Please note that there are major 'Mockingjay' spoilers in this fic.
Written for the Monthly Challenge on the Starvation forum.
For Mel, Pen, and Clara. These people are the reason I keep writing for this fandom. They are ever my muses and ever my friends.
Also, for Finnick, because I know he loved her.
Her dark strands of hair are slightly matted. What's not is frizzy and framing her face. Beads of sweat lie on her forehead. Tears stain her cheeks. She tries desperately to calm her breathing; to take short steady breaths like the doctors have told her to do but she can't quite manage it. It hurts. So much.
Another wave of pain comes. Contraction is the word the doctors use. She grabs the sheets, holding as tight as she can. Her knuckles turn white. When she can stand it no longer, she screams.
She is not used to physical pain. Not like this, anyway. She knows mental pain, and emotional. Physical pain, though, she hasn't felt it since… since…
She can't think about it. Instead she thinks of Finnick. She imagines him here, imagines him holder her hand. Whispering her name, "Annie, Annie, Annie," over and over again. If he were here, he'd kiss her hair. Kiss her nose, her neck, and her lips. He would tell her that she is beautiful, and strong. And that he loves her.
But he is not here. That thought jolts her back into reality. The painful, painful reality.
Her screaming stops soon, only to be replaces by another's. The baby is placed in her arms. She kisses his hair; the little white blonde wisps that reminder her of his father. She whispers, "I love you," to him. And she does. She has known him only a minute and already she loves him with everything she is. He makes her feel whole again.
-O-
Much later, when the boy is almost two, she sits on the porch swing in front of their house. She watches the little boy waddle across the yard. His faded blue overalls are covered with dirt; his curly hair covers his eyes. She has done a lot of healing in the last few months—and this precious, perfect little boy has helped her—but there is a part of her that will always be broken.
Sometimes she just needs to look at the water that matches his eyes and simply remember him. Sometimes she fears she will always be broken; that he took a part of her with him.
And sometimes, she just looks that that little boy. His smile, his pink cheeks. Then it's almost as if she was never broken at all.