm standing here! We have to give at least twenty years of service to the nation; I... enlisted when I was 18, then got shipped here."

As they approach the Square, Katniss happens to glance over to the Bakery. Inside, she can see her old classmate, the Baker, straightening the shirt collar of his young son. He is probably the same age as her Juniper, she thinks.

His piercing blue eyes happen to glance through the pane and their eyes meet. Katniss purses her lips and turns her face away. She is briefly tempted to give Peeta a lame wave, but she hasn't the energy.

Katniss nervously watches as her girls register with the Peacekeepers, who take small blood samples. She remembers doing this when she was a girl. She remembers consoling Prim during her very first year of eligibility the same way that Juniper is consoling Chrissy now.

Katniss goes off to the side of the roped pens to stand with some of the other parents. Darius sweetly hovers, clearly concerned for her health, considering she has needed a medical waiver in the past. He offers her a sun parasol to guard against the heat; she shyly declines by way of a shake of her head. He offers her a drink, and Katniss is amused to think that in another context, he might be bold enough to offer to buy her a drink, rather than just bring her one.

The clock strikes the appointed hour, and Mayor Undersee, looking quite aged, reads the names of the past District 12 Victors. In nearly a century, District 12 has only had exactly two, and only one triumphing in nearly half that time: Haymitch Abernathy is in his mid-sixties, though appears much older thanks to the decades of substance abuse to which he's subjected himself.

Effie Trinket now takes the podium. "Welcome! ... Welcome! The time has come to select one young man and woman for the honor of representing District 12 in the 99th Annual Hunger Games. Ladies first!"

Katniss barely has time to steel herself before Effie is crossing to the first Reaping bowl and drawing a name. The escort almost doesn't cross all the way back to the microphone before she is announcing for the whole Square to hear:

"Chrysanthemum Everdeen!"

---

Katniss loses all sense of hearing. Her eyes are adjusting to the reality spooling out in front of her, almost in slow motion. She can see certain lips moving, even Darius's as she at one point turns her head in a vague daze and just registers him mouthing her name with concern. He's often done that on his many welfare checks to the house, while making his rounds on patrol.

In a haze, Katniss observes her baby step into the aisle created by the boys and girls of District 12 and begin to shakily walk to her fate. As her worst fear comes to life, the young widow and mother feels the urge to scream, but no sound comes out.

The scream, though she does not hear, actually emanates from Juniper. At least that is what Katniss can make out as her eldest girl steps out of her place in line, her lips moving and forming her little sister's name anguishedly.

Katniss watches Juniper's mouth silently form the words, words almost as bad as the ones Effie Trinket just blasted into being:

"I volunteer! I VOLUNTEER! I volunteer as tribute!"

Up on stage, Effie Trinket looks simply delighted by this development, and beckons Juniper, in place of Chrissy, up onto the stage. Juniper looks shell-shocked, if also resolute. The new tribute and the escort seem to have a stilted, almost one-way conversation that Katniss still can't make out, because her hearing has yet to return.

When it finally does, it's only just in time to hear Effie announcing the name of the boy:

"Kern Mellark!"

Katniss sways dangerously, then goes over. She swoons into a dead faint. She only senses how strong arms (certainly Darius's) catch her before everything goes black.

---

"... Mrs. Hawthorne?... Mrs. Hawthorne...? - Katniss...!"

Katniss stirs, humming prettily. Darius's handsome face is swimming in front of her before it comes into focus.

"It's all right, ma'am. You're in the Justice Building, out of the heat." Trust Darius to spare her dignity by explaining away her keeling over in a dead faint as the result of heatstroke, and not after just watching one baby, and then the other, get picked for a fight to the death.

"Quick: how many fingers am I holding up?"

"Six...?" Katniss slurs.

"Close enough." Darius gentlemanly helps Katniss to her feet. There is a door, closed, in front of them, which he kindly gestures to. "Your girls are in there. When you're ready, I'll let you join them. I've held the line so you and them can have your moment alone." He peers at her with sweet concern. "The boy... you know him, don't you?"

Katniss rubs at the top of her head, groaning. "His... his father was a classmate when we were in school. He's... he's my daughter's age."

From the way Darius is staring at her, he is clearly amazed to realize that these are the most words he has ever heard Katniss utter in one sitting, and they both know it. He gallantly ushers her into the holding room so she can say goodbye to her daughter.

Juniper is just rising up out of a crouch from where she's been down on her knees hugging a tearful Chrissy. The golden mockingjay she had gifted Chrissy earlier is now affixed to the bodice of her own dress.

Juniper's expression now brokers no room for argument once it lands on her mother. "You can't check out again."

Katniss shuffles awkwardly. "I won't. I... I was ill..." In many ways, she still is, and both she and her daughter know it. Which is likely what behooves Juniper to press for more than just 'I know.'

"No. You can't. Not like when Dad died."

Mother and daughter hug goodbye awkwardly. Then Katniss does her best to usher Chrissy out. Darius insists on walking them both home. On the way out onto the steps of the Justice Building, Katniss spots a well-built man hunched over on the marble stairs, all alone.

Biting her lip, she motions for Chrissy and Darius to wait as she approaches the downtrodden Baker. There is a weight to Peeta's shoulders that reminds Katniss painfully of his late father, and her heart goes out to him. He must have just finished saying goodbye to his son.

Gently, she lays a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry..." she murmurs.

Peeta only has time to lift his head in shock and realize it's her before Katniss is wincing and moving away from him like a skittish deer. She bustles flusteredly over to Darius and Chrissy, and the kindly Peacekeeper walks them home.

"I'll be over in the morning to collect you and the girl for Mandatory Viewing. As next of kin of one of the tributes, you'll receive VIP seating in the Square, along with Mr. and Mrs. Mellark."

Excellent. Now not only will she have prime seating to watch her daughter fight to the death, but she'll do it next to a man she's always had a complicated history with as he watches his son fight to the death also. As Katniss turns to hurry inside, Darius catches her arm.

"Katniss! ... She's going to be alright."

Katniss nods wordlessly, tonelessly, even as she doesn't believe his assurances. 24 go into that arena. Only one comes out. Still, she gratefully touches Darius's cheek with her palm before hurrying inside. She doesn't manage to hold in a sob before the door slams.

---

Darius is there to collect them promptly at the appointed time early the next morning. He is tactful enough to not say anything as he escorts Katniss to the Square on his arm. Katniss keeps her head bowed and her lips pursed silently.

Even as she watches her feet take a funeral march path to the Square, the widow Hawthorne can feel the gawking stares of her neighbors. It's a common enough phenomenon, for folks in Seam and Town to send pitying stares to the parents of the unlucky children who were picked, even while exulting that the 'unlucky children' weren't theirs. Katniss feels it all the worse, knowing how people see her, ever since her husband's death - the poor madwoman who lost her husband in the mine, the eldest daughter of the late Seam healer. Houseridden, depressed, practically mute, while leaving two daughters to fend for themselves.

Perhaps they're thinking she is viewing her daughter's conscription in the Games as having one less mouth to abandon. Never! Besides, Juniper made it clear that once she is gone (the scenario of her not coming home, even with all her inherited skill with a bow, is much more likely), Katniss could not check out. A mother will be all Chrissy has.

The VIP seating for the families of the tributes is set on a raised platform, high above the rest of the crowd. At the base of the steps, Darius dutifully holds out his hand. Katniss blushes, but she takes it, and just once attempts to keep her head held high as she mounts the stairs.

Coming over the crest of the final step, the Seam widow's grey eyes lock on those of the Baker. Her old classmate. Peeta.

He is seated with his wife, Delly, who looks more aged and careworn than Katniss has ever remembered her once-girlfriend to be. The years have been kinder to Peeta, physically speaking. He is still lean and strong, with a chest built like a tank and Katniss fights not to blatantly stare. While she can appreciate men with muscles, and has her urges as a woman, even in middle age, she has never shown the slightest interest in pursuing a man after her husband and his untimely demise.

She can feel Chrissy at her back, peering around her and observing the exchange. The frozen way in which her mother and the Baker regard each other. Even though he is seated next to his wife, Peeta nevertheless stands up and gestures chivalrously, offering Katniss his seat. Katniss shakes her head with her lips still pursed in a thin line that she hopes is an expression of thanks.

