The Other Choice

by icbiwf

A different kind of unplanned pregnancy fic. A submission to Prompts in Panem's Language of Flowers week. Prompt: Hyacinth/Fertility.

It all started with a flu that wouldn't go away.

For almost a full week, Katniss found herself riddled with nausea and fatigue. She liked to think of herself as strong, and tough, but this flu had completely knocked her out. She still went to school, because she didn't dare attract extra attention from Peacekeepers. And she still hunted, because if she didn't then her family would starve. But that was all she did. These two activities were enough to sap every bit of energy she had. She couldn't even clean her kills; as soon as she began to skin the animals the smell made her throw up. Every moment at home, in between vomiting fits, was spent in bed trying to recover some energy. To add insult to injury, spending so much time lying down was giving her a backache.

"Flu shouldn't last this long," her mother said, in the detached manner she adopted when dealing with a patient. "Have you been eating anything strange lately?"

"Nothing that you and Prim haven't been eating," Katniss replied.

Her mother pursed her lips in thought, then shook her head as if to clear it a bit. "Will you be okay on your own for a while? Prim and I need to go out."

"I'll be fine, I don't plan on getting out of bed," Katniss said. Her mother and her sister weren't often both needed at once. "Where are you and Prim going?"

"Mrs. Herrin has gone into labor," her mother explained as she gathered her medical bag and left the room. She didn't turn to see the look of horror dawn on her daughter's face.

…..

It couldn't be. It just couldn't. There was no way.

Well, that was a lie. Of course there was a way. But they had only been together a handful of times. And they had always been careful.

She felt so stupid. They should have known better than to trust the condoms they were able to get here in District 12. What had possessed her to disregard every conviction she had ever had about never letting something like this happen to her?

She sighed to herself. She knew damn well what had possessed her. It was the way her stomach flipped every time he looked at her. The way time seemed to stop whenever she looked into his bottomless blue eyes. The way his soft hair felt between her fingers. The way his ass looked in that wrestling unitard. The way his shoulders and biceps bulged almost out of his shirt after his afternoon shifts at the bakery. The fire that ignited within her every time their lips touched.

This is exactly why she never wanted any of this, never wanted to be attracted to a man, never wanted to care for anyone this way. Because she never wanted to bring a new life into this world when she wouldn't be able to provide for it. When she was barely providing for herself and the people who already depended on her. She wouldn't bring a child into this world just so it could suffer.

But she had seen enough women visiting her mother over the years to recognize the signs. She had missed her cycle. She was nauseous all the time. She had no energy. Her back ached. Her breasts felt different.

It just couldn't be.

…..

"Hey, mom, is it okay if I take one of these?" The Everdeen house had a variety of homemade tests in stock, made out of everything from vinegar to cleaning solvents to, of all things, dandelion leaves. But the tests from the Capitol, while expensive and difficult to replace, were far more reliable, and Katniss didn't want to bother with anything that wouldn't give her a definitive answer.

At her mother's questioning look, Katniss served up the lie she had come up with the day before. "Madge needs one, but she doesn't want her father to know about it yet. I told her I could help her out."

The elder Everdeen voiced her concern about a girl Madge's age hiding something like this from her parents, but in the end she accepted the excuse. Katniss breathed a sigh of relief.

…..

She took the test in the woods. Ever since Gale had started work in the mines and only hunted on Sundays, the woods were where Katniss could be assured of absolute privacy.

She tried not to think about it too much as she checked the snare lines, but when she tried to hunt she found her aim was off because she couldn't hold her hands steady. Finally she gave up and took the damn test.

When she saw the results, she emptied her stomach once again.

…..

Peeta knew something was wrong as soon as he saw her at school. "What's the matter? Are you okay?"

Katniss would have rolled her eyes if she hadn't been feeling so miserable. Of course he noticed. She'd never been able to hide anything from him.

"We really can't talk about it here," she said. "Can you meet me in the meadow after school?"

"I have the afternoon shift today. I could get out of it…?"

Katniss cringed at herself. She knew Peeta's schedule, she should have known he was working today. Would have, if she'd been thinking clearly. But she wouldn't have allowed herself to get into this situation at all if she'd been thinking clearly. "No, don't do that," she said to his offer. His mother wouldn't be very forgiving if he bailed on his shift on such short notice. "I should do some hunting anyway." Cause she knew she wouldn't get anything done after they talked. "Meet me after?"

