Fives: The important things in Katniss Everdeen's life happen in fives.
Five Years
At five years old Peeta Mellark knew he was in love, thank you very much. The girl with the two braids had stumbled into his life and he knew it would never be the same. He had heard her sing in music class and from then on Peeta Mellark only had eyes for her. She sang like the birds outside. She matched that of the freeing sound of the birds outside that often comforted him whenever his mother would get angry and take out everything wrong in her life on him. The girl with the two braids in the red plaid dress gave him hope unlike he had felt before. At five years old his life's course had been irreparably changed.
He was in love.
He now knew love.
And no one would ever compare to her.
Five Months
Her hair was matted to her forehead and she couldn't remember the last time she had showered the night that she saw him again for the first time since in the Capitol. She vaguely recalled Haymitch muttering about his possible return, but with a few bottles of the white liquor in his system he was unreliable. She had taken the phone in her empty house and cut the cord that attached it to the wall. No one called her. Her own mother now ignored her existence. The loss of her husband had stunted her years ago, but the loss of her daughter, the daughter who was made in her image, left her unable to cope with anything that was in District Twelve. Leaving Katniss alone, again.
As per usual his loud unsteady gait gave him away before his face came into focus in the distance. She saw him knock on their mentor's door, avoiding the honking geese in the yard. He turned his head to look towards her and she rushed back in the house and slammed the door. She was unable to handle seeing the shell of the Boy with the Bread.
The knock at her door that came a few minutes later went unanswered.
It had been five months since she had peered into those then dull unfamiliar blue eyes. The strong arms that had comforted her through two Hunger Games had been hijacked by the Capitol, and in its wake a broken man returned, one who had tried to end her life. The loss of that unconditional love that Peeta offered was gone. She had lost so much, she couldn't handle losing him again.
When her panicked breathing evened a half hour later, she slowly opened the door, and found three cheese buns sitting on the doorstep.
Five Weeks
It started with the Primrose bushes.
She heard the echo of the shovel digging into the unforgiving earth and peered out the window.
Peeta
It was the closest he had been to her since his arrival back in Twelve a few weeks ago. She couldn't be sure whether it was her less than welcoming nature, his own reservations or their collective damaged minds that kept him away, but he was here now. She watched as he threw a bag of potting soil over his shoulder, so reminiscent of his days in the bakery hauling flour. She felt a pang in her chest as she thought about the desecration of Twelve, of Mellark's bakery, of Peeta's entire family fighting for a last breath buried under a pile of rubble. Glancing out the window again she saw Peeta's curls disheveled from heat and perspiration and a bead of sweat drip down from his temple, to the sturdy column of his neck and down into his thin white cotton t-shirt. His arms flexed and his strong muscles bulged as he dug the holes to plant the primrose, to honor her. Her mind was in a war between the reemerging pangs of need she felt when she looked at him and the memories of what he had become at the hands of the Capitol.
His eyes quirked up towards the window as he held the primrose bush in one of his large calloused hands and she hurriedly pushed the curtain, blocking his view on her. She slid down the wall and brought her knees to her chest and began to cry. Her head curled down into her knees as she laid on the floor in the fetal position and her cries became louder, echoing through the room and traveling outside.
And then he was there in front of her. He smelled like sweat and dirt and the woods with the underlying cinnamon smell that was so familiar to her. Even with his loud gait she didn't see him until his arms, those arms that had offered her so much comfort, those arms that she never though would offer her that warmth and comfort again, encircled her. He pulled her malnourished slight body against his study strong chest and ran his hands through her tangled hair.
"It's too much," she cried.
"I know," he sighed as he rocked her back and forth in his lap.
"I'm so broken, Peeta," she cried, choking back a louder sob, leaning her head onto his shoulder. He was the only man, aside from her father she could say such things safely around.
"You're not. We're not," he emphasized. "If we're broken, Snow won," he said firmly. "You're just a little bent."
Katniss looked up, meeting his eyes for the first time, taken aback that no longer were they the cloudy blue that they had been while he had been hijacked by the tracker jacker venom. He was clear. He was soft. He was strong.
He was her Peeta.
He was back.
Sae began to come over less and less as Peeta became a constant presence around her house in Victor's Village. After the primrose bushes came the baking, the comforting smell of cinnamon and dill wafted through her house on a daily basis. Slowly, his things began to appear in odd corners of the house. His paintings and canvases decorated the house, and his clothes soon sought refuge in her drawers and closets.
On the night five weeks after the first time he came over to plant the primrose bushes she could feel that fluttering in my stomach, it had become more pronounced over the course of past few weeks. That hunger she had felt on the beach returned with a vengeance. She could feel his presence, like a warm blanket, whenever he was close. On that night his arms wrapped around her body, except this time not solely for comfort from the demons that haunted them both. He nuzzled against her neck as her hands plunged into his curly blonde hair and mapped her body with his kisses.
He gave her the path to take to be able to move on, to not forget the wreckage, but to grow from it.
Later, when she was wrapped up in his arms he pressed a kiss to her sweaty brow, Peeta asked her, "You love me, real or not real?"
She pressed weakly against shoulder, exhausted from their enthusiastic lovemaking, "Real," she grinned.
Five Days
It had been five days since they had spoken.
Or rather since Katniss had spoken to Peeta.