Her gaze makes a sweep of the rest of the platform. There are no other children or next of kin here on behalf of the Mellarks that she can see. Her heart breaks for Peeta further to think that he is watching his only child being sent in to die. As Katniss and Chrissy take their seats, as Katniss averts her gaze away from Peeta in the direction of Darius, who has stationed himself at the base of the platform, she decides that, if Juniper can't win, she would want Peeta's son too. Otherwise, who would take over the Bakery once Peeta and Delly retire? As the youngest of three boys himself, Peeta was lucky to be bequeathed the Bakery in the first place. The only reason it went to him at all was because the eldest brother had married into another prominent Merchant family and the middle son, Rye, hadn't wanted it.

The Mandatory Attendance lasts most of the day. The Reapings are recapped, and the selection of the Careers alone leaves Katniss petrified for her eldest girl. These four, from Districts 1 and 2, will do a great job of culling much of the rest of the field. There seem to be only sparse contenders in the rest of the field, aside from Juniper. Though Kern, Peeta's boy, appears well-built. It surprises Katniss to note how the boy is a mix of his parents, and quite a handsome mix at that. He is built like his dad and has Peeta's nose, but otherwise is more Delly in face, with her luscious red hair that stands out in this district.

Katniss glances at Darius's own fiery, tumbling locks and jerks a little at how she caught him staring at her. She recalls him mentioning to Chrissy yesterday (which already feels like a lifetime ago) how he originally hails from District 4, where gingers are apparently much more common. Perhaps the Cartwright side of Kern's family has District 4 ancestry? A fellow cadet passes by, dealing out lemonade and cracker jacks as if they are at a sporting event (for, in a way, they are), and Darius juggles four sets of each, even huffing all the way up the stairs to deal them out to the Hawthornes and the Mellarks.

"I saw you checking me out," Darius murmurs low to Katniss as he passes her the lemonade and crackers. "Or do I have something in my teeth, Mrs. Hawthorne?"

He speaks quietly enough for Chrissy not to hear, and for some reason, Katniss appreciates this. Turning even further pink, she lamely points at Darius's red, flowing locks, then shifts her eyes surreptitiously towards Delly, before finally pointing to a flash of Kern on the screen and mumbling, "You're from Four."

Darius smiles. "Yes, perhaps the lad is a distant cousin of mine, at that. Excuse me, Mrs. Mellark?" he cranes around Katniss while calling to Delly, much to Katniss's embarrassment. "Pardon me for asking, but you wouldn't happen to have any ancestors out by the coast, would you? District 4 or out that way?"

Delly jumps at being addressed like this, shrugs and mutters something unintelligible. Darius shrugs and glances down to see how Katniss has already finished her crackers.

"I'll get you some more," he promises her. "Meantime, drink up. Crackers can dry you out." Katniss nods and gives him a weak smile of gratitude. Darius nods and dutifully starts to return to his post.

"Sorry about that," Chrissy feels the need to apologize. "Sometimes, I wonder if Mama isn't an Avox."

Darius gives her a funny look, close to admonishing but not quite, even as he glances back to where Katniss clearly heard her. "Oh, I don't know about that, little Chrissy. Sometimes the quietest are the ones who actually have the most to say." And he returns to his post.

Side-eyeing her mother, Chrissy ducks her head in her lap, embarrassed. Katniss, meanwhile, finds her gaze going to where Darius is back just under the platform, a flood of warmth going through her at his kindness.

The tribute parade has started by now, and Katniss feels her heart go into her throat as she watches Juniper and Kern come out on literal fire, appearing as though they are vengeful gods. The Capitol crowd goes wild for them. For the first time, Katniss feels a wellspring of hope. The melancholy that has plagued her for years, along with the cynicism she has harbored ever since she was a young girl, before she was even married, attempts to beat it back. Hope goeth before the fall, same as pride, and it wouldn't do to get her hopes up only to have them dashed.

But then she feels a strong and calloused palm, reach for and clasp her hand. Sucking in a breath, she glances up and holds the compassionate stare coming from eyes as blue as a summer sky.

Peeta squeezes her hand. After a moment, during which their respective children are introduced triumphantly to the nation, Katniss squeezes back.

---

The 99th Games take place over three, grueling weeks. Thrown together in this most tempestuous of proverbial lifeboats, the Hawthornes and Mellarks have little choice but to hang on to each other.

The fact that their children seem to only further tie them together only adds to the stress.

The night of the interviews, Katniss actually feels a pinprick of outrage and protective maternal instinct roar through her - the most emotion she has ever felt in years - when Kern Mellark confesses before the entire country that he has had a raging crush on his district partner for as long as he can remember. Surprised, Katniss finds herself glancing towards Peeta, and is shocked by the way the man is looking down at his shoes, and that's when she realizes: he knew about his son's affections for her daughter! Did he even encourage it himself, perhaps? Katniss is bothered and flummoxed by the thought.

It amuses her to watch how flummoxed her Juniper has become at the revelation. In a way, it reminds Katniss of how she was when Gale first confessed his feelings for her. They're more alike than either of them might care to admit, her first-born and her.

The tributes are launched into the arena. Juniper gets her hands on a backpack, if not a bow, while Kern joins up with the Careers, promising that he can lead them to Juniper. Katniss feels that burn of outrage again, and feels she is further justified in this emotion by noticing how Peeta seems clearly disappointed in his son.

Juniper proceeds through the foresty arena alone, and for the first time, Katniss gets a good look at how her daughter has single-handedly provided for her family all these years. It once again shakens Katniss, to see so much of herself in her daughter. Well... her past self. At least, someone she once knew well.

The Careers, meanwhile, are ruled over by the strong boy from District 1, Ardor, and ruled with an iron fist. He is ruthless and just arrogant enough to eventually believe that he doesn't need the boy from District 12 to help him find the annoying girl who edged him with an 11 in training. On the fourth day, Ardor turns on Kern suddenly while the Careers are camping by a river. The fight is brutal, if also surprisingly even as Kern holds his own, though he is eventually wounded and pushed into the rapids. Remarkably still alive, Kern allows himself to be swept downstream, while managing to tread water and fight the currents just enough to make it to shore.

A weaker tribute would have eventually drowned while attempting to swim in those rapids, but Kern manages to drag himself out of the water and cover himself in camouflage before collapsing from exhaustion.

He's strong, like his dad. For that, Katniss is relieved. She also can't help but be impressed that he managed to swim his way out of there, and all while critically wounded. Hardly anyone in District 12 knows how to swim; she and Prim and her girls are some of the few who do, as there is almost no chance to learn in these parts. Mother and Daddy insisted on teaching their girls how to swim, and Katniss insisted on continuing the practice with her own daughters, much to Gale's mockery. Her husband clearly hadn't thought the skill useful, so just for that, Katniss had made him learn on their honeymoon soon after they were married. She wonders how Kern learned to swim, or who taught him.

She glances at Peeta. ... Does he know about the lake and her daddy's old land? If so, would he have taken his boy there to teach him? Katniss has never known a Townie to brave the woods beyond the fence. If Peeta has ventured out there, she has to commend him for his bravery.

The same night that Kern is wounded, the Gamemakers invoke a Rule Change. Rule Changes are rare, almost unheard of, and this one is tantalizing and clearly was intended to make for great television: two tributes will be allowed to become Victor, provided they are from the same district. From where she has taken shelter in a tree, Juniper's grey eyes - her father's eyes - have grown huge as she absorbs the implication of what this means.

She impulsively calls out Kern's name into the night, then claps a hand over her mouth as if she's just uttered a swear word. Any remaining tribute within hearing distance could come running and find her. Hearing his chuckle, it is obvious Peeta is amused by this; Katniss tries to glare at him, but it comes off half-hearted, and before long, his mirth causes her to crack a smile. How odd. Katniss can't remember the last time she had reason to smile about anything. She is grateful that it is Peeta who got her to smile again.

The next morning, Juniper goes hunting.

She clearly got her tracking skills from her father, finding the river and following it back to its source. Flecks of blood have left a trail, but even then, Juniper only finds Kern because she almost walks right over him.