"Of course."

…..

She ran home quickly to drop off her day's haul, and only just resisted the lure of her bed. When she returned to the meadow Peeta was waiting for her. He immediately pulled her into a tight embrace, and she let him. She'd been keeping her distance for the past week, afraid of passing on her flu, but that was hardly a concern anymore. Being held by him again felt so impossibly good that she didn't want to let go, even when her breasts started to ache from being pressed against his hard chest. Instead she just snuggled her head further into his shoulder. The old, worn shirt he wore was soft against her skin, and he smelled like cinnamon and dill from the breads he must have baked that day. When she and Peeta had started seeing each other like this, she had been surprised how much she craved the feeling of his arms around her. No one else had held her like this in such a long time; ever since her father died and she stopped trusting her mother, no one else's arms had made her feel this safe.

"What's going on, Katniss?" Peeta asked against her hair. "I'm worried about you. You look like this flu is getting worse, not better."

"I'm pregnant," she blurted out before she lost her nerve. It was the first time she had used the word, even in her own mind.

Peeta held her out at arms length so he could look her in the face. "What?" he asked in disbelief.

"I'm pregnant," she repeated. She could see the play of emotions across his face, pure shock giving way to blinding happiness. She could see the moment when all the reasons why this was horrible news occurred to him, but he did his best to smile through it.

"Really?" he asked. His gaze flicked down to her stomach, which was still weeks away from showing any sign of what it contained. "We're going to have a baby?"

She dropped her second bomb. "Peeta, I can't have a baby. I can't," she repeated in emphasis.

She thought she had steeled herself for his reaction, but it still killed her to see the light go out of his eyes when he realized what she was saying. "Katniss, we could handle it," he began, and she didn't let him finish.

"Your mother would kick you out," she said. "You'd have to go work in the mines after we finish school."

"I'm strong, I could handle mine work," he said.

"I couldn't handle it!" she said. "You think I want to see you go down into that death trap every day? You think I want my child to grow up without their father the way I had to?"

"You don't know that'll happen," he said.

"You don't know that it won't," she replied.

They stared each other down for a long moment. Peeta never hid anything from her, and she could practically see the inner workings of his mind play across his features. She watched him begin to argue with her but then hold himself back. Watched him reconsider the situation. Watched the moment when he accepted her decision, and she hated herself for causing him this heartbreak.

"Is this really what you want?" he asked softly as he brushed a wisp of hair behind her ear.

"It's the only way," she insisted.

Peeta looked at her for another moment. Then he blew out a breath and nodded. "Okay. So what do we do?"

The question took Katniss by surprise. "What do you mean?"

"I know there are… ways, to end a pregnancy. But I don't know how to go about doing it. I'm not the one whose mother is a healer," he said.

"I can't go to my mother about this," she said quickly.

Peeta quirked his eyebrow in confusion. "She doesn't know?" Katniss shook her head. "What about Prim?"

"They can't know about this," she insisted. "No one can know about this."

Peeta nodded again. "Well, then we can't go to the apothecary. He's the biggest gossip in town, especially about customers from the Seam."

Somehow Katniss hadn't thought this far along yet, but now that she did, the solution was obvious. "There's a woman. In the Seam. An old woman named Marger. She, um, sometimes she helps out the girls who have been to Cray's. Or... others." It was hardly a secret that some in the merchant section of Twelve had paid mistresses among the starving girls of the Seam. Most were just more discreet about it than Cray. Katniss always felt uncomfortable when the subject came up, because Peeta, no matter how good a person he was, must be friends and neighbors with some of those people. And because if anyone ever found out they were together, they would assume that he was one of those people. "I trade herbs to her sometimes."

"Is she trustworthy?" Peeta asked.

Katniss shrugged. "As much as anyone, I guess. But she's my best option."

"Okay," Peeta said. "So when do we go see her?"

"We?" Katniss asked in surprise. "There's no reason you need to be there."

"Katniss," he said in that overly patient way he used when she was being particularly thickheaded, "if you think I'm letting you go through any part of this on your own then you really don't know me at all."

She sighed. Part of her did know that. The other part of her, the part of her that had been left alone by every person she dared let herself love besides Prim, was waiting for the day when he finally realized how much better he could do and left her behind.

But apparently that day wasn't today. "We can't go together," she said. "People would see us. It'd be obvious to everyone what was going on."

