I linger in the woods longer than I should because I know the house is full. It always is this time of day, with my father, my mother, my baby sister, and Prim.

My father doesn't leave the house most days since the explosion in the mines burned half his body, so he takes care of my baby sister, Flower, while Prim's at school, I'm in the woods hunting, and my mother's out to see to her patients.

Just as I thought, I can see the four of them through the window as I walk up the steps. The house always felt cozy to me before Flower, comfortably manageable with four people exactly, but Prim wanted a little brother or sister. She begged for a little sibling, and she got her wish.

It means that I have five mouths to feed instead of four, and another six years to worry during reapings instead of just Prim's last four, but I don't mind because I love our little addition all the same, my little duck and my little Flower.

As soon as I open the door, everyone stops what they're doing. My mother was stirring a pot of stew, Prim was hiding behind her hands in a game with Flower who sits on our father's lap. Flower isn't interested in the game anymore because she's curious to see what's in my bag.

Like me and Prim at that age, when our father would come home from hunting, it was wondrous to see what was in his forage bag, what strange creatures lurked beyond the fence. I guess for Flower it's no different except the hunter is me.

Flower squirms off of his lap and toddles over to the table with Prim by her side. She can't see anything being that her head clears the underside of the table so Prim lifts her up and into her arms for both to have a good look.

The first thing I pull out is a rabbit. Prim used to love rabbits. She says it was because of their fur, but I think she secretly hoped that one day I would bring her back one alive as a pet. Several years of rabbit stew has made that dream fade. Flower, on the other hand, can't take her eyes off of the squirrel I pull from the bag. She loves to play with their bushy tails. There are two of them to go with the rabbit which could keep us fed for almost another week, but we can't live on meat alone. My father has the same thought as he says, "You might be able to trade a squirrel or two for bread, Katniss."

It's still early enough to get it over with, so I return the squirrels to the sack, kiss the forehead of a pouty Flower, and then give Prim a quick kiss on hers before heading to town. I know it will be filled with people because it's the busiest time of day in town. By the time I get there, it is.

So I don't have to worry much about the baker's shrew of a wife noticing me when they have so many customers. Still, I slip to the back of the bakery to avoid her, knock, and hope that she's still too busy in the bakery to answer. Thankfully, Mr. Mellark is the one to greet me with a wide smile. I can see two of his sons at the table behind him with their heads bowed, reading their schoolbooks for whatever assignments they have. I wouldn't know about that because I dropped out six years ago after my father's injuries, after I had to hunt full time to feed my family.

Peeta's gaze locks onto me the moment his father says my name and hasn't moved since. Even when Mr. Mellark leaves the door, promising two loaves of bread for two fat squirrels, Peeta still stares. I look around me, noticing the slight splintering of the door frame and how the paint is just starting to peel, how the steps to the door are cracked and need replacing soon. I'm desperate to look at anything but what's in front of me, but I can't help myself.

As soon as my focus lifts again, I see his brother cough before he slides a book across the table, knocking it into Peeta's book slightly. It's enough to get his attention, force it away from me. His brother tilts his head to the table, a not-so-subtle hint that Peeta should get back to his studies.

He tries. For a second or two, he does look back down at the book, but no matter how far his head tilts downward, his eyes are up and on me. His gaze is too intense, and I can't hold it for very long before my head drops and I stare at my worn leather boots that have suddenly become very fascinating.

I'm never more thankful than I am when Mr. Mellark returns with the bread and we make our swap so that I can be off to return home.

I wake up at the sounds of chatter in the central room, and I don't have to see to know who they belong to. Prim is feeding Flower her breakfast. Before Flower, I was the first to wake in the morning for hunting, but Flower wakes up earlier than me. Even though we sleep in the same bed, Prim curled around our little sister who sleeps between us, Prim makes sure to be up and out of bed before they both wake me. It gives me a few extra minutes of sleep that I appreciate.

With my hunting clothes and boots, I leave our room and see what I expected to see: Flower's propped up on a stack of school books on a chair being fed her meal of boiled seeds found in the woods. She's giggling as Prim circles a spoonful in front of her and gives her a funny face.

"Good morning, little duck," I say to Prim and give her a peck on her temple and do the same for Flower.

My instinct is to offer to take care of Flower and let Prim spend time outside of the house with friends, but I stop myself. The last time I offered didn't go well at all. It was the time she let me know just how hard it was for her in the Seam.