The source of the river features a cave nearby, and Juniper steadies Kern as he hobbles over to it. Ardor cut him badly along his leg, and his dominant one at that, judging from Kern's limp. The wound is clearly in danger of becoming infected, if it isn't already. Katniss was never the Healer in the family, but she knows that.

When it comes to Healing, Juniper clearly isn't the natural doctor either, but she's observed enough at her Aunt Prim's knee to tourniquet Kern's leg, staunching the flow of blood for the time being.

Kern seems melodramatic when he is languishing at death's door, and is attempting to get Juniper to promise that she'll get home if he can't make it. Juniper, flustered and clearly afraid, is having none of it, finally getting worked up enough that she thrusts forward and presses her lips clumsily against his.

She is awkward and clearly kissing him just to get him to shut up, but Kern is awestruck when she draws away all the same.

Katniss feels oddly emotional. She would rather not have witnessed her daughter's first kiss on live television. She wonders if she would have wanted to witness her daughter's first kiss at all, if she hadn't been Reaped. Moments like a first kiss are meant to be private - hers and Gale's was, with only the trees and mockingjays to see them.

Katniss wonders if not for the Games, if she would have missed a formative moment like this in her daughter's life, and it makes her sad enough to hate herself when she decides that yes, she very likely would have. She despises just what widowhood has taken from her, how much she has become her mother even as she once swore she never would. She bemoans the woman she has become, such that she almost didn't recognize the woman her own daughter is becoming:

There was a time when I flew higher. Was a time the wild girl running free... would be me... Now I see her feel the fire. Now I know she needs me there to share... I'm nowhere...

A tingle of electricity shoots along her shoulder as Katniss feels Peeta place a comforting hand there. Turning to him, a little startled, his understanding, almost perceptive gaze makes tears of gratitude spring to her eyes, and she nods to him her thanks.

---

This will be the last night of the 99th Hunger Games. It has to be.

There are only three tributes left, and two of them are their kids.

Juniper managed to nurse Kern back to health, though he is still favoring his less-dominant leg since the other one is still so weak. If he and Juniper can make it past Ardor, Katniss wonders if the Capitol can heal it completely. They've worked miracles for Victors before.

When the finale comes, in the form of wild dogs pursuing the tributes from District 12, Juniper doesn't let go of Kern's hand. She doesn't even while she helps him to scale the side of the Cornucopia with her, out of reach of the dogs' snapping jaws.

But after eluding one danger, another appears.

Ardor comes careening out of the darkness and attacks them both. Despite being still not back to full strength, adrenaline and nothing left to lose is fueling Kern to give as good as he gets. Ardor finally gains the upper hand with a headlock around Peeta's boy at the same moment that Juniper notches an arrow aimed straight at the boy from 1's head.

The tableau is an impasse, with Ardor using Kern as a human shield - Juniper can't bring her last enemy down without risking Kern's life too, and they all know it.

But then Kern finds a way out. Silently, he prompts Juniper where to shoot and she does - right into Ardor's hand.

It's enough for Kern to slip from Ardor's grip and hurl the Career boy off the edge of the Cornucopia to the waiting mutts below. He and Juniper hold each other as they listen to Ardor's death throes, but by the time the sun has risen, a cannon still has yet to fire.

Peering over the lip of the horn, Juniper spots the bloodied lump of their last enemy and performs a mercy killing. The cannon fires and the kids slide down to the grass at the horn's base, waiting for the trumpets to fire.

No trumpets sound.

Instead, the announcers cruelly revoke the Rule Change - only one Victor may be Crowned.

Katniss stares at Peeta with dull, lifeless eyes, watching his own fill with tears as he babbles to her on the edge of his breath how Kern won't kill her daughter, he knows his boy would rather die than do it...

Something is happening up on the screen, and Katniss abruptly shushes Peeta.

Juniper has plucked some berries from a nearby bush, and upon getting a good look at them, Katniss's eyes widen: that's nightlock. Her daughter isn't actually going to commit suicide...? Juniper knows how to recognize those berries on sight, and what they can do: once ingested, a person is as good as dead in little more than a minute.

Juniper spills some berries into her palm. Then she passes some to Kern.

Katniss is pretty sure Kern doesn't know what nightlock is exactly, yet he seems to work out Juniper's intention just as well without knowing. At any rate, he trusts her to know which plants aren't poisonous...

... and which are.

"Together?"

Juniper nods solemnly. "Together."

"Count of three: one..."

"Two..." Juniper murmurs, barely getting the word out before Kern is suddenly swooping down and kissing her on the lips goodbye. She holds it indulgently, and when they break apart, her and Kern's eyes lock.

"... Three..."

They raise the berries to their lips, only for Claudius Templesmith to start calling out "STOP!" in a blind panic. "Ladies and gentlemen... may I present the winners... of the 99th Annual Hunger Games..."

Juniper and Kern drop the berries and embrace; back in the District 12 Square, Katniss's mouth has fallen open in stunned relief. Her grey eyes find Peeta's blue ones.

Words fail them both: the Baker and the former Seam huntress embrace themselves, mirroring their children up there on the Jumbotron.

A life for a life, Katniss thinks. After all these years, her debt is repaid. It took her daughter to repay the debt by saving the life of the son, but even so... She and Peeta, they're even now. No more owed.

Just the same, as she comes to rest in Peeta's strong arms, ignoring the strangely annoyed expression Delly is sporting over his shoulder, Katniss finally brings herself to say the words:

"Thank you..."

She doesn't clarify as to what, but from the way Peeta draws back to gawp at her, she is astonished to peer into his eyes and realize he knows exactly what she is talking about. The man also seems stunned to note that these are probably the most words she has spoken to him since they were kids.

"What, you mean the bread from when we were kids?" He laughs.

Katniss ducks her head, her arms still around his neck. "It meant more than you know..." She is shaken to find how she wants to say more, but the words get stuck in her throat and she drops her arms from his shoulders.

Peeta lifts her chin with his thumb, his smile understanding. "You're welcome..."

Weakly, Katniss grins back.

---

Juniper Hawthorne and Kern Mellark return to District 12 to a hero's welcome. Each of them is given keys to mansions in Victors' Village, set high on a hill.

Immediate next of kin to a Victor are entitled to move into the Village with their famous relative, and Katniss and Chrissy take full advantage of this, summarily lifted out of poverty thanks to Juniper's survival in a fight to the death. Though they have the option to join their only son in the lap of luxury, Peeta and Delly Mellark decline, preferring to stay at the Bakery in Town.

Chrissy and Juniper both seem amused by how Officer Darius Freeman's nightly patrols are now suddenly taking him up by way of the Village instead of to the outskirts of the Seam where they once lived. He seems bashful whenever he pays a call and Katniss comes to the door.

"He likes you, Mama," Chrissy declares, her eyes dancing with matchmaking mirth.

Though also amused, Juniper is also just mistrustful enough as to be annoyed. "I wouldn't want anyone who was born Capitol to be my stepfather..." she mutters, only half to herself. "Daddy would turn over in his grave..."

She's startled into silence by the burst of laughter that comes out of Katniss at hearing this. Chrissy seems ecstatic.

"I can't remember the last time I heard Mama laugh!" she chitters, squeals to her sister.

"What? Over some gussied up, Capitol-bred, Peacekeeper robot?" Juniper splutters.

"Darius is from District 4!" Chrissy scolds her big sister. "And he's a gentleman! Wouldn't you want Mama to start seeing someone again?"

"No," Juniper scowls petulantly.

Darius must sense the lack of effusiveness, even icy coolness, Juniper sends his way when he comes to call on his rounds. It isn't until six months later, while Juniper and Kern are away on their Victory Tour, that he works up the nerve to ask Katniss out when he stops by on patrol one night.

Even as Katniss has begun to suspect - and Chrissy has seemed so sure - that he likes her, the widow Hawthorne still almost swallows her tongue, too stunned to speak. Chrissy takes this opportunity to accept the date for and on behalf of her mother.

"You can pick her up tomorrow night, for the Harvest Festival!"

"Chrissy!" Katniss hisses, even as she turns fuschia. "I'm... I'm sure Officer Freeman is on duty..."

