Kindred

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Katniss moved to shut the door. She would have been successful, too, if it hadn't been for Peeta placing his hand on the door firmly, pushing against it to hold it back. "What are you doing?" he asked incredulously.

"Shutting the door," Katniss stated. Wasn't that obvious?

"You can't just leave her out there!"

"She's not coming in here!"

Peeta pulled an expression of disbelief. It was splattered all over his face like spots of paint. Katniss stared back at him, right in the eyes. Something she hadn't been able to do until this exact moment. What did he want her to do? Bring the baby inside? Her depression was forgotten momentarily as she glared at Peeta the way she used to in the years before they were reaped for the Games. When life was not easy but easier than it was now. When she felt like she owed him everything and despised him for it.

Haymitch comes strolling out of the kitchen. "What's going on out here? Why are you two standing in the doorway gawking? Shesh, if I thought you were going to get on like this I would have suggested Sae and I eat at my place. You could cut the sexual tension with a knif"-He stopped dead in the doorway, staring out onto the doorstep through the gap between Peeta and Katniss. Then he started to laugh.

Katniss broke her gaze with Peeta to glare at Haymitch sharply. "What's so funny?" she snapped.

"Is that a kid?" Haymitch moved to pick the basket up but Katniss moved in front of him twice as fast. Her old mentor looked at her with weary eyes. "What are you doing sweetheart?"

"You're not bringing a baby in here," said Katniss.

"What do you say we do with her then?" Haymitch challenged.

"I don't know! It's not my responsibility!" Katniss exclaimed. Who would leave a baby on her doorstep anyway? She wasn't looking for children, she never wanted them in fact. She wasn't a loving or affectionate person. Who in their right mind thought, 'Oh look, there's Katniss Everdeen's house, I'm sure she'd take in my baby no problem!'?

Peeta's eyes had turned sympathetic. "Katniss, we can't leave a baby out in the cold. We're just going to bring her in for a few minutes until we can figure out what to do with her," he said gently. He touched Katniss' arm, his hand making heat bloom on contact. Katniss jerked her arm away instinctively, knowing how her damaged skin felt and not wanting Peeta to know how withered she was.

Katniss shook her head. No. She didn't want a baby in her house. It was wrong. Morally and principally. She wasn't good with children. She'd mess it up, somehow. Drop the baby; knock the basket over; have a mental breakdown and injure the infant in some way. She physically couldn't do it. What was the other option, though? Shut the door and let the kid freeze to death? Which would come first, freezing or starving to death?

Peeta moved around Katniss slowly, picking the basket up as carefully as he could. Katniss remained rooted to the spot, powerless to stop him as he handed the basket to Haymitch who then took it into the kitchen. Peeta stayed in the doorway with Katniss. "It's okay," he said with a voice that made a shiver slither down Katniss' spine. It was his nightmare voice. The voice he used to use when they shared a bed. The voice that anchored Katniss to reality. The voice that ripped through her broken dreams and rescued her without fail. Before they were torn apart, that was.

"Why would anyone leave a child here?" Katniss said shakily. "What do they want me to do?"

"Maybe they don't want you to do anything. Maybe they just want you to find someone who will look after Willow," Peeta assured her. The very fact that he could call the baby by her name already made Katniss want to punch him and hug him at the exact same time. He was so easily accepting that it made everyone else look like heartless beasts.