Sunbeams Are Not Made Of Me
Katniss could still remember the rough slid of his hand across her hips, the taste of ash and blood thick on his lips. The chaotic fragments of her memories, some faded and almost gone, others painfully clear. The throaty groan and a hard bite on her scared shoulder, her finger digging into his spine, blood under the nails, much too rough. Restitution for the dead, really, and he understood the debt they'd never repay.
She lies, and the guilt almost kills her, and then she remembers its not just her anymore, its her and the squirming, helpless soul inside. She prays the baby looks like Prim so that no one will know, no one can know. Peeta just holds her at night and waits for the shaking to stop. He never says it, even though he knows. She can't seem to get the taste of blood and ash from her mouth.
Gale only sees her once, and her belly is all round, her pelvis almost cracking under the weight because the kid is so huge and strong. She's got two broken ribs and she takes it as a sign, her penance. He doesn't say a word; his eyebrows knitted together and coal dust still on his fingernails even though thirteen doesn't mine. She remembers how it had gotten all over her hips, and had still been a little grey after her shower. He's only in the infirmary because the stitches from his shrapnel wound opened up. She's walking by because Peeta insists its good for the baby and she can still feel his eyes on her back when she's back in her room.
When she comes into the world its wet and agonizing and heartbreakingly terrifying, all dark hair and grey eyes and big, her cries echoing off the concrete walls, her horror of this broken world scraping down Katniss's spine.
Peeta holds her first and she fusses, her eyes turning cobalt blue. Katniss cries.
They name her Hattie. Katniss silently adds that it's for Gale's mother. It's only right. Her daughter is the retribution of her sins.