"The Barracks lets us have off for the Festival," Darius explains. "If there's any watching to be done, it'll be while off-duty!"

Swallowing, Katniss nervously nods her head. "... All right, then."

Darius's smile makes it clear she's made his whole night.

Chrissy helps her mother get gussied up the following evening. Katniss is trembling as she dons her old blue Reaping dress. She hasn't been on a date since she was a teenager! Not much older than Juniper! She doesn't know if she'll remember what to do, it's been so long.

When Darius comes to pick her up, he presents her with a rose, which Katniss takes with bemusement. Chrissy all but pushes her out the door, thrilled at the prospect of her mother not only going out for the first time in years, but also having a guaranteed night all to herself. "Have a good time!"

Darius takes Katniss dancing in the Hob. His eagerness to please charms Katniss and she bemusedly lets him take the lead. Goosebumps alight her flesh when she feels him pull her close on the dance floor. Turning her head with a blush underneath his intense stare and smile, Katniss is startled when her eyes find those of Peeta Mellark, watching them from clear across the warehouse. She begs off at the end of the song, claiming fatigue. Her nerves only heighten further once she recalls that Gale took her to the Hob on their very first date.

It is late when Darius walks Katniss back up the hill to the Village, leaving her off on the spacious front porch. The lights in the house are out; Chrissy must not have stayed up. It comforts Katniss to see that Darius is as nervous as she feels.

"Well... good... goodnight..." she whispers, smiling weakly. She turns to go inside.

Darius catches her arm. "Katniss." When she turns back questioningly, it is just in time for Darius to swoop in and kiss her deeply on the mouth.

Surprised, Katniss can only think to hold the kiss. They break apart with a sensuous POP! Darius's smile is shy and exhilarated. Katniss runs her tongue over her kissed lips, thoughtful.

"Would... would you like to come in...?" she whispers.

Darius looks shocked by the question, so Katniss takes his hand and guides him with purpose into the mansion, closing the door behind them. The couple go upstairs, to the master bedroom.

They have sex.

It is clumsy and awkward, the rutting fast and frantic - she due to years of abstinence, he due to virginity, which comes out clearly in his inexperience. Still, Katniss finds some modicum of pleasure in the act, moaning loud enough to risk maybe waking her daughter, if not the Village, however empty it is at the moment with her eldest daughter, Kern and their mentor Haymitch Abernathy away:

"Huhhhh... Uhhhhh... MMMMMMMM... HMMMMMMMMM!"

When Darius leaves the next morning just before first light, pulling his dress shirt over his muscular frame, Katniss watches from the window as her first lover in many a year steals from the Village.

---

The winter passes, giving way to spring.

Judging from the TV coverage, the Capitol is in a tizzy, eager to celebrate the centennial of the end of the rebellion. A Reading of the Card announcing the 4th Quarter Quell is called for mid-spring, in March.

Katniss has only been alive for one previous Quell, back when she was 17 - Juniper's age - and still eligible to be Reaped. It had been a particular brutal twist that year, for the 75th, utlimately seeing an arena filled with only women. Pregnant women, to show that the districts destroyed untold generations of patriotic Capitol citizens. Interestingly, the two women selected for Twelve came from across class lines - one from the Seam, and one from Town. The Seam mother had been the daughter of the second-hand tailor, still of Reaping age and in her last year of eligibiltiy; the Merchant woman had been Katniss's mother's age and the wife of the greengrocer.

The night the Card is to be read, Kern Mellark has the Hawthornes and Haymitch over to his place for dinner. The group watches as President Snow takes the podium and reads off the past Quell twists:

"On the 25th anniversary, as a reminder to the districts that it was their choice to initiate violence, each district was made to hold a special election, and vote on the tributes who would represent it."

Katniss wonders what that would have been like: picking the kids who had to go. It had to be worse, she thinks, to be turned over by your own neighbors than the whims of the Reaping Ball.

"On the 50th anniversary, as a reminder that two rebels died for every Capitol citizen, the districts were required to send twice as many tributes."

Haymitch is not looking at anybody, even as the entire room is studying him with newfound respect. Of course, Katniss already knew about Haymitch's impressive feat: she learned all about it in Hunger Games history class when she was in school, as have her girls after her.

"On the 75th Anniversary, as a reminder that the districts severed the potential of untold generations of Capitol children, expectant women were required to be sent in."

Juniper looks disgusted by this.

"Your father had a friend who went that year," Katniss explains to her girls. "Violet Breen. Her daddy was the Seam's second-hand tailor. Afterwards, he tailored your father's suit for our Toasting."

Juniper and Chrissy seem bemused by this, likely since this is the first they have ever heard of Violet Breen, or anything about their parents' wedding in years.

"And now we honor our fourth Quarter Quell..." A pageboy hands the President an envelope from an onrate wooden box. Pulling the slip from the envelope, Snow announces:

"On the centennial, one-hundredth anniversary, as a reminder that even the strongest cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes are to be Reaped from the existing pools of Victors in each district."

Shouts and cries go up, yet Katniss can't hear anything. Her feet carry her at a run through the foyer and out Kern's front door in a fog. For Katniss understands what this means:

District 12 has only three living Victors to choose from: two male. One female. And since the only other Victor, Lucy Gray Baird, is long dead...

Juniper is going back into the arena. Katniss is going to have to watch her baby girl fight to the death, all over again.

---

Katniss barely makes it past the Village Green before she is collapsing into the late-spring snowdrifts in tears. For the first time in more than five years, she had felt a modicum of hope with her daughter's survival in the arena. Now, the Capitol government, for its own amusement, is sending a message to a subset of Victors, by extension their families, and the nation itself that even that hope was an illusion.

The widow Hawthorne berates herself all the more for, in a way, she should have seen this coming. Just as she should have seen what her coming fate was to be when she accepted Gale's proposal of marriage. The death of her husband had confirmed for her, all over again, what the death of her father had: that love is a pointless institution whose only real purpose is to open you up to hurt when that love is inevitably lost.

It is a lesson her daughter will now learn, and just as painfully, except the loss won't just come in the form of losing love (for however much Juniper might want to deny it, Katniss believes her first born has fallen in love with Peeta's son, perhaps in spite of her best efforts), but in losing her own life as well.

Or perhaps these are heady questions that Juniper hasn't even considered. After all, Katniss would be the first to attest that there are some things which are worse than death. Losing your own life is nothing to her, not after all she's gone through. It is the losing of someone else that breaks you.

Juniper might be ambivalent, therefore, at the prospect of losing her own life. But she won't be ambivalent about the potential loss of Kern's life, or even being forced to watch it or, worse and more likely still, partake in it. For that is what Snow and his cadre of goons will foist on Katniss's girl, all to remind her who's really in charge. That has to be the reason for this entire Quell in the first place. Snow is actually playing to an audience of one - the other Victors, their families, even Panem itself are just collateral.

Juniper has just enough of her father in her, Katniss decides, to have provoked the Capitol's ire. Juniper's move with the berries is exactly the sort of thumb-in-the-eye move Gale would have played, though her late husband would have done it with a far more contrarian relish. Katniss actually doubts very much that in pulling out the berries, Juniper was telling the Capitol to go stuff itself. She was just trying to save Kern's life. But in so doing, Juniper inadvertenly pulled back the curtain on the Capitol: they made a promise to let two tributes live, only to renege on that promise. In pushing back on that duplicity, Juniper gave others in the districts permission to do the same: if the Capitol's word is actually not worth anything, then why should we be subjected to them?

In calling for this particular Quell, all to eliminate her daughter, Snow is actually doing it again, showing that the Capitol's promises are all empty ones. Katniss isn't sure how that will help the mother city in the long run - it may even hurt them, but not quickly enough before her and Gale's baby girl is murdered.

"Katniss!"

Katniss glances up to see Peeta slowing out of a breakneck run up the crest of the hill leading to the Village gates. She stands on wobbly legs and when Peeta comes up to her and hugs her, she is too drained and emotional to even register that this is the first time a man has held her like this in she can't even remember how long. She sags against, sobbing and clutching at the Baker's coat. It is the most emotion she has allowed herself to show in half a decade.

