"Here you go baby girl," Cato said, and plopped a chocolate chip pancake on the toddler's plate, and then placed a sippy cup of milk next to it. She furrowed her brow at him and huffed, swiping the cup off of the high chair tray, frustrated that she couldn't have a real glass like everyone else. He laughed. He would never say it out loud to anyone, but she was his favorite. She had olive skin and fine, straight dark hair and gray eyes. And that expression. God, that expression.

"Can you cut that up for her?" he asked Violet, gesturing to the pancake.

"Yep," his daughter said.

"Thanks." He turned back to the griddle to scoop out 12 more ladlefuls of pancake batter, and as he looked out at the backyard through the kitchen window, he noticed a chip in the dark green paint of the window frame.

It made him sad because it made him think of her.

She'd been gone for eleven months.

"Dad," his son Peeta said, "here." And he handed him a bag of chocolate chips.

He shook himself out of his melancholy and smiled as he took the bag. "Thanks." It's ok he said to himself. You'll see her soon.

He looked down at the long kitchen counter in the second house he had built. The one they'd moved into when they'd outgrown the first one. It was an absolute mess. But he chuckled to himself. He wouldn't have to clean it up. That was part of the deal.

10 cups of flour

8 tablespoons of sugar

8 tablespoons of baking powder

2 teaspoons of salt

16 eggs

8 cups of milk

1 pound of butter

6 teaspoons vanilla extract

4 bags of chocolate chips

3 glass bottles of maple syrup

7 bunches of bananas

3 pounds of bacon

2 gallons of milk

2 gallons of orange juice

Ungodly amounts of coffee

That was how much food it took, on average, to feed them all breakfast on Sunday mornings.

His five children.

And their five partners.

And their fourteen children.

And their eleven partners.

And their five children, ranging in age from ten to T minus three weeks and counting.

Except all of a sudden, as he stood there studying his family, his grandson Logan's wife Ella placed a hand on her swollen belly, her eyes wide.

No one else seemed to have noticed, but Cato knew that look. He'd seen it on his wife's face. And the faces of his daughters and granddaughters. It was the look that signaled that t minus three weeks and counting had just turned into ready for liftoff.

He let out a chuckle, and Ella glanced over at him. Their eyes met and the corners of her mouth turned up.

"Is it time?" He asked the question so softly there was no way she heard him above the din of chatter and laughter and silverware clattering and huskies whining as they begged for bacon.

But she read his lips and nodded. "Sorry about the cushion."

He shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first time."

They shared one more smile and then Ella turned to Logan and tugged on his sleeve.

xxxxxxxxxx

The next afternoon, he turned his face up towards the sun as he walked the half mile or so to Logan and Ella's house to meet his new great-grandson. His body ached-he was 81, after all-but his heart was strong and he made himself move everyday, afraid that if he sat down for too long, he wouldn't be able to get back up. And there was so much to do and so many people to see.

His best buddy Conor, who had worked with him for decades at the masonry workshop and had retired at the same time he had, lived a few houses down. He was sitting on his front porch with his wife and they were sipping iced tea. "Come have a glass!" he called as Cato passed.

"I can't. Ella had the baby last night!" he called back cheerfully. " A boy. Six pounds five ounces."

"Name?" Conor's wife called.

"Rohan!"

"Give them our congratulations!"

When he reached their house, which was bursting at the seams with family and friends, they immediately sat him in the easy chair. Each of his fourteen grandchildren had one at their place. "Grandpa's throne," they called it, and it was a given that whoever was sitting in it ceded it to him whenever he arrived.

"Here you go Grandpa," Logan said once he was settled and had taken a few sips of lemonade from the glass his great-granddaughter Avery brought him. And he placed little Rohan in Cato's arms.

By this point he was well aware that "love at first sight" was not a myth.

And that infants could wrap grown men around their little fingers in less than a second.

But his throat still closed up. And his eyes still filled with tears.

A collective Awww went around the room.

"Oh he does it every time," Ella said to one of her sisters as he swiped his hand across his face. "It never gets old for him. Hundreds of thousands of diapers that man has changed."

"And gallons of breast milk have been regurgitated on his shoulders," Violet added.

"Gross Grandma!" That was Avery.

Cato looked at his oldest daughter, whose once-dark hair was now completely silver and whose face was almost as wrinkled as his, and thought back to that day so long ago when she'd spit up on his shoulder and saved him from that awkward moment as Katniss cried over Peeta Mellark.

And then he looked back down at baby Rohan. It was a little early to tell, but he thought maybe this one favored his mother in looks.

The infant opened his eyes and his mouth and let out a tiny mewl and then he blinked slowly. And the oldest and youngest members of the Hadley clan met each other's eyes for the first time.

"Hi little guy," Cato whispered. "Welcome to the world. I'm so glad to meet you. I'm sorry your great-grandma couldn't be here."

And he blinked back another wave of tears and lifted his eyes to survey his family, who had all gone back to whatever it was they'd been doing before he arrived.

"Look Katniss," he whispered. "Look at what we created."