did someone ask for Peeta’s parents being cute? just me? okay, that’ll work. I think this could be canon-compliant, but it could also be an AU in which Peeta’s family is functional (think of all the good angst we could get from that … his mother coming to give him a genuine goodbye? my heart?) … anyway, here’s Wonderwall
The summer after Caroline Axson ran away with a coal miner, Marta Becker found herself standing at the foot of the old apple tree outside the bakery, waiting for Bara Mellark to finish his shift, and trying not to feel jealous about being second best.
She’d compensated for the feeling by wearing her best. Her best dress, a pale lavender number inherited from her fastidiously neat cousin Ilsa, and matching ribbons in her candy floss hair. Her best shoes, shined so thoroughly they practically sparkled. Her mother’s necklace, a generations battered locket in the shape of a heart, with the weathered photo of some long dead Becker ancestor inside. It wasn’t perfect, but it was her best.
She perked up at the pleasant ring of the bakery bell, and the familiar snap of the screen door, as Samuel Mellark’s oldest son came down the rickety stairs, holding a paper bag. He looked tired, and sweaty, what with standing guard over the big ovens all day, but he smiled when he caught sight of her, and her heart gave a small skip.
“I was hoping you’d be here,” Bara Mellark said.
“Were you?” she replied, half-teasing, half-genuinely curious.
“Course I was,” he said, cheeks dimpling. “Pa’s in a shit mood because our flour shipment’s late. Like I can help that.”
Marta rolled her eyes. “Like any of us can. Do you still want to come to market with me? We don’t have to.”
Bara rubbed the back of his neck with a large palm. “I was thinking we could go down to Red Bridge?” He held up the paper bag, which looked like it was holding something heavy, a bottle of some sort. “I may have got us something.”
“You didn’t steal us alcohol, did you?” Marta asked, eyes widening. It wasn’t that she was opposed to the idea. In fact, the notion of sitting on Red Bridge with their feet dangling over the creek, and sharing a sun-warmed bottle of whiskey between their lips sounded dangerously romantic. It just didn’t sound like Bara Mellark.
“I didn’t steal it,” he said. “I bought it, fair and square.” Then his face colored bashfully. “Well, I said it was for my father, for baking. But it’s not. It’s for us. That is — I mean — if you want.”
Marta laughed in surprise and delight. “I’d love to! But isn’t that expensive?” It wasn’t that alcohol was in short supply in 12. One could get their fill of spirits, from something resembling a decent blackberry wine to powerful bathtub gin that was more useful for sterilizing wounds than drinking, but they all came at a hefty price.
But Bara only shrugged. “I saved up. Saved my tips. My birthday money.”
“Why?” Marta inquired, wondering if he ever saved up money to share whiskey with Caroline Axson at Red Bridge, and then trying not to think of it.
Bara smiled. “You deserve the best,” he said. He held out his hand for hers. “Should we go? Before Pa can put me back to work?”
The words made Marta’s feet feel light in her sparkling shoes, and she felt drunk without having taken a sip of the bottle. She took his hand, and, before she could lose her nerve, she kissed his cheek, laughing when he blushed so fiercely, it was as if her lips had sunburned him.
“Yes,” she said, feeling suddenly that it didn’t matter if Caroline Axson had once been in her place. She was here now, and she was going to make the best of it.