Peeta draws back out of the embrace, and Katniss almost whines at the loss of contact - the need for such human connection in and of itself is startling for how foreign it has become to her.

"I have a plan," Peeta tells her earnestly. "But it's going to have to start with telling my son to go against every instinct he's ever been taught." His summer-sky blue eyes search her face. "You know he's going to volunteer to go back in and be with Juniper, right?"

Katniss nods mutely, dully. Yes, she does know that. In this way, Kern is not hard to predict. He has the good heart of his dad, of his grandaddy. Like father, like son. An odd thrill courses through Katniss as she realizes she doesn't have to wonder whether or not Peeta would do what he seems so sure his boy is planning to do, were he, Peeta, in Kern's position. It's just who he is.

"And what if he doesn't listen to you?" Katniss peers into Peeta's face, her hands having unconsciously come to grip his strong, well-developed forearms. Peeta studies her, the light in his eyes making it clear that he is still amazed that she could be this verbose, after the trauma she's endured.

"Then we'll plead our case to Haymitch. Get him to go back in - even if that means he volunteers."

Katniss shakes her head. That plan would only work if Kern's name was called at the Reaping first. And even then, Haymitch would have to want to volunteer for a fight to the death a second time. With any other Victor who has even that little say in the matter, this would be a doubtful proposition, but Haymitch is one of only two Victors who has already been through a Quell and lived to tell about it.

"We can't ask that of Haymitch."

"Why not?" Peeta demands, and she can hear in the timbre of his voice how he's already worked up. "He's a miserable old drunk in his mid-sixties; what else has he got to live for? Why should Haymitch get a chance at the rest of his life instead of my son?"

Katniss tells herself that this is the man's grief bleeding through, because such a self-interested statement otherwise doesn't sound at all like the Peeta she knows and... She shakes her head. She pieces together the rest of Peeta's plan in seconds: if they can convince Haymitch to go back in, to return to a hell he's already experienced once, then maybe he, along with Kern (acting as the mentor), can shepherd Juniper through and Katniss and Peeta can have both their kids back. The kids they both got back the last time only because Haymitch busted his ass to get them both out. And this is how they would repay the drunk? Can they ask Haymitch to make such a sacrifice?

... No, they can't. He's personally dreadful, of course, but like it or not, Haymitch is their family now, just as much as Juniper and Kern and little Chrissy. Changing horses with the male tribute might not even be the wisest play, however much it would guarantee Kern's safety and leave Katniss and Peeta with a less agonizing choice. Haymitch is 66; Katniss doubts a man his age could once again survive a rigorous arena like the one he beat half a century ago. While he may be young, Kern doesn't know the first thing about mentoring that, even with all his bright smarts, would leave him at more of a disadvantage on the outside than there would be if he was back with Katniss's daughter on the inside.

They can't make Haymitch volunteer, and play a part that might not naturally lend to his strengths. And as sure as Peeta is that he can talk some sense into him, Katniss doubts that he, or even he and she together, could convince Kern to stand down.

That leaves only one course of action: prepare their children for a second round of hell as best they can.

"We have to train them," Katniss breathes. Peeta starts to open his mouth to protest and she lays a gentle hand on his chest. "If we can't convince either Kern or Haymitch to not volunteer or volunteer or whatever, then we have to train the children as best we can."

"How? With who?"

Katniss eyes him with a raised eyebrow, though she is amused that he hasn't seen it yet. "You."

"Me? Why me?" Peeta barely staves off a baffled laugh.

"You were all-district runner-up in wrestling when we were in high school. I watched your matches often enough."

It's a startling admission, even for her, and she blushes all the worse at how Peeta notices. He seems rather pleased. "You came to my matches, huh?"

Katniss glances down at the ground. "Oh... don't let it go to your head. The point is, I've seen what you can do. Teach my girl and your boy how to wrestle. If they're trapped in a hold, show them how to get out of it. That's how most fighting in the arena is settled anyway, short of weapons: skin on... skin contact..." Her face turns further aflame as she finds herself blatantly staring at his chest for some reason.

Peeta just grins.

And so he does. Every morning for the next four months, Peeta comes up the Hill following the early rising of the bread batches to train his only son and Juniper on how to pin. How to hold. Katniss will sit on the front porch of their house and watch. Even Chrissy wants to learn, and her youngest calls for her to join them. "Come on, Mom! Try it!"

"Oh, you kids are doing just fine without me..." Katniss tries to wave off. But Chrissy is persistent, dragging her mother by the hand off the porch. Katniss can recognize her daughter's machinations from a mile away, so the last thing she should be doing is indulging in them.

Peeta freezes her with his warm stare. "Only if you want to," he shrugs. "I promise I'll go easy on you..."

Katniss has never been in such sweaty quarters with a man, exerting herself in this manner, unless she is having sex, and she's only had two partners in her life engage with her in that carnal act. Though he does go easy on her, Peeta pins her effortlessly.

On the ground, the Baker and the coal miner's widow stare into each other's eyes, breathing hard where Peeta is almost straddling Katniss.

Katniss swallows and quickly squirms to be let up, nodding to Peeta her praise at his skill. She retreats quickly to her sentinal spot on the porch, feeling her blood racing under her skin.

Peeta isn't the only one to get in on the training act. Prim and Rory teach classes in plant identification. Chrissy cooks the prospective tributes healthy meals. Haymitch teaches a knife throwing seminar, though he himself can't hit the broadside of a barn with one. Everyone is surprised and delighted when Katniss offers helpful tips during Juniper-led archery lessons.

Even Effie Trinket does her part, by sending the Victors tapes of past Hunger Games to analyze. The escort also smuggles in newspaper polls of the Capitol citizenry: predictions of who will be the Victor of Victors shows Juniper, Kern and even Haymitch as the favorites of the betting markets.

As futile as they know it will be, Peeta still tries to talk Kern into considering his choice - one of the few he has left - carefully. Yet the Baker seems to understand that he cannot stop his son. The morning of the Reaping dawns hot and sultry. Effie Trinket lacks her usual verve as she draws the names. Juniper's selection is a mere formality. Then she catches Haymitch's name. As anticipated and predicted, Kern volunteers.

Chrissy gives the three-fingered farewell salute that is traditional in Twelve, and Katniss is inspired to copy her, as is Peeta, standing at her side.

She doesn't notice until her daughter and Kern are dragged off the stage to the train, without even getting to say goodbye, but the entire Square has made the same gesture.

---

Barely a week later, it is the end of the second day of the Quell. There are only eight tributes left alive, including Katniss and Peeta's children.

Six of them are in an alliance, including the Victors from District 12. With them are Finnick Odair, the handsome fisherman from District 4 who still looks sinfully good for being on the cusp of 50, after notching a legendary win in the arena thirty-five years ago at the tender age of 14. There is also the woman from District 4, Annie Cresta, a peer of Finnick's and who Katniss thinks may be his lover. The way they are with each other sometimes reminds her of Juniper and Kern.

Rounding out the crew is another 40-something, Johanna Mason of District 7. Katniss remembers Johanna's win for it was the summer after her father died.

And then there's Zekel Latier, a lad in his mid-twenties from District 3 who won about ten years ago. He's the grandson of legendary Victor Beetee Latier, who triumphed back in the 30s.

Katniss watches fascinatedly as Zekel describe his plan to the other allies for getting rid of the Careers from District 2: a buff 70-year-old man named Decimus and his fifties-something district partner, Enobaria. Children and even grandchildren of Victors being Reaped is quite a common practice, but that progeny being crowned Victor in their own right is a rarity; Zekel might be the only one who has done it.

The group has discovered that the arena is built like a clock, with a new danger each hour. One of these dangers is a tree perpetually struck by lightning. Zekel's proposal is to rig that lightning tree with wire he found in the Cornucopia and run that wire down to the water here on the beach. Anyone or anything in the vicinity of that wire and the water when the lightning strikes the tree will be electrocuted.

Katniss likes the merits of the plan. Even if it fails to notch a kill, there's no harm done, and it will actually cut off a valuable food source to the Careers, starving them faster.

