My thanks to norbertsmom for beating for being an amazing friend. To all the ladies who inspired me and provided me with the song, Sorrowful Angels by Patty Loveless ….a bluegrass tune that I could hear Katniss singing. Go on listen to it then read the story!

**Part 1

"Mother really," Katniss said. She shook her head, scandalized. She fed her mother some of Peeta's prized carrot cake. It was near her mother's bedtime, but this was their time to speak. Her mother sat on the bed in her shift, her white hair spilling over her shoulders. Evelyn Everdeen looked so much older than her age.

It was the life they led living in the district.

Evelyn smacked her lips and rubbed her tummy to let Katniss know it was delicious. She couldn't speak because of a stroke she suffered a few years back. In the beginning, she could not move; slowly she relearned how to walk. Evelyn was slow, but she had mobility. However, the stroke left her mute, so she and Katniss developed shorthand so that they could communicate.

"I know Peeta's cake is delicious." Katniss' mouth watered.

In the kitchen sat half a carrot cake. Peeta made it special for them. It was delicious. He made it with real vanilla bean syrup, carrot shavings, freshly ground cinnamon, and raisins because her mother could not eat nuts. For the filling, he took cream cheese frosting and mixed it with coconut. Katniss wanted very badly to eat all of it. She inhaled as she focused on her mother.

Her mom moved her hands slowly.

"That cannot be true!" Katniss blinked.

Her mother moved her frail hands detailing another set of words.

"Mrs. Alcott and Mrs. Bronte are fighting?"

Her mother nodded as she spelled out who she heard it from. She couldn't believe the goings on within the district. People often forgot her mother's memory and her hearing were intact.

"They are fighting for the Widow Brown." Katniss laughed. Mr. Brown, recently widowed, was a small little man with a bald head and beady nervous eyes. Somehow he became the 'it' man all the available widowed women wanted.

Evelyn snorted and rolled her pale clouded blue eyes.

"Mother, you're shameful," Katniss uttered as she spooned another piece of cake into her mother's willing mouth. There were few things her mother was able to stomach these days. Mellark's rich desserts were among them. Katniss, determined to make sure her mother ate more than just clear broths, always fed her mother a soft pastry.

Her mother put her finger to her lips.

"Don't worry I'd never tell," Katniss promised.

Her frail mother nodded.

The things her mother knew about the people in the district would break up marriages. Evelyn signed again.

Katniss coughed, her eyes widened. "How?" she questioned.

Evelyn pointed to her eyes.

"Mother Gale and Ivy just had a baby."

Her mother scrunched her face.

Katniss could not believe what her mother told her about Gale's and Ivy's marriage. "How you know these things, I don't know?"

Katniss scooped another mouthful of cake into her mother's mouth. She thought of him again, and she sighed.

Her mother tapped on her knees. She looked up and blinked, watching her mother sign. She turned pink.

"Mother, Peeta is my friend."

Her mother made another movement.

"He'd never want anyone like me. I'm not particularly pretty."

Peeta was the rare young unmarried man in the district amongst the few widowed miners. The female to male ratio in District Twelve was tripled compared to other districts. Peeta was beautiful and the town baker, she was no one. Katniss looked down at her chubby thighs. Her legs were no longer slender. Nothing about her appealed to any of the men in the district, not that she wanted any of them. When she was younger, she vowed never to marry. Now at 33, she had kept her oath.

Her mother slapped the palm of her hand on the bed and pointed to Katniss.

"I do not make faces at him."

Evelyn gave Katniss a 'are you kidding me look' that caused Katniss to blush.

Reluctantly Katniss said, "Okay, so maybe I look at him. He is attractive."

Evelyn furiously moved her hands.

"Mother this is not your fault. I made my choice long before Prim left or Gale got married," Katniss said, trying to convince herself as well. In the early days when she was young, fit, and mildly attractive it did not bother her to be alone. Now, as the years passed and everything except her weight became stagnant, Katniss felt an immense sense of loneliness.

