Forever on Fire (Katniss & Peeta)

Chapter 25

Peeta's POV

Katniss wakes up early this morning.

"Why didn't you wake me?" She asks walking over to sit beside me
"You needed the sleep"
"And you needed me"
"I'm okay"
She leans over and kisses me gently, "I was thinking, how about me and you head for a shower, and then we can wake the kids, you can make us a nice breakfast and then we could go to the bakery."
"And why am I making the breakfast?"
She smirks, "you make better pancakes than me."

I let her take me by the hand and lead me up the stairs. She jumps in the shower behind me and slides the door shut.

********

After we've woke the kids and eaten our breakfast, we head out. It's actually not a bad day considering it's the start of December, as it's only just started to snow the last couple of days. We meet Johanna and Luke as they're heading out, and we walk with them to the bakery.

"How's your hangover?" Katniss asks Johanna
"How do you know?"
"Haymitch told us this morning" Katniss replied.
"It's alright, I don't have one, must of slept it off." Johanna answers
"Lucky you" she replies rolling her eyes, "my hangovers are awful"
"That's because you're a lightweight" Johanna laughs "anyway, where are you going?"
"The bakery. We're gonna let little Willow here decorate a cake. Where are you going?"
"Don't know, Luke won't tell me" Johanna replies. "Judging by the size of his backpack, we're going on holiday for a year"
"It's a surprise, and also not a holiday" Luke jokes, "and you better save us a cake."
Peeta laughs, "at least he asks, Johanna just takes."
Johanna rolls her eyes, "shut it bread boy"
"I'll save you a cake" Willow pipes up.
"Good, enjoy your cake decorating and I'll see you later"

Johanna and Luke head off and we enter the bakery. Whilst Katniss isn't entirely fond of baking (I know, how terrible? Don't know why I haven't divorced her yet) she's happy for the heat. I'm glad that when we rebuilt the bakery we kept the fire powered ovens because not only is it traditional, but it also heats the place, and at this stage of the year, heat is essential. Katniss immediately takes Rye and finds a chair near the ovens, I make my way over to the ovens as well when the timer beeps to let me know there's a round of cakes ready.

"You're in the way of my cakes" I moan nudging Katniss
"I'm also warm, work round me."
I sigh and take one of the cakes out of the oven before taking it over to Willow at a workstation. I talk Willow through the basics before letting her ice the cake. The bakery is a lot busier than it used to be, so it's been expanded recently and there's now 13 staff, which was entirely intentional just so I could say there was a bakers dozen. It's still the only bakery in District 12 but it's much more popular now, probably because people actually come here to see if they find me or Katniss, or maybe even Johanna. Unfortunately though, they're wasting their time and money because I'm hardly ever here anymore because I'm too busy with the kids and my amazing wife. I must make a point of coming here more often because it's nice to see the bakery thriving with my name above the door.

Katniss must have warmed up because she comes to join us.
"How's the cake going?"
Willow doesn't answer because she's too busy concentrating. So I answer for her, "it's going well because fortunately she inherited my baking skills and not yours."
Katniss rolls her eyes and shoves me gently. "You'll pay for that" she jokes.
I shove her back, "do your worst"
"Mhm, I will." She promises

Johanna's POV

Luke has the bright idea of trekking into the forest at the start of December, but thankfully I brought a heavy coat. We walk for about an hour until we come to the lake and make our way around the edge to the far side. On this side there's even more cottages that Katniss and I discovered a couple of years ago.