"I don't have friends, Katniss," she told me in a voice that didn't seem hurt but it broke my heart. As gentle and sweet as Prim is, she should have plenty of friends, but she's half Seam, half merchant just like me but worse. People from town want nothing to do with us because we're part Seam which, in their eyes, is the same thing as full Seam. To them, Seam are nothing but thieves who lie and cheat at every opportunity. They see Seam the way the Capitol sees everyone from the outer districts.

At least Seam folk accept me because I look like them with my dark hair and olive skin and gray eyes. Prim doesn't even have that. When Seam look at her blond hair, blue eyes and fair skin, they see merchant. Never mind that she was born and raised in the same poverty and social injustices as any of us.

Even the Hawthorne boys who walk her to school everyday aren't comfortable around her, always keeping conversation to the weather or something equally safe and simple. They walk with her as a favor to me and nothing more.

I've always known her life in the Seam hasn't been easy, but until she said those words to me, I never understood by how much. And it was the first day I understood why she wanted a little sister or brother. She'd hoped that she would have someone like her so she wouldn't be alone anymore. Someone like her that would understand completely what it was like to be in her situation. As I look at my two sisters with their blond hair and blue eyes and flushed fair skin, I'm glad that she got her wish, but it also makes me worry for Flower as well.

I'm tired after checking the snares in the mud, but at least I got a fat beaver for my troubles to go with the rabbits and squirrels. All I can think of is the wash basin where I can soak my weary muscles before curling into bed. It's even a possibility that I might forgo dinner; I'm that tired.

The first thing that I notice at home, though, is the missing sounds of a full house. I don't hear Flower's giggles while Prim plays with her. There's soft chatter, but it's even and mature: my parents.

I open the door and confirm that they aren't inside. My mother's helping my father into his favorite chair as I step past the threshold of the front door. "Oh, Katniss. Your friend, Madge, was here to see you," my mother says to me, and I wonder what Madge could have wanted. I know she uses any excuse to come into the Seam, a bit of rebellion for her as the mayor's daughter.

And then my mother continues, "When we told her you weren't here, she took the girls into town for cookies."

Madge. Cookies. The bakery.

I drop my bag on the floor and rush out the door, ignoring my father and mother calling for me, asking if there's something wrong. It's the weekend, a Sunday, and everyone is in town buying what they need, including the miners as it is their day off.

In front of the bakery, I see Madge and Prim standing by the counter. A few steps more and I see Mr. Mellark with Flower in his arm behind it, cooing to make her smile. She's beaming from all of the attention, and I walk inside. Everyone looks to see who's just entered the bakery and smile when they see me. Then Prim gets a puzzled look on her face because she recognizes that the expression I must wear on my face isn't good.

"Katniss, I was just telling Prim here that your baby sister is the cutest thing," Mr. Mellark says, unable to take his eyes off of Flower.

I take a tentative step closer towards them as though my slow moments will keep the situation under control. There's nothing to worry about because Flower is my sister and Mr. Mellark has always been kind to Everdeens, and just like that, Flower traces his eyebrows, his eyelids and his nose with her wet pointer finger that had come straight from her mouth. She does this all of the time with us, but it's different with family. Some people wouldn't appreciate spittle, even toddler spittle, on their face.

Mr. Mellark laughs heartily and I relax a little until he says, "My youngest used to do that all the time. His special way of finger painting."

My eyes grow wide at the words, and it's only then that I notice Peeta Mellark standing in the doorway of the back room with a tray in his hands. Mr. Mellark's words—I'm sure he'd heard—my reaction, and his eyes soaking in every detail of Flower starts the wheels turning. And then Mr. Mellark twists the knife in my gut, "You said her name's Flour? Like bread flour?"

I don't wait for Prim to correct him. I don't think. I rush forward and snatch Flower from Mr. Mellark's arms before sprinting out of the bakery and down the road towards the Seam.

I hear my name called by two voices. One's telling me to slow down while the other is telling me to stop. I don't do either as I hold Flower closer to my body and nestle my face at the crown of her head to push on. She's starting to whimper. I'm sure my sudden and strange behavior is leaving her uneasy and the only thing comforting her at the moment is being in familiar arms.

Prim catches up with me and tries to keep my pace but by the look of the ruddy color in her face, it wasn't easy and still isn't. "Katniss? Did I do something wrong?"

My mind is in a billion different directions, so I can't think of an answer, not even a simple, "No." It's worse when I hear Peeta call my name behind us, angrier each time and Prim chances a look behind but doesn't dare stop or she'll have to catch up with me all over again. Lucky for her, unlucky for me, Peeta pulls at my arm and steps in front of me, enough to stop me in my tracks. He's red-faced and breathing hard, but I don't think it's all from running.

