K. M.
Disclaime: I do not own the Hunger Games.
This plot bunny hit me right after Easter and I had to write it down before I forgot. Katniss/Peeta
AU where Peeta was never brainwashed and they both returned to District 12 after the rebellion.
Thank you for reading and please let me know what you think.
The first face I was when I exited the hospital was his; his smile so bright and unfamiliar that I was momentary stunned. He ran up to me with his arms out but hesitated when I didn't react. The slight waver in his smile snapped me out of my stupor and I reached up to accept his hug. His arms around me felt so extremely right that I started sobbing.
It's been over six months since I last saw Peeta, and even then I was delirious from the Capitol's drugs. He looks the same as he always has. He smells of vanilla and bread. Last time I saw him he was covered in my own blood. Last time I saw him, I was pregnant.
Drying my eyes as my sobs quieted down, I realized the meaning behind the words he was mumbling into my ear.
"It's okay... I'm okay... You're okay... She's okay…" I froze as his next words came. "Katniss, I love you. I love Rose and I love you."
"Rose?" I looked into his sparkling blue eyes suspiciously.
"Sorry, she didn't have a name, and we had to call her something. I know you loved Prim and I just thought, well, I thought we could remember her in Rose." He was rambling now, "but I didn't want to call her Prim so I decided that Rose would be better. I really like it and it seems like she knows her name now. If you don't like you can change it…" I couldn't hear what he said after that.
She?
I gasped as it dawned on me, "she? We had a girl?"
He looked dumbfounded so I quickly told him, "They wouldn't tell me if she was boy or a girl. They said that my baby was healthy and it was safe."
Peeta smiled at me with tears in his eyes. "She is, Katniss. She is healthy, and beautiful, and loud, and she is safe."
For some reason I glanced around as if she would be hiding in a pram parked next to Peeta. "Where is she?"
"She's at home, with Sae. I didn't want to bring her on the train. I would have but she is barely ten weeks old."
I attempted to process this information as we walked to the station.
We were sitting comfortably in our compartment when I spoke next. "What does she look like?" I quietly questioned.
"Like you and like me." He reached into his coat pocked to retrieve a folded piece of paper. He held it out to me. "She has your hair and my eyes, my nose and your olive skin."
I looked at the paper and there she was. A perfect portrait of our perfect daughter, drawn in colored pencils.
She was beautiful. I stared at her for quite some time before I started to yawn. Peeta gently helped me to the small bed and I was too exhausted to protest. I tried to hand back the drawing but he wouldn't take it.
"You keep it," were the last words I remember him saying. "I have plenty more at home."
I woke a few hours later; the dark of night was making way for dawn. Peeta had fallen asleep beside me looking more peaceful than I've ever seen him. I didn't have the heart to wake him.
Taking a seat, I looked out the window. Soon I started thinking about why we were here. We were on a train home from the hospital in District Four but it was more than that. After Coin's death there was chaos. People asking questions, recording me, and I rarely had time to breathe. I invited Peeta into my room, wide awake in the middle of the night.
For the longest time we lay in silence, then his resolve broke. He suddenly grabbed me and pulled me to his chest. I was startled, but I trusted him with my life. We kissed slowly, then desperately. He asked me if I was sure and I said 'yes'.
That 'yes' changed our whole lives. More than the Games, more than the Rebellion, realizing I was pregnant threatened to destroy me. I was grieving and fighting all of my emotions.
Eventually the stress became too much. I fainted when I was only fifteen weeks along. A bit over a month after that, because I was not doing any better, the doctor prescribed me some medications.
The meds made me feel fuzzy inside. My thoughts were a bit blurry and I started to forget things. I forgot that Prim was dead and I looked for her frantically. I forgot I was pregnant and had a panic attack. Then, seven weeks after starting the medications, I forgot where I was.
Out of all the blurry memories, this one was the clearest.
I was terrified, trapped in the battleground of a ruined town that was filled with strangers. I ran as fast as I could and tried to find Peeta. There was lots of yelling and loud machinery sounds. I spotted a door under some scaffolding and lost sight of all else. I was almost free from this place.
All too soon I felt a blow to my head and both knees throbbed. I fought the pain but suddenly he was there. Peeta was dirty, he had been building something, I think. Blood was dripping from my forehead; I could feel sticking to my eyebrows.
Then I fainted. Blood loss, the doctors later told me. Apparently the medications I was given for the stress and anxiety were new and had not been tested on pregnant women. They were the meds that nurses gave to trauma patients to help them sleep. The drugs made me crazy enough to run blindly and injure myself.
I was angry, but I found out too late. I fainted in Peeta's arms and woke up in a hospital nearly four months later. They had kept me in a chemically induced coma for the rest of my pregnancy. They cut out my baby and sewed me back up before they let me wake up.
The fuzziness and blurry thoughts were gone but the stress was still there. I had been stuck in the sterile white rooms for weeks going though therapy. The doctors signed for my release only a few days ago, once I passed their ridiculously numerous tests.
I had moved from the window and was studying my baby's face when Peeta woke up. He saw me and smiled, taking a seat next to me.
"I was with you in the hospital as much as I could be. You were asleep but they let me talk to you and the baby." I felt his muscles tense. "They made me leave once she was born, said it wasn't good to keep a healthy baby in a hospital with ill patients."
My hand found its was into his, and I held it tightly.
"I brought her home. The house and nursery were finished, thanks to those left in the community."
"I couldn't stop to thinking about you and the baby. I feel so guilty that I couldn't be there for her. When she needed me the most, I was sick. I feel like a horrible mother!"
He started to speak but I cut him off. "I did the best I could. I pumped milk every day, for the hospital to give to babies who needed it."
Peeta looked at me. "They sent us milk, a lot of it. That's all we ever feed Rose. I wonder if any of it was yours…"
"Each bottle was labeled with the date and my initials."
He frowned. "I don't think we got any, I don't remember K. E."
"No, Mellark," I corrected. "I wanted to have some part of you with me so I told them I was Katniss Mellark." I felt awful about it. "I just wanted to provide for her, I didn't want to give up like Mother did."
"You said you were Katniss Mellark?" He asked and I nodded.
"You were there for Rose. As sick as you were, you did everything you could." He held me close. "Katniss, all of the milk we got was from K. M."