Juniper, Kern, Finnick, Annie, Johanna and Zekel hike to the lightning tree and set up. The girls are tasked with running the wire down to the beach, while Kern and Finnick are left to stand guard. Kern clearly doesn't want to be separated from Juniper, but she kisses him and assures him she'll "see him at midnight."

Juniper, Johanna and Annie are not even halfway down to the water before the wire is cut by Decimus and Enobaria, who have been tailing them.

Johanna turns on Juniper, striking her down. When Annie screams, Johanna subdues her too, and drags her - still alive - back into the jungle.

Bloodied and woozy, Juniper struggles to her feet as the plan falls apart. Convinced her allies have betrayed her, she goes looking for Kern. First one cannon, and then another, sounds. Katniss's daughter can't see it on the screen, but the jumbotron has shown Kern taking on - and defeating - both Decimus and Enobaria.

Juniper makes it back to the lightning tree, knowing there are six tributes left and it is going to be a free-for-all, no matter who is left. She finds Zekel, unconscious in the grass, holding a stick with the wire wrapped around it. This puzzles her. When Finnick approaches, she hides.

Spotting her in the tall grass, Finnick implores her: "Juniper... remember who the real enemy is."

She seems to.

As Katniss watches, Juniper notches her bow, with the wire tied to it. As the lightning strikes the tree, she sends an arrow up towards the arena's forcefield dome wth a guttural cry.

There is flash, and the jumbotron screens in the Square go dark.

The Head Peacekeeper is quick to lay the blame for the sudden, abrupt halt to the Games at District 12's feet. "Insurrection! Officers: restore law and order."

And that's when it happens.

Inspired by their tributes, their Victors, District 12 rebels.

Merchant and Seam alike rush the Peacekeepers, overthrowing their oppressors. Guns are confiscated and a firefight ensues. In the bedlam, Katniss rushes to find Chrissy, Rory and Prim and their children, but before she can...

The shopfront not fifty yards from her bursts into flames.

"Firebombs! RUN!"

Though many bravely stay to fight, the majority of the people in the Square attempt to flee, creating a bottleneck effect on the cobblestoned streets leading out of the central gathering place in front of the Justice Building.

Rebels are scaling the lighting towers, overthrowing the guards on station, even as fireballs rain down. Amidst the flames and hazy smoke, Katniss feels herself start to emotionally buckle. The flashbacks to her husband's death are nearly debilitating, and she stumbles through the Square, ducking into an alleyway to avoid the heat of the next blast.

This is how her husband died, trapped and alone with fire and earth raining down on him. It seems only fitting, though no less terrifying, that this is how she will die too, and she would almost welcome it, if the thought of death wasn't giving her a panic attack.

"Katniss! Katniss!"

A familiar face, with ashy blonde hair comes careening out of the haze and darkness, and Katniss realizes just then that she has stumbled into the alleyway behind the Bakery. Peeta is now in her face, and through her ringing ears, she can only make out what he's saying in fits and spurts: "We have to keep going! We have to move!"

"I can't!" Katniss wails, shying away from him like a skittish deer. "Gale... mines... fire... I can't!"

"Yes, you can! - LOOK AT ME!" Peeta suddenly pulls her close, his one hand cradling her chin, forcing her to: "Look at me!"

There is a heavy, loaded beat and then suddenly Peeta's lips are on hers as he tugs Katniss's face close and kisses her deeply on the mouth.

Half bent back into a kind of dip, Katniss goes rigid with shock for a moment as the fireballs continue to rain down around them. But then...

Her grey eyes slip closed.

She moans, the sounding parting her lips under his so that his tongue slips between the split to dance with hers. "Mmmmhmmmm..."

She pulls Peeta closer.

She kisses him back.

Her arms reach up to wrap around his neck, her fingers sinking into those blonde curls she has always secretly wondered about. It is as if Peeta's very kiss has awakened her. Awakened her after a dormant, lifeless sleep of five, long years.

And as Peeta Mellark and Katniss Hawthorne embrace and kiss, rebels in the guard towers send off flares. Fireworks peal and explode with a shrieking EEEEE! into the nighttime sky above District 12.

A blast from a firebomb too close for comfort makes Katniss and Peeta break apart, though it is done reluctantly and sensuously, their arms still wound about each other. As the handsome Baker swings a dazed Katniss back onto her feet, her wide grey eyes flick down towards the ground and that's when she sees it:

A dandelion, poking up through the cobblestoned concrete that is being blasted into chips by the bombs.

Baker and beautiful huntress lock eyes. Peeta is breathing hard.

"Stay with me!" he pleads in a whisper.

"Always..." Katniss breathes.

"Come on!" Peeta holds out his hand. Swallowing, the blood thundering in her ears from that magical kiss, her heart hammering in her chest, Katniss takes it.

And they run.

They run hand in hand all through Town and to the Seam beyond, all the way to the Meadow. There, Chrissy, Rory and Prim and the rest of the district's humanity, it seems, are tearing at the fence, trampling it underfoot in their desperate escape across the tall grasses to the woods and safety. There is no sign of Peeta's wife, Delly, but Katniss can't think of that just now even more than she can think about how a married man just kissed her... and she enthusiastically kissed him back.

"District 12, TO ME!" Katniss calls, and though many of her neighbors are shocked at how the widowed once rendered mute by her grief now speaks so authoritatively, they move to follow her.

Katniss leads the survivors of the Square into the woods, to her father's hunting cabin by the lake.

Digging around under a hollow log, Katniss finds it. For the first time in years, she picks up and strings her father's bow.

---

The survivors of District 12 camp out in the woods beyond their destroyed homeland for three days before a hovercraft with unfamilair insignia picks them up. In that time, Katniss Hawthorne and several other hunters she manages to teach keep the sea of humanity fed with game.

The hovercraft takes the survivors to District 13, once thought to have been destroyed in the Dark Days. There, Katniss is reunited with her eldest daughter, and Peeta warmly embraces his son. They, along with their allies, got out of the arena alive, the six survivors of the 4th Quarter Quell.

The Hawthorne women are assigned a housing unit where District 13 has burrowed for a century deep underground. Peeta and Kern are assigned a living dwelling nearby.

The District 12 surivors adjust to militarized life. Katniss joins a group that is given privileges to hunt above-ground. Peeta is put to work in the kitchens, and she often sees him working the mess line when it is her and the girls' assigned mealtime.

They don't speak about the kiss they shared. She and Peeta seem shy around each other in a way that makes them both seem like schoolchildren again, even though they are both in their 40s, parents to children and have both been married before. To ever-practical Katniss, especially the Katniss who was reborn in those firebombings, awoken out of the stupor of her grief by a toe-curling kiss, the awkward dancing she and Peeta are doing around each other seems silly. It's not as though they did anything wrong - after taking a headcount of all the Twelve survivors, Delly Cartwright Mellark was not listed among them. Peeta is now widowed, just as she once was. Something clearly has shifted between the Baker and her, yet she doesn't know how to address or broach it. They are more than just friends. More than just parents to respective children who are themselves involved with each other.

Does Peeta even feel anything for her at all? Does he want more with her?

It is actually Kern who provides Katniss with something of an answer, in a conversation between him and Juniper that Katniss overhears.

Juniper asks Kern when he first fell in love with her, and Kern launches into a story about how Peeta pointed her out to him on their first day of school. "'See that little girl?'" Peeta apparently said. "I wanted to marry her mother, but she ran off with a coal miner.'"

Katniss sucks in a breath: she vividly remembers that day. Juniper had been wearing a little red dress she herself had once worn to her own first day of school. Chrissy had been a baby and teething, and Katniss had needed to drop Juniper off alone, as Gale had already been at work in the mines. She had even done up Juniper's hair so it was in two braids instead of one, though the hairstyle had evolved into her daughter's signature braid not long after, because, according to a young Juniper, she wanted to "be like Mommy."

Katniss doesn't confront Peeta with the story. About how he apparently had been in love with her for years and even wanted to marry her. She's too scared.

But soon her fear of not discussing her feelings with him soon outweighs any fear she might have over doing exactly that.

As the war effort heats up between Thirteen and the Capitol, all able-bodied men over 18 are conscripted. Katniss nearly cries when she hears from Peeta in the mess line that he has been given deployment papers, along with Kern, who has since also come of age.