She was content, but not joyful.

She yearned for more.

She missed speaking to people. Everyone she knew moved on with their lives except for her. She wanted a chance to do something more, but couldn't. Her mother needed her. Her gray eyes lovingly took in her mother, and she knew she couldn't leave. "You need me."

Her mother pointed to Katniss and then to the cake then to her heart.

"You think I love him?"

Her mother took Katniss hand put her hand on her lips. Katniss read her lips. "Katniss you've been in love with Peeta Mellark since you were a little girl."

"Mother, how could you know?" Katniss shook her head to deny it, but her mother stopped her by placing her weathered hand on her cheek. Begrudgingly she admitted, "Okay, yes you're right. I do like him."

Her mother spoke so quickly.

"Mom, I'm fat. Peeta...he's..." Her mother did not listen. She was busy yelling at her.

"Mother, you're wrong. He doesn't like me." Katniss shook her head no. "He only thinks of me as a friend." The next thing her mother said made Katniss's mouth hang. "He stares at my chest and butt?"

Evelyn nodded.

"Mother!" Katniss whispered, blushing fiercely.

Her mother was having the time of her life embarrassing Katniss.

"You want me to ride his pickle!" Katniss blushed. Pickle is what Katniss called a man's anatomy. "Momma!"

Her mother laughed silently.

"Stop laughing. That wasn't funny. I don't think I need to get laid."

Her mother nodded.

Katniss crossed her arms over her chest and scowled.

Her mother tugged on her sleeve.

She glanced at her mother then saw the soft smile and the twinkle in her cloudy blue eyes. She threw her hands up in the air. "Fine, I promise that one day I will tell him how I feel."

Happy with her promise, her mother settle back on her pillow opening her mouth for the last piece of cake.

"I should make you brush your gums."

Evelyn stuck her tongue out at Katniss.

Katniss laughed. She gently wiped her mother's face then kissed the top of her head.

Her mother tugged on her sleeve.

"Yes momma?"

"Sing me the song," Evelyn asked.

Katniss smiled. The dark days song Sorrowful Angels was one of the saddest songs of unrequited love. It was sung by the Seam folk often, and it wasn't until recently that people even knew who sang it because it was played over the television. Even the singer's name, Patty Loveless, sounded heartbreaking. It became all the rage in Panem, yet for Katniss this was her parent's song. The one her father used to sing to her mother whenever they danced in the middle of the night.

Evelyn smiled and closed her eyes.

"Okay momma." Katniss began to sing.

"She loved him most when his eyes were gray

The palest shade of a winter day

They filled her with a raging fire

And a bittersweet desire

She shined for him like candlelight

That softly beckons in the night

But he said no right to her face

Then simply turned and walked away

All Heaven watched from way on high

True love given and denied

And while her heart was broke and bleeding

Sorrowful angels wept into their wings"

Katniss glanced down to find a single tear slipped from her mother's eye and trailed down her weathered cheek. "Momma?"

Her mother smiled gently and signed that she was alright, but ready to go to sleep.

"Good night, mother."

Evelyn smiled and waved as Katniss lowered the oil lamp. Electricity in the Seam often went out. Something's never changed in Panem.

She made her way to the kitchen. The song still in her head. It worked on her soul, she felt restless like a bird that had never flown but ached to do so. Her gray eyes took in the modest kitchen. That half cake sat on the table. She felt an urge to cry as she put her mother's plate in the sink. Instead of bawling she took a fork and sat down with the cake and ate it one bite at a time.

In her state of unhappiness she drowned her sorrows with cake and the cheese buns Peeta made just for her. She savored each one. The cheese buns were not sold at the bakery. These were just for her.

"MMMMM" Katniss moaned, happily thinking of the man Peeta became.

They'd grown up, both single as their nation changed.