So they worked out a plan.

...

Peeta arrived first, traveling alone. It was unusual for a man to show up alone inquiring after Marger's services, but not unheard of. Bundled up against the frigid wind, his blond hair tucked into a knit hat and the fair skin of his face obscured by the hood of his heavy coat, only his unfamiliarity with the area marked him as out of place. Most people in the neighborhood were still at work in the mines, and the rest were busy with their recently-arrived-home schoolchildren. And unlike the busy-bodies in town, people from the Seam knew the value of keeping to yourself and letting others handle their own affairs. He attracted little attention.

Ten minutes later, Katniss arrived, clutching a bundle of herbs to trade. Everyone knew Katniss hunted and foraged beyond the district fence, and all the nearby neighbors had seen her trading with Marger many times. She received a few nods in greeting and was quickly forgotten.

Marger spoke quickly and plainly, her manner efficient and somewhat detached. It reminded Katniss of her mother when she was dealing with patients. What turned Katniss off was the suspicious looks the older woman kept shooting at Peeta, and the pity she directed at Katniss herself. It was clear what kind of assumptions Marger was making about the situation, exactly the reaction Katniss was avoiding by insisting she and Peeta keep their relationship secret. Katniss hated it when merchants made assumptions like that, but somehow it was even worse when Seam folks did it too.

"How far along are you?" the older woman asked.

"Um, about six weeks, I think? I know I had my cycle eight weeks ago." She flushed in embarrassment when she realized she was discussing her monthly cycle in front of Peeta. He must have sensed her discomfort, because she felt him take her hand and begin gently running the pad of his thumb over her knuckles. It sometimes bothered her how easily he could manipulate her emotions, but in that moment she greedily accepted the comfort he offered.

The older woman's gaze drifted as she considered the information Katniss had given her. "Okay; that's early enough," she muttered, then turned and disappeared into another room.

"Are you okay?" Peeta asked quietly once they were alone. Katniss only nodded, fearful of what her voice would give away if she tried to use it. Peeta gave her hand what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze, but held himself back from further displays.

After another few moments, Marger reappeared with a small bottle about the size of her hand, deep blue glass sealed with wax. "You came early enough that we can use the medicine," she explained. "Brew this into a tea and drink it. Don't eat any of the mix itself, some of this stuff is poisonous if taken directly. But make sure you let it steep for at least ten minutes, and make sure you drink every last drop, or else this won't work and you'll be left with a damaged fetus instead of an aborted one."

"What do we do in that case?" Peeta asked, but Katniss already knew the answer to that.

"Manual extraction," Marger explained. "I reach a tool up into her womb and scrape that little bugger out myself."

Katniss couldn't contain a shudder at the description, and she was sure Peeta felt it. "That sounds dangerous," Peeta said, concerned.

"It is," Marger said. "It's not like I got fancy Capitol scanners so I can see what I'm doing up there. If I mess up, the girl dies. Usually bleeding all over her kitchen table," she added, jutting her chin towards Katniss. Katniss shuddered again. Marger was good at what she did, at least as good as anyone from District 12 was, but over the years plenty of her customers had wound up at the Everdeens' house, barely conscious and bleeding from their wombs. Sometimes her mother was able to stop the bleeding; sometimes she wasn't. Sometimes the effort to prevent a life from beginning ended up causing one to end as well. "You must be pretty desperate, coming here after what you've seen," Marger said.

"I am," Katniss answered quietly.

"Well, just be glad you didn't wait any longer before coming. The medicine is definitely the way to go, and the earlier you take it, the better," Marger said. She held the bottle out for Katniss, who took it numbly. She turned it over in her hand a few times, listening to the contents shift around inside. The color of the glass mostly obscured whatever was inside, but Katniss had a pretty good idea. She'd read her mother's plant book, and she knew what plants she traded to Marger on a fairly regular basis. Red elm. Wild carrots. Squaw root. Common rue.

"I don't suppose I could convince you to use condoms in the future?" Marger asked, looking right at Peeta. Assuming that Peeta was in charge of deciding whether or not they used protection, because she was assuming that Peeta was buying her company somehow.

"We were using condoms," Katniss said, her voice tinged with the anger she was feeling. Marger raised her eyebrows, but said nothing.

"I guess we should have known better than to trust condoms we're able to get here in District 12," Peeta said, trying to cut the tension like he always did. Katniss would have laughed at how closely his thought mirrored her own, if the situation hadn't been so serious. She decided to change the subject.

