a/n: Written for pronetoobsess on tumblr in honor of a gorgeous edit she made. I'm not certain this is what she had in mind when she made the edit (in fact, I'm pretty sure it isn't... oops) but it's what the muse led me to all the same. :)
One
Peeta's hands are warm. Too warm, really. Like he's suffering from a fever or having a flashback.
But the hungry look he's giving her tells Katniss neither is happening right now.
"Are you certain?" he asks thickly, his voice shaking, his breath coming in quick little pants. He sounds shy, for some reason, as though they've never even kissed before, much less done all the things they've done to each other in the weeks and months leading up to this moment.
She nods. "Yes," she assures him. She reaches up to cup his face in her hand. The feel of his rough stubble against her palm is still exciting and new. It sends shivers down her spine, despite the fact that they're both fully clothed and sitting upright on her bed. "I've never been surer of anything."
He turns to look at her then, his eyes full of hope and promise and something else Katniss can't quite identify.
"Ok," he whispers hoarsely before capturing her mouth in a bruising kiss.
Four
It happened gradually, these annual reunions.
It certainly wasn't anything they'd officially planned.
At first it was just the three of them – Peeta, Katniss, Haymitch – meeting up by the fence separating their houses and sharing a quiet meal on the day the Reaping would have taken place if that old world still existed. That first year they remembered the ones they lost – and celebrated everything they still had – over bread and cheese and the sweet red wine Haymitch had imported from the new Capitol.
(The geese weren't invited but they showed up anyway. As they tended to do in those early days. Haymitch fed them bits of bread and cheese when he thought Katniss' back was turned but she saw it all, hiding a small smile in her palm.)
The following year Johanna joined them. She looked pale, and a little haggard, but also better – healthier, somehow – than she had the last time they'd seen her.
And then the year after that, Beetee came too, saying he didn't want to miss out on "all the fun." He brought his new wife with him (a woman he'd met in Thirteen) and their infant son, just two months old.
Annie doesn't join their informal reunions until the fourth year after the revolution.
The first thought Katniss has upon seeing Aidan is that he is very tall. Certainly taller than any four-year-old Katniss has ever seen. She takes in his father's startling eyes, his mother's gentle smile.
Watching him play with Haymitch's stupid geese out in the yard heals something deep inside her that Katniss hadn't even realized was broken.
"He looks like him," Katniss says, the four foolish words slipping out of her before she can stop them. Annie turns to look at her, her eyes round and her face pale, and suddenly Katniss wishes she could take them back. That she could take everything back.
"He does," Annie agrees without a hint of sadness in her voice. Her smile lights up the room.
Five
The first time Peeta mentions children it's at the worst possible time.
He's on top of her, in their bed, his fingers knotted tightly through hers, her arms pinned over her head the way she likes when he's being a little rough. Her legs are wrapped around his waist as he thrusts into her, his damp forehead pressed against hers as they clench and move together.
"Please," he pants into her ear. He doesn't stop moving, and Katniss squeezes him, thinking she knows what he's begging for.
But she doesn't.
"I want to make a baby with you, Katniss. I want this – I want this to make a baby. Our baby."
His words are a bucket of ice water over her head. She beats at his chest blindly and pushes at him until he rolls off her. She bolts into their bathroom without a word and crouches down into the far corner, shaking.
"Katniss," Peeta pleads with her from the other side of the door. He beats his fists against it at one point. He might be crying. "Please, come out. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have…."
But Katniss can't hear him. Not really. All she can hear are the bombs in the Capitol dropping and falling on her sister. All she can see is Prim bursting into flames.
She buries her face in her arms and falls asleep that way, still naked, curled up into a small ball against the bathtub.
Fifteen
She looks like one of those beached whales she remembers Finnick describing in vivid detail while they were taking turns at watch during the Quarter Quell.
None of her clothes fit anymore. Her hipbones, once so prominent her mother joked that they could cut glass, disappeared under mounds of flesh months ago. Her face is unrecognizable, all round and soft and foreign.
"You're so beautiful," Peeta murmurs into her ear, wrapping his arms around her from behind. He snuck up behind her a few minutes ago while she was examining herself in the full-length mirror, twisting her body this way and that to see if there's something she could recognize in there somewhere.
"I am not," she says flatly.
He pulls her into his arms and kisses her tenderly, smiling against her lips, all nerves and vibrant excitement and joy.
(What she wants to tell him, but doesn't, is that while she doesn't regret what they've decided to do – while she's just as excited about meeting their child as he is – she's still terrified. All day, every day. As she tosses and turns chasing sleep. She doesn't tell him any of this because there's simply no point. The kicks are so frequent now she can set a clock by them and it's for too late for either of them to back out now.)
Twenty
Peeta and Aidan are playing soccer in the field when first Rose, and then Ian, toddle over to them on their chubby little legs.
"I want to play too!" Rosie says indignantly. She puts her little hands on her hips and glares at the men, stomping her feet in that unique, determined way of hers that's at once irritating and irresistible.
"Yeth!" Ian says for good measure.
Aidan bites the inside of his cheek to hide his amused grin, but Peeta just gives in to the hilarity of the situation and laughs.
"You're pretty young for soccer, kiddos," Peeta says, crouching down on the ground so that he's eye-level with his daughter. "You sure you can keep up?"
"Yeth!"Ian says again. He stomps his feet the way his older sister did a few moments ago – or tries to, anyway – and gives his daddy a scowl that could peel paint.
Peeta stands up and sighs, still grinning broadly. He looks over at Aidan.
"I know this wouldn't be the sort of game you had in mind," he begins, apologetically. "But would it be all right if –?"
"Of course," Aidan says. He waves his hand dismissively, sporting a smile that matches Peeta's. He shrugs. "With mom and Katniss just in the house you know we wouldn't be able to get as rough with this game as we want to anyway."
Peeta nods. Aidan's right, of course. Annie and Katniss would kill them if they played the sort of soccer they both craved, if their behavior at last year's reunion – at which Peeta and Aidan decided that, yes: full-body tackling was a perfectly acceptable move in soccer – was any sort of guide.
"Ok kids," Peeta says, rubbing his hands together as he turns to his son and daughter. He gently rolls the ball to Rosie who squeals with delight. "Which of you wants to go first?"