Everything about this feels familiar. The darkness, that potent mix of fear and extreme joy, the happiness plastered over Peeta's face. The crib in the corner that holds a brand new life.
I can hardly believe that it's been two years since my daughter was born. It still shocks me how much better she has made our lives. My life, Peeta's life, my mother's life. She is just starting to talk, not yet old enough to ask about the nightmares and the scars and why Peeta and I visit so many graves. I'm glad of that.
And now there is another one. A little boy. Unlike the girl, he has a shock of blonde hair and his eyes are the kind of dull blue that my mother says will rapidly turn to grey. Proper eyes from the Seam. This makes me so happy. Because the grey eyes that this baby has inherited are not mine. They are my fathers.
That's the beautiful thing about my children, about any children really. When they come into the world, they bring back bits of family that you thought you'd lost forever. This baby has my father's trusting eyes. My daughter has Prim's smile. Peeta says that her bright blue eyes are from his father. I can see how happy that makes him.
I owe Peeta so much. He made me see that having children would not be a death sentence to any of us, would not cause me to live my life consumed in immense terror, but make us as close to being whole again as we ever can be. And he was right, so right. How happy he is to have our daughter makes me want to sing sometimes, because I love him so. When I told him I was pregnant again, he wept with joy. And just yesterday, when I gave birth to our son, I've honestly never seen anyone so happy; not before I went into the first arena, not after. Not even in the Capitol before it fell.
There he is, our baby boy, lying in the crib handed down from the girl. When I was pregnant, I kept putting off using the word sister, because the word reminds me of fear and pain and terrible loss. But now I whisper it into the darkness, thinking about how my daughter is a sister now, and my son has a sister.
And that's ok. Because sisters are a good thing. A wonderful thing. And the bond between my children that they are not yet even aware of does not remind me of the pain and the terror that I felt whenever Prim was in danger. It reminds me of buying an injured goat for her birthday, whispered conversations late at night, her head tucked under my chin, holding hands when we were younger, making rope necklaces, the way my father would sweep us both into his arms for a hug. I'm so glad that my children have that. I've missed it so much it hurts.
I'm not quite as terrified as I was two years ago, when I stood in this exact spot and looked into this exact crib and looked at the baby who was so similar and yet so different, wondering whether I had made the right choice. But fear still writhes inside me, mixed with powerful love, because somewhere deep inside I'm scared of being this having another new person this tiny and perfect trusted to me, because every single thing I've loved has been taken away from me, at one point or another. And now I have these two children, my children, whom I love almost more than I've ever loved anything. And I'm so grateful and so petrified at the same time.
My son stirs in his crib, his face just as lovely, just as fresh, just as beautiful as his sister's, and once again I'm struck by the inexplicable rush of love that reminds me that bringing children into the world is a good thing. Possibly the best thing. I touch one finger gently to his cheek and marvel at his innocence, how he's never heard of any of the things that haunt me, how they will never haunt him the way they do Peeta and I.