"What'll happen when…" she began, then took a breath and started again. "Will there be side effects?"

"You're basically inducing a miscarriage," Marger explained. "You'll have cramping, fatigue, some abdominal pain, obviously bleeding. Your hormones will be all out of whack. It'll be like the monthly from hell. Don't plan on getting out of bed much for a couple of days."

Katniss considered this answer. Overall, it didn't sound horrible. But it also didn't sound like something she could hide from her mother and Prim. And there was no way she could fool them about what was happening. They were both healers, they would recognize a miscarriage whether it was induced or not.

Marger agreed to accept Katniss's plant bundle as even trade for the bottle of medicine, but Katniss had one more condition. "We need this to stay private," she said. "No one can know. No one."

"That's why you didn't just go to your mother, hmm?" the older woman said. She looked again over to Peeta. "I'll keep your dirty little secret, but it'll cost you extra."

Katniss's heart sank; she didn't have any extra to spare, and had been hoping her plant delivery would cover everything. Peeta calmly asked, "How much extra?"

"Ten coins."

Katniss almost choked when she heard that price. Ten coins! She knew for a fact that the old woman regularly offered her services for a coin or two, and that she never deliberately exposed her customers anyway. "Hold on a minute-" Katniss began.

"That's fine," Peeta said, cutting her off.

Katniss turned to him. "No, it's not fine. That's way more than she normally charges. She's just trying to swindle some extra cash out of you because you're from town."

"You think I don't know that?" Peeta said. "She wants ten coins; I have ten coins. If she wants to charge me extra because I'm from town, then that's fine." He turned back to Marger. "But I expect to get what I pay for."

"What do you mean by that?" the old woman asked.

"Exactly what she said. No one finds out about this. Not your friends, not your other customers, and especially not her family," Peeta said.

"And especially no one finds out about him ever being here," Katniss cut in. As mortified as she was about her family finding out about all of this, she was more worried about what his mother would do to him if she ever knew. She already knew what the witch would do when she found the till ten coins short at the end of the day. One of the reasons she was doing this was to protect him from his mother's wrath, but it seemed that she'd failed. It wasn't the first time he'd taken a beating for her, but that only made it worse.

"I'll pay you your ten coins," Peeta said, his voice deadly serious in a way Katniss had never heard from him before. "And if you don't keep this quiet, if word gets out about this to anyone, then I'll turn you in to the Peacekeepers."

Katniss thought she could feel the temperature in the room dropping with the threat, but Marger only laughed. "Do you think Cray would come after me? I clean up his messes for him. He won't shut me down."

"Cray may not," Peeta allowed. "But I bet you I can find at least one ambitious young Peacekeeper who wants to score points with their bosses in the Capitol by showing how lax Cray is. Someone who'd come after you despite Cray if they had an official complaint from a well-connected Townie to back them up."

"Anatolia," Katniss supplied. "Anatolia would love an opportunity to show up Cray." She had overheard Darius and the other Peacekeepers who frequented the Hob complaining about "the new recruit with a stick up her ass."

Marger looked to Katniss in surprise. "You really want to bring Peacekeepers into this?"

It was Peeta who answered, now attempting to placate the older woman. "Keep this quiet and nobody has to be brought into anything. I don't want to involve Peacekeepers any more than you do, but you need to understand how important confidentiality is to us."

"Just give me the ten coins, and they won't find out from me," she snapped. Peeta silently reached into his pocket and removed a coin purse, counting out ten coins and laying them on the table. Marger quickly swept them into a small jar which she stashed away in a cupboard.

"I think we're done here," Katniss said, stashing the bottle in her game bag. "We should leave separately," she said to Peeta.

"Him first," Marger said.

Katniss started to object, but paused when she felt Peeta's hand on her arm. "It's fine," he said once again. In Katniss's opinion he was being far too accommodating to the old woman, but she didn't fight him on it. Peeta leaned down and brushed a soft kiss against her lips. "I'll meet you in the meadow," he said, and when she nodded her confirmation, he bundled himself up once again, offered a farewell to Marger that she didn't return, and left quickly.

"He's a real piece of work," Marger muttered.

Katniss was still thinking about what she had cost Peeta, beyond money. "He's going to suffer for those coins, you know."

