Chapter Text
When she presents for the first time, at sixteen her mother cries with relief. Katniss cries too, but for a different reason. There will be no more Hunger Games for her.
It is awful to think that between the two choices she thinks she would have preferred the games over what is coming for her.
—/——/—
They all meet in the Everdeens small kitchen, bunched together like sardines.
Katniss is purposefully standing next to the window which is cracked despite the winter cold. But her new nose is sensitive, even if half the people in the room are Beta’s.
Her mother, now Katniss’s fellow Omega, is at the kitchen table next to Hazelle, a Beta, who has her Pup Posy in her lap.
Prim, who has not presented yet, has been forced outside much to her annoyance. Her sister stormed out into the snow with an uncharacteristic scowl on her young face.
Rory, a presented Beta sits by the fireplace looking awkward. Gale, also a Beta, stands beside Katniss looking far too confident in her opinion.
He’s not the one who, when her hormones so choose, will turn into an insatiable mess, begging any Alpha that looks at her to mount her as if she’s a prized bitch.
Katniss glares at her mother, happily infuriated at her. It was her merchant genes that caused this.
The likelihood of being an Alpha or Omega is that much higher if you were born with blonde hair and blue eyes. Or if one of your parents had both.
Perhaps Katniss should be glad. Prim and her mother certainly hugged her like she was supposed to when she woke up covered in sweat, her new mating gland on her neck throbbing insistently.
But Katniss is not. Instead she is furious. Furious that she is now nothing more than a trading piece to get them all a better life.
Hazelle and her mother have brought up every male Alpha they know in the Seam and there’s only half a dozen to choose from. They even named the thirty something year old whose Omega died in childbirth last year.
Katniss has defiantly shaken her head no to each one becoming increasingly more sullen and silent.
“You might change your mind when you scent them,” Her mother says with a tired smile.
Katniss clenches her fists.
She is only sixteen. She doesn’t want to get mated, doesn't want to have Pups.
Doesn’t want another person to provide for; Prim, her mother and the Hawthornes. That is pack for her enough.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Gale asks in that way of his makes it sound like he believes that everyone around him is an idiot.
Katniss doesn’t think her friend ever got over not presenting as an Alpha. He’s been like this ever since he finally turned seventeen and realised he was not an Alpha needle in the Seam haystack like Katniss’s father was.
“Is it?” Hazelle asks dryly, used to her sons behaviour.
Katniss meets Gale’s storm grey eyes, her brows raised in two question marks.
“Marry me,” Gale says firmly, his expression flickering with something Katniss doesn’t want to name.
There is a loaded silence around the cramped living space. Katniss feels her stomach roll and every inch of her wants to shake her head in refusal again.
Katniss turns to face Gale astounded by how serious he sounds. Like this isn’t the first time he’s thought about it.
Marrying her. Her marrying him. Mrs Gale Hawthorne.
It is so ridiculous that Katniss wants to laugh but this isn’t a laughing matter.
“You cannot be serious Gale,” Her mother says, sounding uncharacteristically stern.
Katniss rolls her eyes, the shock that had frozen her thawing a little.
Asterid has been petitioning future husbands for her all night but now she has a problem with it?
“I know I’m not an Alpha,” Gale bristles with indignation, “But it would save you from having to…”
“To sell myself,” Katniss deadpans, kicking the floor.
“Finding a mate,” Her mother jumps in pointedly.
“Yes,” Gale says as if to both answers.
Posy fusses and Hazelle shushes her. The Beta doesn’t look happy, but she doesn’t refute the idea either. Rory just looks as though he would rather be reaped than stand in this room any longer.
He still can be reaped of course as a Beta. And those who are still unpresented. Alphas and Omegas, comparatively rare in the districts, are exempt, their primitive urges thought to be an unfair advantage.
The President Snow’s mate being an Omega from the districts definitely works in their, now Katniss’s, favour.
“And I’d be your little housewife would I?” Katniss asks Gale bitterly.
Gale shrugs. He doesn’t say yes but he doesn’t say no either.
“Better than being a stranger's little housewife,” He says bluntly.
The truth of it chokes Katniss. The price of being an Omega in the districts means she is free from the games, but forced into another kind of prison.
Mating and pushing out pups for a district Alpha or being sold to whoever Capital Alpha bids the highest.
Katniss looks up into Gale’s eager face and thinks that at least with him she would have a jailer she knows and a pack that wouldn’t change.
Plus it will be harder for them to conceive as an Omega and Beta paired so perhaps no one will notice if she doesn’t get pregnant for a few years.
Katniss’s stomach rolls again, sour sick rising up her throat. She does not want this. She does not want this!
But what other kind of life could she hope for now?
