fourfinnick's Gift!
Title: Let it Snow
Rating: General audiences
Pairings: Everlark
___________
1955
“Oh, no,” I murmured softly as my engine began to sputter and the car began to shake. “Please, don't do this. Don't you know it's Christmas Eve?” Apparently, my old Chevy didn't know or care much about Christmas because no sooner were the words out of my mouth than it shuttered to a halt along the snow covered road.
My mother had tried to talk me out of making the two hour trip home that day, but I hadn't listened. It seemed that I had been doomed right from the start of the snow when I was only a few miles from the city. Most intelligent people would have turned right back around then, but it had been almost a year since I had seen Mom and Prim. A few snow flakes weren't going to keep me home, I reasoned. If only it had been just a few snow flakes! By the half way point, I could barely see the road and hadn't seen another car in over an hour. Night fell without me making it back in time for the candle light service at church. I knew that Mom would be worrying enough for both of us, so I tried to keep my calm. It had worked, too. I didn't panic until the car died still miles from town.
I pulled my wool coat tighter around my body and said a little prayer to whoever felt like listening that it would start if I just tried it again in a few minutes. Turning the key in the ignition, I frowned as the car let out a sound that was half way between a groan and a screech. A few of the more colorful curse words I had learned from Haymitch tumble out of my lips. The choice between sitting around along the road and freezing to death or trekking along it and still freezing was before me. Just as I had prepared to open the car door, I saw headlights coming around the bend. Like a Christmas miracle, a truck pulled to a stop a few yards away from me. I said a brief thanks to the man upstairs as a figure got out and headed my way. It wasn't until I saw who was coming to my rescue that I realized that my bad luck was still holding out. Squinting against the light, I recognized the broad shoulders and blond hair of Peeta Mellark.
I rolled down the window as he approached. “No need to trouble yourself. You can get right back in your truck and leave,” I said firmly, hoping my voice would carry over the arctic wind raging outside.
“I should have known it was you,” he grumbled. “Only you would be dumb enough to try to drive all the way out here in this kind of weather.”
“So says the man who is also out in the storm.”
There was something about Peeta that brought out my worst temper. We'd been bickering back and forth since we'd been in grade school. It had actually started way back when we were cast as Joseph and Mary in the Christmas pageant and lasted until he'd gone off to the army and I'd gone to college in the city. To be honest, I couldn't even say what had started our little feud. Maybe it had all started because he was just a farm boy and my family ran the drug store in town. Whatever the real reason, I had spent a good hunk of my life hating Peeta.
Seemingly ignoring my jibe, he motioned to his still running truck. “Don't just sit there like a bump on a log. Get in the truck, and I'll take you to my place. You'll freeze out here.”
My better judgment crept up on me, and I grabbed my bags from the backseat. Without even asking if I needed the help, Peeta plucked the heaviest items from my grasp before trudging back to the truck leaving me in his wake. I had to grit my teeth not to let my smart mouth run away from me as I hopped up into the seat of the truck.
“My farm's only about a mile away. You're lucky I decided to chance the roads and go to church tonight,” he said flatly as he kicked the snow off of his boots before getting in beside me. It didn't take a genius to see that he was feeling anything but lucky that night.
“If you made it here from town, don't you think you could make it back?” I asked pasting on a hopeful smile.
“Look out there.” He gestured to the barely visible road ahead. “I'd take you if I could, but do you really think that's an option?”
I sighed heavily. “You're right.”
The truck moved at a snail's pace, and seemed to move all the slower for the silence that stretched out between us. With Peeta's eyes on the road, I used the opportunity to sneak peeks at him unnoticed. He'd been a bit round faced as a boy, but his features had thinned and hardened with age. His hair was longer than I ever remembered it being and blond curls escaped his knit hat. If I was seeing him for the first time, I probably would have thought he was handsome. My work as a journalist had taught me to recognized a prejudiced opinion, even my own.
“Thanks for picking me up,” I said reluctantly as we turned down a familiar lane. I could see the Mellark farmhouse's vague outline through the snow, and it looked a heck of a lot cozier than my car.
He smiled and put the truck in park. “You're welcome. I promise I'll get you into town as soon as the snow lets up. My older brother, Rye bought the garage a few years back. I'm sure he'd be willing to take the tow truck out tomorrow for an old friend.”
“Is that what you're calling me?” I asked thoughtfully.
With a quick nod, he opened the door and slipped outside before I could say anything else.
