DON'T LET ME DOWN
Summary: Katniss has an unexpected announcement. Peeta is scared of being let down.
"You're a natural born survivor. It's almost an art." I smile at her, she doesn't return my smile. She just sets down her bow and arrow and pulls her hair from her braid, her tired eyes avoiding mine. I still smell vaguely of baking bread and she smells of the wilderness, she smells like nature, she's made of something tougher than I am. She's made of steel. But she's vulnerable, she's so very vulnerable. She has a lot on her mind, I can tell already. Every step she takes is heavy, the squirrels are already skinned and I am getting ready to cook them. She is tired when she sits down at our wooden dining table and let's out a tired sigh. Maybe she's just had a long day?
Every morning starts the same for both of us. We wake up, we shower, eat breakfast together - sometimes we speak, sometimes we are quiet. Katniss enjoys the quiet some mornings - and then we head out to work. Katniss to the woods and I to the bakery. I get back home every day at six o clock. Sometimes Katniss is early, sometimes she is late. She is never later than seven though. She doesn't like to worry me.
"Are you alright?" I ask her, the stew I'm cooking begins to boil so I lower the heat and go to sit across from Katniss at the table. I reach for her hand and she pulls it back. She has that faraway look in her eyes which will always make me worry. She makes me worry so damn easily. "Katniss?" I say softly and she finally looks at me. I smile again. She doesn't.
"I've been thinking." She begins and her voice shakes with a sort of nervousness that brings up a bunch of nerves beneath my own skin. "In the woods… I was thinking."
"Yes?" I push, my eyebrows drawn together in concern. I reach for her hand again and this time she accepts. "Katniss… you're worrying me."
She nods and takes in a deep breath, her eyes meet mine and they begin to water. I move closer, discarding my chair and kneeling on the floor in front of her where tears drip from her cheeks and splash against the wood noiselessly.
"I just…" she whispers. "I just think. Well. Do you think that maybe we should try…"
"Try what, Katniss?" My curiosity get's the better of me, I want so badly to know what she wants so I can give it to her. So I can make her happy. So I can put these tears to rest.
"Do you think we should try to… to have a baby?" It comes out as a whisper but I hear it as clear as day. My mouth drops slightly, my eyes widen. Katniss wants to have a baby with me. She finally wants to have a baby with me. I believed that I would never hear those words leave her lips. I had convinced myself that it would be just me and her for the rest of our lives and of course I was fine with that. I was fine with it being the both of us in this house for good. I was happy with that image and I had come to accept that Katniss would never want children. And now apparently she had changed her mind but despite her words, it did not feel real. "Say something." She says, she has stopped crying but she still looks so scared.
"You… do you mean it? You want to have a baby with me?" I trip over my words but the sentence comes out eventually. I'm staring almost desperately into her eyes and she just looks nervous but a small smile still lingers on the corners of her lips.
"Y-yes. Yes. I can't just live in fear of the Games forever." She says quietly, the Games being the main reason she was so terrified to have a baby with me. To start a family.
"Are you serious, Katniss? Please… don't just say this and change your mind. You know how badly I want this." My words are full of desperation. My voice is almost breaking. But I want this so badly, for so long I've prayed that Katniss would finally want it too. Now she did and I couldn't bare to get my hopes up only for them to crash to the ground again.
"Yes… I mean. Yes. I can't just be afraid my whole entire life." She says, her hands are shaking a little bit so I put mine on hers and stroke her skin with my thumb. She sniffs back her tears and gives me a smile. She squeezes my hand and reaches forward to kiss my lips tenderly. "Let's do it, Peeta. Let's start a family. The rooms in this house could use filling up afterall." She says and laughs gently.
I stare at her for a few more moments, still trying to get my head around the fact that she wants this, that she really wants to start a family with me. That children could run around in our front garden, kicking a ball, swinging from a tyre tied to the tree. That I could read to our little girl each night before she fell asleep, that Katniss could sing to our little boy and tuck him in. The thought springs tears to my eyes and I pull Katniss to me and kiss her hard on the lips, she runs her fingers through my short strands of blonde hair and my hands rest on her cheeks and everything is silent and perfect and we're happy because finally, finally this is what we both want.
"We're really going to this?" I whisper when I pull away, still holding onto her, sure that I could never love another human being as much as I love the woman before me. My thumb strokes her cheek and she smiles down at me. It has taken a long time for her to look at me the way I look at her but now I finally see it in her eyes.
"Yes." She whispers back, resting her fingers on the back of my neck. "Yes. Let's do this." And I pull her to me and kiss her again and don't stop for a long time.