Her traitorous heart lingers for a moment on the thought of desire. Of blonde curls and a wide smile. The strong, kind Alpha who she tries not to stare at in the halls. The boy who she owes her and her pack’s life to.
Alpha.
Katniss shivers. Her Omega in her head is new and oh so loud, tugging her in what she knows is the wrong direction.
Peeta Mellark would not want a wild Omega who wishes to spend half her life out in the woods. He would want a neat Omega, gentle and sweet who would smell like sugar and happily raise his blonde haired Pups with a smile on her face.
“Fine,” Katniss spits out the words as if they were poison.
She watches Gale frown, hurt flashing over his face.
Did he actually expect her to be happy about this?
“Katniss,” Her mother stands up from the table, her blonde eyebrows creased with panic, her scent fearful, “There’s no need to rush, you might-“
Find a mate.
Her mother is no doubt hoping that she found
“No,” Katniss snarls, “I don’t want to think about it any more,”
“I’ll marry you,” Katniss tells Gale stiffly with a nod as if they were conducting a business deal.
Then she pushes past them all, pulls on her fathers hunting jacket and escapes into the woods where she can scream all she wants and will bother no one.
Everyday Katniss escapes to the forest. Swimming, hunting, walking in circles trying desperately to think of a way out of this hell she has found herself in.
She still shoots game to sell with Gale but Katniss refuses to walk into town, into a Hob. She doesn’t want to see the stares, the desire written on the faces who once looked at her with respect.
Gale agrees with her decision. He calls it smart. Katniss knows it’s also because he cannot scent her like an Alpha would, making his or her claim clear. Until their wedding is set for next Sunday, Katniss is vulnerable.
“Where have you been?” Astrid asks when she returns on Monday like her mother was actually looking out for her- actually worried.
Katniss doesn’t have to go to school anymore. Omega’s don’t need school. They need to know how to knit little booties and raise babies.
She never excelled in math, science or English anyway. She never had any reason to. She was too busy keeping Prim alive, their pack together, to worry about grades. And who was going to take a small Seam girl to keep their books in check anyway?
“The woods,” Katniss shrugs with a scowl.
Where else?
Her mother shakes her head as if she’s actually disappointed in her. Katniss crosses her arms over her chest, annoyed.
“Why?” Katniss asks acidly.
If her mother says anything about hunting being unsafe for her now she’s an Omega and vulnerable she’ll sleep out in the old house by the lake.
“One of Otho’s sons came round to see you,” Asterid says, her eyes floating up the road before landing on her again.
Her heart skips a beat and her Omega is up sniffing in interest.
“Peeta?” Katniss asks instantly and then hates herself for it.
Her mother’s eyebrows are touching her hairline.
“Yes,” She confirms with a nod, “How did you know?”
Katniss keeps her mouth stubbornly shut.
Her Omega is preening, too damn happy that an Alpha has decided to pay her attention.
Katniss scrowls unhappily.
“He’s a nice boy,” Asterid says conversationally.
She can hear what’s hidden underneath her quiet words.
Peeta is not just a nice boy.
He’s a nice Alpha boy.
“He’s in- was in- some of my classes at school,” Katniss tries her best to deflect but she’s never been good at lying.
Especially not when it feels like her heart is lodged in her throat.
“He brought you something,” Asterid says, moving back inside the house.
Alpha bought you a gift.
Katniss follows her on wobbly legs, her head swimming.
A simple white paper bag sits on the table. She peers inside. Buns, cheese buns to be exact, sit together. They are clearly fresh, the bread white and expensive.
Katniss ghosts her fingers over the top of them.
Three, as if Peeta made one for each of the Everdeen’s.
“I can’t - we cannot accept this,” Katniss shakes her head, her voice fraying at the edge, “No, no,”
It was bad enough that the last time Peeta gave her bread it was damp and burnt on one end. It meant Katniss was in his debt but at least she knew it was going to be thrown out anyway.
This is different. This is precious. This is a gift worth a week of good hunting.
“Katniss,” Her mother says endlessly patient, “We do,” Asterid reaches out to her.
“I’m taking this back,” Katniss clutches the bag close to her chest, away from her mothers clutches.
It’s hers.
Peeta made these buns for her. She's going to give them back, but until she does her mother doesn’t get to touch them.
Astrid watches her sympathetically but keeps her distance.
“When you go into heat you could be incapacitated for days, a whole week even,” She explains slow and calm as if Katniss were a hysterical pup, “We could need to food,”
“No!” Katniss yells at her mother, her throat hoarse.
She cannot imagine not being there for them. Cannot trust her mother to look after Prim by herself and all because of her stupid designation.
She runs back out the door, her legs racing towards the bakery, anger burning through her heart