This time as I followed him up the marginally shoveled walkway, I noticed that he walked with a pronounced limp. The deep snow had camouflaged his infirmity, and I had completely forgotten that my mother had told me that he'd been injured in Korea a couple of years earlier. Mom had never really approved of how the two of us fought and had always assumed that I was to blame. When he'd come home from the war as a hero, she'd only used it as farther proof that Peeta was innocent in our little feud. I'd actually resented him for his service at the time, but watching him drag his stiff leg up the front stairs, I felt a twinge of guilt for my pettiness.
Inside, the house was blessedly warm. My nose and fingers immediately stung with a not wholly pleasant thawing feeling. I took my time unwinding my scarf and pulling off my gloves as I inspected the house. Being that Peeta and I weren't friends, I had never been inside before. I wasn't sure exactly what I had been expecting of the place, but it was certainly a lot nicer than I'd thought. Family pictures lined the wall going up the stairwell, and I could see into the cozy looking living room complete with an afghan covered couch.
“Contrary to what some people might believe, even hayseed farmers take care of their homes.”
My cheeks reddened as I realized my thoughts had made it the surface. I'd called him a hayseed and much worse back in school. Though, in my defense, his favorite insult for me had been “beanpole,” and he'd tied my braids to the desk behind me more than once in class.
“I always knew you would grow up to be a wonderful homemaker,” I quipped.
Rather than take offense to my cut, he let out a bark of laughter. “Better than you did, I'm willing to bet.”
I couldn't help but smile. My lack of feminine ability was pretty well known to everyone in Panem. I had once started a small fire in the home economics room in school when we were supposed to be learning how to iron. Though I could laugh about it now, it had been nothing short of humiliating back then. It had just served as a reminder that I didn't fit in this town. The city was far more forgiving with that kind of thing. To this day, I couldn't so much as sew a button on a coat.
Peeta shrugged off his coat and unlaced his boots beside me in the tiny entry way. His bulkier frame made it a tight fit, and I flattened myself against the wall to make room for the two of us. Blue eyes locked with mine thoughtfully for a moment before he seemed to realize that he was staring. He cleared his throat uncomfortably and edged by me with my bags in his hands. “I'll put these in one of the empty bed rooms. They haven't been dusted in a coon's age, but the bedding's clean and the quilts are nice and thick.”
“All right,” I agreed softly. “Would you mind if I used your telephone? I'm sure my mother is fit to be tied.”
“Of course. The phone's just around the corner in the kitchen.”
I watched him half way up the stairs before I could force myself to move. I couldn't believe that of all places in the world to spend Christmas Eve that I was in Peeta's house, let alone that we had managed to be mostly civil to one another for as long as we had.
Thankfully the phone lines were still good, and I was able to get a hold of my mother. Though she wasn't exactly happy that I had stubbornly tried to brave the snow nor that I would be spending a night alone with a single man, she did agree that it was best if I stay put for the evening. The Mellarks, she made a point of saying, knew enough to keep their mouths shut at least.
By the time I finished my phone call, Peeta had managed to stir to life a roaring fire in the hearth. He was still dressed in his church clothes, but his rolled up sleeves made him look very at ease as he stared into the dancing flames. “How's your mother?” he asked, sparing me a glance.
“Just fine, thank you,” I replied as politely as I could manage.
I busied myself looking about the room. I imagine that much of the furnishings and décor had been left behind after his parents died. Lace doilies and bashful maiden figurines didn't seem Peeta's thing. My eyes were soon drawn to a small Christmas tree in the corner. It was just a tiny thing—only three or four feet high—decorated with popcorn strands and paper angels with tiny faces painted on. Holding up one of them, I inspected the clumsily drawn features that could only have come from the hands of a child.
“My niece insisted a put a tree up this year,” Peeta chimed in with a smile.
“Rye has children?” I marveled.
Peeta pointed to a picture hanging on the wall of his brother and his wife. A chubby faced baby boy sat in his lap and a cherubic little girl hung near her mother's skirts. “Mary's turning six in a few weeks and Rye junior just turned two.”
“Time flies, I suppose,” I murmured softly. It certainly didn't feel like nine years since I'd left Panem, but the proof was all around me. “Did you hear that Prim and Rory will be getting married in the spring?”
He shoved a hand in his curls and chuckled. “Little Primrose should still be in pigtails. Sometimes I feel like an old man.”
“Oh, I know what you mean. My secretary just turned nineteen, and she seems older than your niece,” I lamented, picturing Octavia's round face in my mind.
