One-Shot: Give Him a Baby
We are staying up late, watching the telecast celebrating the anniversary of Panem's independence.
Peeta and I have been living together for about 15 years now. We have never married; I never felt it was necessary. I felt in my heart that I was his wife, and have been for a long time. And perhaps Peeta feels he is my husband. It need not be clarified.
And since returning to District 12 after the war, Peeta has slowly become markedly better since the days of his torture at the hands of the Capitol. I rise lazily from the easy chair and approach where Peeta is perched, next to the rusty television set. We live in what was once the mansion I shared with my mother and sister in Victors' Village. It feels poorer now, more simple. Peeta and I have just enough means to get by, but I have always felt we were so happy enough, we are not aware how financially miserable we are.
"You done watching it?" I ask. Peeta shakes his head. "I'm going to bed." I kiss his temple, and proceed to go up the stairs. I am halfway up when I feel his footsteps following me into the foyer.
"Will you marry me?" His question stops me dead as I adjust my nightgown. I turn back to him on the landing. Silence as I stare at him. He shifts from foot to foot, as if he's said something wrong. On the contrary, I think his proposal very sweet and simple, the kind that I would want. "I'd make a good husband, Katniss."
"You would, Peeta," I sigh. My brain is begging me to tell him that I have felt married to him since at least the Third Quarter Quell; why bother with a ceremony? But instead, that irrational fear of danger, further harm, even when it no longer exists, compels me to be silent.
"But you won't marry me," Peeta guesses slowly.
I betray my deepest self when I shake my head. "You don't want to marry me." It's the closest thing I can say to indicate that any hesitance has something to do with me, not him. But that doesn't stop my lover from thinking the worst.
"I'm not the man I used to be," he admits. "But I know what love is!" He steps out onto the front porch to clear his head.
Later that night, my room is only lit by a single candle. Sometimes, Peeta and I use separate bedrooms when we sleep, but sometimes we share his room, and his bed. But platonically. There has been no sex in the fifteen years we have lived together. But tonight, I feel lonely. And guilty. I need his warmth. So I take my candle and patter down the hall to Peeta's room and crawl into bed next to him, the way any wife would with her husband. I fit into the crook of his arm perfectly.
"You love me?" he whispers. "Real or Not Real?"
"Real," I murmur without even moving my head.
Deeply moved by how much I love him, and how much I want to apologize, I kiss him. If he shall have me, I will marry him!
The kiss escalates in passion very quickly. Peeta's tongue probes my mouth, and I part my lips for him. Pushing him flat onto his back, I suddenly and boldly move to straddle him. Peeta's hands wander down from my waist and grope my bum. Slowly, my own fingers work the fabric straps of my nightgown free and I let it fall away to reveal my naked body. Crawling on top of Peeta, I kiss him again. His hands now splay across my bare back. Even though I have little to no idea what I am doing, I wriggle against him, rocking my hips into his as I strip him of his shirt, divest him of his pajama bottoms. Soon, the man I have come to love is inside me. What makes him a man thrusts into my womanhood, my deepest core. Pulling out of the kiss and moaning like a Capitol whore, I roll my hips back into his, building up the friction.
"Peeta... I love you..." I whisper, as my eyes prick with tears, both from the new pain I feel as something deep within my core breaks. But I am losing virginity to a man who deserves that; the first time always hurts for a girl, so my mother used to say. And also, I cry because of much I truly, deeply love him. And I want to show Peeta physically.
I rock against him, bounce up and down on him, faster and faster. At last, Peeta grunts admirably and spills his seed inside of me. With a plaintive cry, I follow, spraying my juices along his member and coating it, signaling to all that I have been with him. Peeta is mine. I am his. Anything else is unthinkable. This simple truth is what made me once unable to imagine a wedding, but now I want to show the world that Peeta and I belong together.
Rolling off of Peeta, I kiss him one last time, my lips dancing down from his and along his jawline, until I reach his ear. "I love you!" I whisper desperately, as we fall asleep in each other's arms.
The baby was not planned. I conceive quite by accident.
At first, I feel a terror as old as life itself. But then, I am filled with breathless delight. Peeta has filled my womb with his baby. Me! I am finally going to give him the baby he has been begging me for for so many years.
And now, when Peeta asks me again to marry him, I say Yes. It is mostly to save face for the baby's sake, for there is still a part of District 12 that considers pregnancy out of wedlock to be a scandalous thing. Peeta and I have a toasting and wed in the woods, just beyond the district, beyond the Meadow. No camera crews from the Capitol; the only guests are Haymitch, Effie and the rest of our surviving Victors.
Nine months later, I give birth to a beautiful baby girl. A new child to reflect the regrowing of the dandelions, and the rebirth of a district.
You love me. Real or Not Real?
Real. Just look at our child, Peeta. Always Real.