Peeta had spent more time at the newly constructed bakery in Twelve in the past five days than he had at home. Katniss could hold a grudge like no other woman he knew.
He carefully trudged up the gleaming snowy path to their house in Victor's Village, ready for another night of silence. All he wanted was a group of people who knew and loved them present at their toasting. He wanted a witness to their lives together, if just for a moment. To celebrate something good in a world that had been so bleak for the two of them.
Naturally Katniss had erupted and then sunk into her shell. Usually he was able to coax her out. To comfort her and woo her with his words and actions, but she stood firm on the matter.
"I don't want those memories here, in our lives, Peeta. It's too painful."
"They're our friends! Our only family Katniss. Please," he pleaded, "Please do this for me. Annie can accompany your mom in from Four and Jo-"
"I can't," she answered in a panicked voice.
He took her small nimble fingers in his large thick hands, "Please Kat, they're the only family I have. Everyone is – everyone is gone."
Her eyes had gone cold.
He knew he had made a mistake.
Peeta sighed as he walked up the white marble steps, ready to endure another night of silence as he turned the knob. He walked through the entry way and was caught off guard by the flickering fireplace surrounded by a small group of familiar faces.
"I – " he choked out and stumbled, at a loss for words for the first time in his life.
Katniss moved from the center of the semi-circle surrounding the crackling fire, towards him. She laced their fingers together, his larger hand engulfing her smaller one. "You were right. We spent so much of our lives separated from the rest of the world, and we should share this happy moment with people we love. We're never going to replace those bad memories if we don't let them in."
He looked down at her, her gray eyes were shining and a small smile played across his lips. He brought the back of her hand to his lips and pressed a gentle kiss there, "Thank you," he responded, his voice quaking slightly.
"I love you, Peeta. And I want to share that with everyone."
They walked together towards the fire, Peeta's face was now a full beaming smile as he nodded to their small group of friends. Haymitch handed Peeta an iron poker while Katniss' mother did the same. They both placed a piece of Mellark's original bread on the end and toasted the bread together, sealing their union.
Later, after their guests had retired to the spare rooms in Peeta's old house, he pulled Katniss towards him, capturing her lips. He traced the seal of her lips with the tip of his tongue before she allowed him access. Slowly they teased each other, making up for lost time. Katniss sighed as she laid on top of his naked body in front of the roaring fireplace.
"Let's never go five days again," Katniss sighed, satiated.
Peeta carefully carded his hands through her ebony hair and gave a wolfish grin, "Duly noted."
Five Hours
Katniss moaned and held onto her stomach as she slid into the bathroom for the 10th time that morning. Five hours. Five hours of puking. Her sweaty brow rested against the toilet seat as she waited for her stomach to role again. This bug had been persistent, she could barely make it out of the bathroom, let alone would she have the ability to go out and do her daily hunting in the woods. Peeta had soothingly stroked her back and sat with her as she emptied the contents of her stomach throughout the night and would still be here if she hadn't shoo-ed him away to the bakery. It had been two years, but still neither of them were entirely comfortable leaving the shop completely in the hands of his newer employees.
Katniss cursed her body for revolting against her. She couldn't remember feeling this sick in years.
Five Minutes
When Katniss phoned her mother in Four (having had the phone repaired right before their toasting), she was surprised to hear Johanna's voice on the line.
"What are you doing there?" She questioned, caught off guard.
"Visiting Annie. Someone has to check in on your mother since you have roots of an Oak tree and can't seem to leave Twelve without having a panic attack."
Katniss rolled her eyes, "Nice tree reference, Mason."
"What do you need Everdeen?" Johanna asked, boredom evident in her voice.
"To talk to my mother. I need her anti-nausea remedy, I haven't been able to stop throwing up for the past five days, and the past five hours have been particularly painful," she replied gruffly.
Johanna barked out a laugh as Katniss grunted in annoyance, "Brainless, with as often as I'm guessing Mellark mounts you, it sounds like you need a pregnancy test."
Katniss dropped the phone in shock effectively disconnecting the call and curled up next to the toilet.
Was it possible?
They had been careful but…
Were they ready?
Was she ready?
When her stomachache subsided she slowly walked to Sae, who had an array of products in her house and embarrassingly asked for a pregnancy test. The old woman did the best to hide her smile. Everyone in Twelve knew how much Peeta Mellark wanted a child.
The question was, did Katniss?
When she made her way back home she entered the downstairs bathroom, read the instructions and carefully followed the directions.
Five minutes.
The next five minutes would decide their future.
And in that five minutes she knew.
She carefully rubbed her stomach imagining a blonde little boy or girl with silver eyes. A tiny child wrapped in her husband's arms while she softly kissed the top of his or her head. Peeta, teaching their child how to ride a bike, or her teaching them how to swim in the lake past the old fence. Knowing that their child would grow up without the terror that their parents had endured.
When the timer beeped she looked down and smiled.
Five Seconds
Five seconds was the longest that she could hold out.
Peeta walked through the door with a loaf of hot French bread under his arm and had barely called out her name before she ran at him and wrapped her arms around his neck, tackling him to the ground. She peppered his face with kisses as his joyful laughter rang out throughout the house.
"What's gotten into you?" He asked, smiling widely.
"I'm pregnant with our child, real or not real?"
He looked at her with a sense of awe and wonder that was new even to her. She could see his eyes begin to glisten as he held her close to his body and choked out, "Real."