In the hangar bay, the day the Mellark boys are to ship out, Katniss watches as Juniper fastens the mockingjay pin - her district token - to the breastplate of Kern's uniform. Standing across from Peeta, Katniss bites her lip. She doesn't have any such token she can give him. She starts combing her fingers through her braid, then mashing the hem of her dress - both nervous habits.

"I don't know when I'm going to see you again, so..." Words fail her. With a strangled gasp, she suddenly launches herself into his arms, takes his face in her hands and deeply kisses him goodbye.

Peeta kisses her back enthusiastically, enough that they grip each other still more firmly and sway on the spot. The couple ignore the stares of their children: Juniper's shock, Kern's knowing and proud smile, Chrissy's eyes dancing with matchmaking glee.

Katniss breaks the kiss softly. Three words are stuck in her throat, words she hasn't spoken to any man since her husband, but they fail to emerge. Though from how Peeta is grinning, how he bends and steals one last kiss from her lips, she has a feeling he already knows.

Watching the plane depart, Katniss is reminded of the times she would watch Gale leave for work and wonder if he would come back in the evenings, until the one evening when he did not come back, and she drops her head in her palm and weeps.

She pines for Peeta constantly over the following weeks, losing sleep as she worries over his safety. Katniss is at risk of falling into that same emotional spiral she experienced following her husband's death. To distract herself, she starts an affair with Darius, the Peacekeeper ex-pat with whom she went on a date and had a one-night stand.

She finds random coat closets in which to drag the handsome Peacekeeper so they can make out. Darius is only to happy to return Katniss's wild and frantic need for human touch - his hands will wander beneath her waist to feel up her globed buttocks through her dress. The first time he does it, Katniss half-heartedly moves his hand back up to the small of her back. Darius merely grips her thigh in his palm and hikes it up to his waist, bunching her blue skirts up over her hips so they can fuck. They mate like the animals Katniss would sometimes see copulating in the woods.

Katniss knows it's wrong, to be sleeping with Darius again. She tells herself that this is just a physical thing between them, even as she also feels horrible for leading him on. But engaging in such a carnal act, feeling a man's touch, is the only way she can cope now. She's just glad she was too depressed and in such a stupor that she didn't sleep with every man in sight after Gale passed.

Months after the war starts, as Thirteen prepares to make a final assault on the Capitol, Katniss receives a missive from the frontline: Peeta has been reported missing in action.

She forces herself to breathe in, out, in, out. Missing does not mean dead. Her new love's body is not cold and unmoving somewhere out on the Panemian tundra. Unlike with Gale, she doesn't lose hope completely. She keeps a picture in her head of that dandelion she saw after she and Peeta kissed.

Besides, there are others who need her more: Prim is distraught when she receives a similar missive reporting to her that her husband, Rory, has been killed in action. Katniss does her best to comfort her sister, who finally seems to understand what Katniss went through all those years ago.

---

The war ends. The Capitol falls. The Hunger Games are abolished.

Katniss is standing on the Capitol train platform, about to board one of the few trains that is still running out of the city. Facing her is a man who has become a friend, a dear friend.

Darius is gazing at her with naked longing, almost beseechingly. "Are you sure you don't want to come to District 4 with me? There is nothing left of Twelve - nothing worth going back to, anyway! I could..." He doesn't finish his sentence, getting emotional.

Katniss appraises him for a moment. She knows what Darius is offering. He's offering to take care of her, and the girls. She knows what will happen if she decides to go with him to the coast: they'd have a nice, happy life by the sea. Maybe one day she and Darius would stand under a golden fishing net the same way that Finnick and Annie Odair did.

If Katniss didn't have hope stirring in her breast anew, if she wasn't completely convinced that she had someone else waiting for her out there, waiting to find her again, she just might say Yes. To running away with the handsome Peacekeeper. Maybe even standing under that net or Toasting the bread or marrying him in whatever way they wanted to, if he would have her - and he would.

Besides... there are others waiting for her, depending on her, too, and she glances back towards her girls - both grown up before their time, so perhaps they don't really...

But even so, no matter how old Juniper and Chrissy get, Katniss is still their mother, and -

She turns back to Darius. "They need me."

Darius smiles in sad understanding. The train whistle lets out an impatient blast. "BO-O-OARD!" The conductor calls and behind the pair, Juniper and Chrissy trudge for the train car, both of them glancing back curiously and waiting for their mother to follow.

"Goodbye, Katniss," Darius says.

Katniss smiles bittersweetly. "Goodbye."

It is agreed upon without discussion. Wordlessly, the ex-Peacekeeper and former Seam huntress take each other in their arms. As the train whistle blows and mist from the steam locomotive swirls around them, Darius and Katniss embrace and passionately kiss goodbye.

They break apart sensuously as the train begins to move and Katniss has to run and leap aboard to catch it. She ignores the intrigued stares from her daughters, striding into the train car to hide the blush tinging her cheeks.

---

District 12 is an ashen wasteland when the Hawthorne women arrive home.

Town is gone. So is pretty much all of the Seam except for a few ramshackle houses on the outskirts. Aside from these, pretty much the only buildings left standing are the train station, the Justice Building, and the Victors' Village on the Hill in the distance.

It is hard to tell where everything once was, as Katniss and her daughters pick through the ashes. Though Katniss does find where the Bakery used to stand. The cement loading dock - now a ramp leading to nowhere - managed to survive. The slab marks the alleyway. The alleyway where she and Peeta shared their first kiss, on a night of fire.

That's where she sees it.

A dandelion, poking up through the dust and the gray, like it was planted right there for her to see.

Katniss wonders whether it's the same sprig, the one she spotted in the moment after Peeta's lips consumed hers, and she kissed him back, his kiss the final stirring that awoke her back to life. No matter whether it is or not, the sight of it makes her burst into tears as another memory assaults her: the morning after he tossed her the bread when they were eleven years old, and she saw a dandelion in the school play-yard, associating it with him, her true love and the kindness he had shown her, forevermore.

With that, Katniss resolves herself: regardless of how long the odds, regardless of how futile her hope might be (she's been down that road before, in the minutes and hours after losing Gale), she will rebuild Peeta's family's bakery. She will wait for him, to welcome him home, as long as it takes.

The following morning, Katniss walks into the Justice Building and files a building permit with the one clerk currently staffing the place.

She doesn't have any blueprints - only the memory of what the old Bakery looked like in her head. Eventually, however, once Kern returns on one of the refugee trains and has a rather warm and emotional reunion with Juniper, he encourages the mother of his probable-girlfriend to at least draw up some plans. He helps her, clearly having inherited the artistic gene from his dad.

Katniss's girls watch the construction with plenty of sympathy and a dash of leeriness. Juniper seems to hope that Katniss isn't devolving into a funk of a very different kind than the one that incapacitated her after losing her husband. She distracts herself by hunting in the woods and making a home in the old Hawthorne homestead. There is no discussion when Kern joins her there, settling into a walking commute from there to help Katniss at the Bakery. Chrissy sets up a healing practice, living with her sister and her sister's partner. Eventually, a widowed and bereft Prim joins them.

Katniss finally completes rebuilding the Bakery after several months. By now, District 12 is gradually becoming repopulated. There is still no sign of Peeta. No matter. She will teach herself to bake and run the shop in his stead.

It is slow going. Katniss doesn't know the first thing about kneading dough or how to make yeast rise. She is ever grateful that Kern is there to help her. Customers begin to flock to one of the first businesses to re-open in Twelve, and sales are steady. Every morning, after the breakfast rush, Katniss will walk to Lucy Gray Baird train station and wait faithfully, sometimes for hours, watching for a sign of ashy blonde hair and eyes as blue as a summer sky.

By the time she spots it, she has almost given up looking for it.

One morning, standing amidst the latest batch of disembarking refugees and the District 6 porters unloading their cargo, Katniss shivers when she feels someone touch her arm. Turning, she barely has time to react before a man she was beginning to think she might never see again takes her in his arms, bends her back into a dip and kisses her soundly on the mouth.

