Chapter One: Positive

AN: I have also posted this story on Archive of Our Own, and there is more of it on that website if you're eager to keep reading. In upcoming chapters keep an eye out for trigger warnings.

The summer air flows softly through my blond hair, and I pause at the entrance to Victor's Village. Looking out across the road, a rare feeling of peace flows through me and I am very thankful. I am thankful for how far we've come. Thinking back to how difficult the first months were after the war, I shudder. I had attacks every hour on the hour and Katniss was half dead, unable to care for herself or even move. It took close to a year, but we healed, at least enough to slowly come together. This time it is real. She was sure. She'd chosen me. We got married three years ago, and not because the Capitol made us, but because we wanted to. She loves me. I grin a little, and am silently thankful for everything, even Haymitch's stupid geese.

I am coming home at the usual time and pause in the front entryway. I stoop down to take off my shoes, but I don't hear sounds coming from the kitchen. Katniss isn't cooking, not that I mind. I often cook dinner, if she had a hard day hunting. The late June breeze brushes through the open window as I head up the stairs to check on her. She probably drifted off or is taking a long shower. I enter our bedroom to find her curled up into a ball on her side of the bed. She is facing away from the door, but I see her irregular breathing pattern and I know she isn't sleeping. My heart sinks a little. Things have gotten so much better, but every now and then… there is a moment.

Crossing the room I kneel down in front of her, next to the bed. She has her eyes squeezed tightly together and is biting her lower lip. Her breath is coming out in heaves. I push her hair back from her face and she winces away from my touch. I sharp pain goes through me, and I'm instantly confused. Never in our time together since the end of the war has she refused my touch.

"Can you sit up?" She doesn't respond. She is too far-gone in pain that probably occurred years ago, unable to move. Her episodes have been decreasing in frequency, but when they come lately they have been bad. For all I know she can't even hear me, doesn't know I am here, and is instead imagining me as Prim or her father, cringing away from comfort she doesn't think she deserves.

"I'm going to make dinner," I begin softly, not wanting to touch her again. "I'll be back with it soon." I go down to the kitchen and begin to chop the vegetables hurriedly, tossing everything haphazardly into the pot. I strip some of the meat from the pig we roasted a few days before and toss it in. The water boiling, I quickly clean the kitchen, trying to piece together what happened. The game bag is tossed carelessly over the side of a chair, out of place from its usual spot in the cupboard. It's empty though, suggesting trouble in the woods. I stoop to pick it up and hear the rustle of a plastic bag inside of it. Curious I open it to remove the source of the noise.

It is indeed a plastic bag. I recognize the label from the new pharmacy they built next to the hospital that opened after the war, but its contents have been removed. Not even a receipt left inside. I think maybe Katniss began to feel ill in the woods, a cold perhaps, and went to pick up some sleep syrup. The medicine has made her delirious in the past, worsening her nightmares causing one of her episodes. It's possible she took too much and can't shake herself out of the stupor.

The timer dings and I pull the stew from the stove and pour her a bowl, the smell causing my mouth to water. I walk slowly up the stairs. She has not moved from the spot I left her in. I place the bowl next to her on the bedside table and notice the tear tracks shining on her face. Her breathing is shallow. I move her hair out of her face and taking note of how ghostly pale she is. She parts her lips and speaks.

"I've ruined everything." I shake my head instinctively.

"No you haven't. It's all-okay now. The Capitol is gone. Snow is dead. Coin is dead. Your mother is safe. Haymitch is safe. I am safe, and Prim is somewhere no one can ever hurt her ever again." I tell her softly. I have given her this speech a lot over the past five years. She sobs and shakes her head, still not opening her eyes.

"You're going to…and I just want to waste away."

"I'm here," I say, touching her face, she winces again and I withdraw. "I'm fine. The Capitol can't take me from you."

"You're going…"she croaks again, stopping unable to say it. "You're going to be…so…happy, and I wish I were dead." My heart stops. I haven't heard her talk like this for years. She used to say it often, back when we had daily conversations with the therapist, back just after Prim had died, back when Sae or Haymitch always had to be with us…to make sure she didn't do anything.

"Listen to me." I begin firmly. "I would never be happy without you. You can't say that…you…you can't leave me." She shakes her head and begins to cough. "Don't move," I order her, and I get up and head towards the bathroom, keeping her always in my frame of vision. The bathroom adjoins our room, and I watch her as I fumble for a glass to fill with water, coming up with a plan. I'll call in sick at the bakery tomorrow, stay with her all day, get the doctors on the phone force them to talk to her or for them to come here. She can't be alone.

My fingers miss the glass and strike something skinny and plastic instead. I curse, taking my eyes off her to bend to pick up what must be a toothbrush, but I stop. It landed upside down on the tiled floor but I recognize it as capital made. Skinny and round on both ends, white in the middle with a purple cap over the end. This is a pregnancy test. Hands trembling I remember her devastated croak, "You're going to be…so…happy." I pick up the test, my head pounding in my chest, as I pick up what must have once occupied the plastic bag from the pharmacy. I flip it over, and it seems to take me a million years to read the screen. It flashes with little fireworks as the test celebrates the news that might destroy my wife. "POSITIVE" it reads in big bold letters over the simulation fireworks.