“Your secretary? My you've only gotten fancier with time,” he commented lightly.
As innocent as his words were on the surface, they cut me far deeper than he'd imagined. Since finishing law school, I'd had to fight for every little shred of respect. Most men made no bones about just what they thought of a woman in a law firm. I wasn't blind to just how much trouble I had brought to my bosses. Haymitch was always quick to point out that the men who were most threatened by me had the most to lose by made a fool of by a woman. Plutarch said next to nothing at all about it, and I always assumed that he thought I wasn't worth the hassle.
“I've earned my place at Abernathy and Havensbee,” I declared firmly.
Peeta flushed and looked away. “Believe me, I know that. You're the one with the law degree, and I'm the one still living in the same spot he was born in.”
“But it's not like you've never left this farm. Peeta, you fought for our country. That's no small feat,” I assured him. My sudden ferocity on the subject surprised me, but it mattered so much right then that he realized just how much he was worth.
“Where are my manners? I haven't offered you a drink. Can I get you something?” If anything, Peeta looked more uncomfortable with my praise than he ever had my criticism.
“Whatever you're having yourself is fine,” I replied.
Peeta disappeared into the kitchen.
Making myself at home on the sofa, I wiggled my stocking feet in front of the fire. I missed having a roaring fire on a cold winter's night. Though I had made a home for myself in the city, there was a lot about country life that I still preferred. For instance, instead of hearing the nieghbors' party going on, all I could hear outside was the whistling wind as it moved over the Mellark farm's frozen fields. Yes, there was something to be said for life in a small town.
Peeta reappeared a moment later bearing a tray full of treats. He handed me a mug of hot chocolate and set a tempting looking platter of cookies and fudge on the table. “If your hungry for something more substantial, I have some cold beef in the icebox. I could make you a sandwich.”
“No, this looks wonderful.” I selected a sugared Christmas tree and nibbled on its branches. “Did you bake these?”
“My sister-in-law did, but I may have helped paint them.”
An uncomfortable silence settled between us, and I wasn't quite sure how to bridge it. One after another, I picked at the cookies on the plate hoping that between bites I would find something brilliant to say. I must have been on my sixth one by the time I realized how intently Peeta was watching me.
“What?” I asked self-consciously.
He shrugged. “It's selfish to think, but I'm just glad you're here. Even if it took a blizzard to trapping you here to make it happen.”
“Be serious, Peeta,” I admonished, setting aside cookie number seven.
“I am,” he said firmly. “You couldn't know it, but I did a lot of thinking about you while I was over seas. After I was hurt and sent back stateside, I even tried to look you up in the city once. I bought flowers and everything, but I lost my guts somewhere along the way.”
My mouth was suddenly dry and I felt the wings of butterflies against my stomach. “Guts to do what?”
“Tell you that I've always had a crush on you. Even when we were kids back in school, I always thought you were the most amazing girl I'd ever seen. I told you so once when we were in the school play but you just clobbered me for it. I'm hoping this time your less violent,” he teased.
“What do you mean you told me when we were in the play? No, you didn't,” I argued. “All I remember is that you told me that I was the worst Mary you'd ever seen picked.”
Peeta laughed. “That is the part that you would remember, of course. What I actually said was that you should have been picked to play an angel instead because you sing like one. It was Cato who chimed in and said you were an ugly Mary, but you seemed to think I started the whole thing...”
I couldn't help but burst out laughing then too. “You mean to tell me we fought like cats and dogs all through school because you had a crush on me?”
“That's right.” He nodded ruefully. “But I was glad in a way. Even if you were giving me bruise, as least you noticed me. I don't think you noticed another fella in the whole school as much as you noticed me.”
“Oh, I did,” I agreed. “So what now?”
His blue eyes sparkled. “I'd like to kiss you, if you wouldn't mind.”
“I wouldn't,” I answered breathlessly.
He wound his hand into my hair and pulled me close. Soft lips brushed against mine hesitantly at first before deepening the kiss. I was surprised by how shy he was. Taking matters into my own hands, I brushed my tongue against his lower lip. Letting out a small growl, Peeta's arm tightened around my waist and his mouth was suddenly dominating mine. I felt the rush of blood through my veins. All I could think was that I wanted more, but then as quickly as he'd kissed me, he was letting me go.
“Was it as good as you'd imagined?” I asked huskily.
“Better.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulder, and I snuggled up against him.
“I never would have thought that being snowed in could be so much fun,” I mused staring at the crackling fire.