Katniss's eyes close firmly and she clutches at Peeta's broad shoulders, furiously kissing him back. Their limbs wind around each other in a fierce embrace, kissing in public, but neither one of them cares. They are lost in their own little world.

When they break the kiss at last with a sensuous POP!, Katniss gazes up at her lover in wonder, hardly daring to believe it. "Peeta..." Her voice comes out in an awed whisper.

"Hi..." Peeta smiles.

"You came home..." Katniss breathes, a hardly-daring-to-believe it smile fighting its way onto her lips.

"Yeah..." Peeta nods. With a strangled gasp, Katniss throws her arms around his shoulders and buries her face in his neck to hide her smile. He had been reported missing in action for months. She had started to presume he might be dead.

---

Peeta gives her a brief overview of his time since he left her in Thirteen. After being separated from his unit during the assault on the Capitol city, after Snow's government fell, he wandered the country, before eventually making his way to District 4. He bears a letter, conveyed at the request of a mutual friend. He reads it aloud to his lover:

"You'll be happy to hear that Annie and Finnick are building a hospital here in Four, in memory of Rory. They are enjoying every minute with their son. We have lost so much to get here, but it is our duty, to the ones we've loved and lost to do our best with these lives. I hope you are finding some peace... Darius."

The thought of her lover and her one-time friends-with-benefits sexual partner having had a conversation, likely about her, flusters Katniss. She wonders what Darius would have told Peeta, if anything, about them. But Peeta doesn't bring it up, and while she could decide it doesn't matter, Katniss decides that it is best if she is honest. So, one night after she has shown him the skill she has developed at baking, Katniss sits Peeta down and chronicles her entire relationship with Darius: their Harvest Festival date during their kids' Victory Tour, the one-night stand afterward. Even the months in Thirteen after he deployed and she needed someone to keep her warm.

Peeta is far more understanding than she would have expected of him, and though it could be argued that their relationship in the aftermath of the Quell was nebulous at best, Katniss feels as though she was unfaithful to him, somehow. Peeta's understanding and love is still more than Katniss feels she deserves.

As the couple prepare for bed (they have taken to sharing a bed without much discussion), Peeta takes her hand.

"You love me: real or not real?"

Katniss gazes at him helplessly. "... Real..."

Taking his palm in hers, she leads him with purpose down the stairs from their loft...

---

Katniss and Peeta make love in the basement storeroom.

By the light of a single bulb, the Baker and once-widowed wife of a coal miner embrace and steamily kiss, rutting against each other in heat. They have sex in a manner that, while not rough, is still ardent. It is baby-making sex, and as they mate, Katniss thinks that were she and Peeta to conceive a child together, she wouldn't necessarily mind it. She is at the far end of her childbearing years, and it would make for a fresh start, now that she and Peeta have found each other.

As her handsome Baker mounts her and fucks her once more, Katniss rasps out around heated kisses, "If we Toast the bread, you can't ever tell me what to do!"

They continue to make out, though the passion of it has slowed somewhat, even as Peeta's thrusts into her cervix have not. Katniss kisses his face, rocking her hips against his.

"We can have a baby... I'm sure Kern and the girls wouldn't mind a little sibling. We can live here and bake bread and make love whenever we want..." Peeta moans happily at the picture she paints and finally shudders to his release inside of her. The amount of exertion he has exuded impresses Katniss - at one time, as a much younger woman, she had been rather ambivalent about sex, viewing it as a waste of energy that could be better spent somewhere else.

Nursing at her nipples, her pebbled breasts, Peeta's ministrations bring Katniss to her own orgasm. As he makes her cum with a choked gasp, he murmurs around her bare breast out an admission of adoration, telling the beautiful Seam woman he loves her.

Katniss says it back.

"I love you too..."

They kiss chastely and drawing away, Katniss smirks. "Go ahead, then... Ask me."

"Ask what?"

She rolls her eyes, unable to believe that she is the one instigating this. At one time, she would never have imagined marrying again, but she has come to realize that she needs the dandelion in the spring. And only Peeta can give her that. "Ask me to marry you. Propose."

It delights her that Peeta insists they both redress before he gets down on one knee before her. There, amidst the sacks of flour and casks of yeast, he asks: "Katniss Magenta Everdeen, will you marry me?"

Katniss smiles. "It's Katniss Hawthorne... but yes. I will."

Beaming, Peeta stands up and takes her in his arms. "You won't be Katniss Hawthorne for much longer."

Katniss giggles, and they embrace and kiss.

---

The following spring, bells can be heard chiming in the clock tower above the Justice Building, often a clear sign that someone has just gotten hitched.

The oaken double doors bursting open, Katniss Mellark (formerly Hawthorne, neé Everdeen) comes dashing down the front marble steps wearing her mother's white wedding dress for the second time. She is hand in hand with... with her husband. Her new husband. For the first time in over 25 years, she is a married woman once again.

Down in the Square, friends and neighbors and her daughters and Peeta's son let out cheers.

"Hey, y'all!" Katniss calls as Peeta lifts her grandly on a rented cart, to pull to their home in the Bakery. "If you want to really see me get hitched, come on over to Mellark's! I'm getting married for the last time!"

It still holds true: while standing before the District Justice of the Peace and signing a marriage license is what weds a man and a woman in the eyes of the district law, it is the Toasting that counts.

Back at the Bakery, Juniper and Chrissy reverently change their mother from her wedding gown into her blue Reaping dress. As the old frock settles over her frame, Katniss lovingly caresses the swell of her abdomen.

The baby nestled within had been planned more than her older sisters, though still a surprise. When Katniss had first felt Peeta's daughter stirring within her, she had momentarily been consumed by a terror as old as life itself. Peeta has promised her they'd be OK: they have each other.

Descending the stairs, Katniss solemnly crosses to the hearth. Peeta Toasts the bread like only an expert Baker can, and the newlywed couple shares it, feeding each other a piece. The couple are introspective as they give their vows. Peeta marvels at how they have come a long way to get here. Katniss is breathless and teary, even as she declares for all to hear, and with a helpless smile: "I love my husband."

Staring at her love, her grey eyes growing solemn in the firelight, Katniss parts her lips, tilts her head and permits her husband to kiss her deeply. The new Mrs. Mellark tosses aside her bridal bouquet of junipers, chrysanthemums, primroses and pine needles. Her eldest daughter catches the flowers; the pine needles scatter forgotten upon the floor.

Breaking their wedding kiss lovingly, Katniss and Peeta laugh at her daughter's bemused expression: the catching of the bride's bouquet often signifies who will get married next. Shrugging, Juniper grabs Kern (technically now her stepbrother, though there is no law against step-siblings marrying - Katniss has checked), dips him and kisses him passionately.

Davey Cartwright, Peeta's former brother-in-law, strikes up a reel on his fiddle, as his father did before him, and Katniss and Peeta dance at their wedding. The party ends with Katniss presenting her wedding present to her groom.

When Peeta sees it, he can only stare. "I think I would have remembered if I'd made this... Snow's Roses, it's a vision!"

"I made it," Katniss tucks her braid back behind her ear, smiling shyly, breathlessly. "Do you like it?..."

In answer, Peeta sweeps his bride into a dip and kisses her soundly.

"Oh, sweetheart, I love it! I love you!"

Katniss beams. "I love you too."

As the sun sets, Peeta carries his wife across the threshold, while their guests sing the traditional District 12 wedding song. Though one voice is clearly missing.

Katniss and Peeta eventually find Primrose Hawthorne in a dark corner, passionately kissing little Davey Cartwright. She looks scandalized when she comes up out of the kiss for air.

---

"Oh, ssssh... Ssssh... Did you have a nightmare?"

Katniss tickles a finger along the face of the infant at her breast. Seated on a picnic blanket, she watches as her and Peeta's children - all of their children, including the two they made and share together - play in the Meadow. Carrying their son had been easier than her pregnancy with their daughter, though not by much.

"Daddy and I have nightmares too... Someday, we'll explain it to you - why they came... why they won't ever go away... But we'll tell you how we survive it: we make a list, in our heads, of all the good things we've seen someone do... Every little thing we can remember. It's like a game - we do it over and over... gets a little tedious after all these years, but... there are much worse Games to play..."