Drastic changes took place in Panem in the past seventeen years.

For one, she wasn't a painfully thin girl hunting to survive anymore, nor did she or anyone else have to worry about the Hunger Games. After the 75th Games, Snow died. His lying scheming ways caught up to him. He began coughing blood as he gave a speech and fell dead. It appeared as if the poison he'd been using against anyone that didn't agree with him finally killed him.

Then Finnick Odair's Memoirs came out. It detailed all the cruelty he faced from the time he won the Games until the day Snow died. In the light of his book, the nation discovered that Finnick wasn't the only Victor who suffered. Miraculously, the Games that were once highly prized lost their appeal. Many of the restrictions the Capitol held over the districts were repealed. The changes were radical and the youth of the nation greedily embraced them. The older generation were forced to acclimate to a new way of life. It took time, nearly a decade really, for things to settle.

Free commerce and travel amongst the districts opened.

The country held its first elections, and a woman from District Eight won. Paylor Jones became the most beloved women in the nation. Under her, District 13 came out from hiding and joined Panem.

People moved from one district to another, reaping the benefits of the knowledge found there. Those with the financial ability left District Twelve, leaving behind only those who couldn't afford to move. Primrose Everdeen married Vic Hawthorne shortly after he finished school. Katniss' sister and her husband were two of the few who benefited from the changes. They moved to District Three where she became a medical doctor while he studied bionic technology.

Things like this made people's prejudices stop over time.

A miners job became revered when the pay tripled. Some Merchant youths worked in the mines to gain enough money to move away. The divide between the Merchants and the people of Seam came to an end. To stay afloat, Merchants whose children left the district offered Seam kids apprenticeships. In the end, some even married into the family.

For Peeta, he did not have the money to leave. He became his brother's helper. When Prim left, Katniss stayed behind. Katniss and Peeta held many things in common and bonded over them through the years.

He became her one and only true friend.

Katniss wistfully thought of him. Her boy with the bread turned into a man. A beautiful example of manhood: broad muscular chest, defined arms, tapered waist, but he still maintained his boyish good looks. She'd never forgotten the bread he threw to her. Never forgot he volunteered to help Prim and Vic facilitate their move to District Three.

Peeta always helped her and in return he only requested her friendship. In her mind it wasn't enough to repay his kindness. A selfish creature that she was, she craved his presence, his goodness, and his physicality. She envisioned his large hands kneading the dough. The way his lips twisted upwards right before he said something shocking or naughty. The way his kind eyes lit up when he helped someone. Wonderful, genuine and caring were some of the words she would use to describe him.

The lucky girl who finally caught Peeta Mellark was going to enjoy a lifetime of happiness and cheese buns.

Glancing up, her vision blurred and she blinked her tears away.

Katniss' mother's health took a drastic turn shortly after Prim left. Katniss became her caretaker and her life revolved around her mother. Food became abundant; Katniss did not need to hunt anymore, but she loved to eat. She gained weight over the years, nearly forty pounds. She wasn't the rail thin girl from her youth. She was a woman now of thirty-three and a confirmed spinster.

The word spinster was a curse, but a blessing.

She didn't have the same relationship pains as Gale had, but she wanted companionship. The requirements were simple, someone to sleep next to during the cold months or someone to speak to in the middle of the night. Standing up, she slowly scrubbed the plate, and her mind, once again, slipped to Peeta. When the water ran cold, she focused in on her pudgy fingers.

It's all surreal. Time passed so quickly.

When did she get old?

Where did her life go?

Katniss went to her porch and sat down, reflecting. Her stomach felt full, having eaten half a cake and about a dozen cheese buns. A silent tear fell down her face, wiping it she decided with determination to change her life. She decided to take a giant leap.

She decided to lose weight, because of all of the things she didn't have control of, she had control over what she ate. If she could gain control over this then she could slowly gain control of her life. Possibly even be encouraged to spreads her wings and take flight.