The first thing I do is try to walk around him, but he won't let me by stepping in my way with each movement all the while taking a good look at the toddler in my arms. Flower hides her face in my chest and starts to tremble a little. His voice had been harsh calling my name and the look on his face can't be helping the situation.

"Katniss," he says my name a little softer, and Flower peeks under her blond curls; her curiosity's won out. I'm sure the little peek of her eyes is enough. Her eyes aren't my mother's and sister's shade of blue, but another shade that I'm sure he's very familiar with every time he looks in a mirror. It's the shade of blue that are leveled hard on me at the moment.

Nothing is said for an eternity until I gather enough courage to hand Flower to Prim. "Take her home," is all I say. Prim's about to question me, but something snaps in her mind at that very moment. Her eyes dart from Flower's face to Peeta's and then grow wide before she recovers. The last thing I see is her practically shielding Flower's body in her arms before she leaves for the Seam.

To make matters worse, him shouting my name down the road has caused people to look curiously in our direction as we stand there face to face in the middle of the road.

"Katniss? Do you have something to tell me?" he asks me. He's trying to remain calm but he's losing the battle.

"No," is all I say.

There's a hard set to his wide jaw as it clenches and unclenches with his mounting annoyance. I try to walk away again, and he doesn't step in my way but instead walks in step with me. It's now that I know he won't let this go, so I lead him to the backyard of the old, abandoned apothecary my mother's parents once owned. It's not completely private, but at least it's away from the curious eyes on us.

"Who is she, Katniss?"

No matter how I try to fight them, the tears well in my eyes and I'm forced to look away from the pair of blue that are identical to Flower's. "My baby sister," I mutter weakly because, at the moment, I can't even convince myself of the lie I've been telling for a little over a year.

"She's not your baby sister," he says firmly.

"Does it matter?" I sigh. The weight of the situation is crushing me, and I'm having a hard time breathing.

"Does it matter? Does it matter?" Each word is louder than the last. "If she's my daughter, our daughter, it matters a whole hell of a lot, Katniss!"

I'm tired and all I want to do is go home. I want to go back to my safe, comfortable life and live in the lie again because it worked that way. I can't think of myself as a mother or him as the father of my child because it's too much. Like the day I found out that I was pregnant, it's too much to think about. I remember crying in my room, unable to do anything else for days until Prim came in and cried with me. She curled around me and begged me not to take the herbs our mother gives to the other Seam girls.

She thought of the idea to raise the baby as our sibling, and begged that I would allow it. She begged that I would let her have a little sister or brother until I relented because she seemed so sure and I had no idea of what to do.

And now I have to face it all over again. One night of weakness, a desperation to be something other than the responsible daughter, filled with drinking and flattering words of love and devotion from a merchant boy. He wasn't suppose to know, and more importantly, he wasn't suppose to care. Merchant folk expect this from Seam, expect promiscuity and unexpected pregnancies.

I think of all of the things I've heard merchants say about Seam. I think about sweet Prim with no friends and having to walk with the Hawthorne boys for safety, and all of those thoughts make me shiver with new found anger and grit my teeth until what I'm feeling comes out in growled words. "Even if she were, then what? One parent from the Seam, one from town. A Seam girl. She's Seam Peeta, and you're not."

The last thing I say before I leave him behind the old apothecary is, "She's my sister, Peeta." He doesn't follow me, and I'm thankful for it.

I get home and hear a voice inside the house that doesn't belong to any of my family. I press my body against the wall of the house and hope they can't see me through the window as I heave to take every single breath. I'm afraid of who it may be. It's been days since Peeta confronted me, and my first fear was that he'd come to my home for whatever insane reason to declare himself Flower's father.

But the voice isn't his. The voice is of the eldest Hawthorne and then his father starts to laugh with my father. The three voices together settles my stomach and relaxes my muscles. I ready myself to enter the house when I hear their conversation more clearly.

"I tell you, it was the damnedest thing. The boy came right in as proud as he pleased and we thought it was a prank," Mr. Hawthorne says. "You know how they like to prank us every now and then." I hear my father agree just as my heart takes a heavy thud.

I'm sorry I can't have the rest of my story posted here. Some of my stories have been posted to other sites without my permission from this site. I'm probably not going to post anything more than fragments of any story to this site anymore. Again, sorry for the inconvenience.