Marger just shrugged. "Not as much as my other customers," she said. Katniss couldn't argue. "I don't usually get actual merchants in here. Just their victims," Marger added looking back to Katniss.

Katniss bristled under the scrutiny. "Peeta's not like that," she said.

Marger gave her a pitying look. "Oh, honey, they're all like that. I've seen enough girls come through here to know. Don't let him smooth-talk you, he's just trying to get a discount." Before Katniss could come up with a retort, Marger changed the subject, softening her tone and saying, "Now that he's gone, I want you to be honest with me. Is he forcing you into this? If you want, I can give you a dummy tea. Just tell him it didn't work, that you were farther along than you thought-"

"It's not like that!" Katniss insisted again. "He's not forcing me into anything, and he's not paying me anything either."

"You're giving it away for free?" Marger asked, shaking her head. "Thought you were smarter than that."

"Shut up," Katniss snapped. "You don't know anything about me, and you don't know anything about Peeta. Stop making assumptions about us." She hitched her hunting jacket up on her shoulders. "I think I've waited long enough. Just make sure you keep this quiet."

"I keep my word," Marger said, shaking her head at the poor, deluded Seam girl who thought that a Townie actually cared about her.

…..

Katniss had no other options.

She couldn't end her pregnancy at home, there'd be no way to hide what was happening from her mother and her sister. She only had three other people she was close to, and she couldn't stay with any of them either. Peeta's home was obviously not an option, not with his mother there. Gale and Hazelle would put her up for a couple of days if she asked, but again they would see what was happening to her. Even if they didn't recognize the symptoms of a miscarriage - and Hazelle certainly might - they would go get her mother to examine her when she fell ill. And while she and Madge were friendly in school, they didn't have the kind of relationship where they visited each other's houses, not unless Katniss was selling strawberries.

That left her with one answer. The only place she would have the privacy she needed was the woods. And there was no way she could spend two days out in the open. As much as she hated to do it, she would have to end her pregnancy in the concrete house by the lake that had always been her special place with her father. Now it would forever be the place where she aborted her baby.

She wouldn't be alone, either. She tried to keep her plans from Peeta, but couldn't. She found it so hard to deny him anything, and by now he had experience dealing with her tendency to retreat any time she felt vulnerable or not in complete control. And she didn't think she had ever felt this vulnerable or not in control, not since the awful winter after her father died.

Katniss still dared not miss a day of school, so they planned to leave as soon as they got out on Friday afternoon. That would give her a full two and a half days before she had to be back Monday morning. Katniss stopped at home only long enough to grab the pack of extra blankets she had put together, and leave a note for her family letting them know she wouldn't be home over the weekend. The note didn't specify why; she'd have to come up with that excuse later. Then she headed for the woods. When she neared the fence, Peeta was already there waiting for her, with a pack of his own, and also a large sack that she could only assume contained fresh bakery bread.

Peeta spoke up before she could object. "If we're going to be gone two days, we're going to have to eat." Katniss knew she wouldn't be able to convince him otherwise, so she wordlessly slid under the fence and began angrily stomping toward the hollow log where her bow was stashed. Peeta would never understand how sensitive she was about him giving her food. How it was almost exactly what people like Marger and his mother assumed about them. How it was an uncomfortable reminder of the first time he gave her food, one night in the freezing rain that she still felt she owed him for.

At least he didn't have any new bruises today, not like the day after their trip to Marger's. Whether it was for the coins or the missed shift, Katniss knew it was her fault somehow, no matter how much Peeta insisted otherwise.

"How did you get out of work for the weekend?" she asked as they walked.

"I got Rye to take my shifts," he said. Katniss raised her eyebrows at this; Rye wasn't normally known to be that accommodating. "Don't look so impressed," Peeta said with a small laugh. "I'll be working all of his shifts during the winter break in exchange."

"That's nowhere near a fair trade," Katniss said.

Peeta shrugged. "It's more important to be here now than over break."

Katniss turned back to the trail they were following, but she couldn't stop a smile from blooming on her face.

...

"Wow," was Peeta's reaction the first time he saw the lake. Katniss had never brought him there before, wanting to keep it as her and her father's special place. Looking at how Peeta was reacting now, the deep appreciation evident on his face as he turned back and forth to take everything in, Katniss began to think that maybe that had been a mistake.

"Come on," she said with a wave. "There's a little house over here."

Katniss began making up a makeshift bed out of blankets while Peeta started a fire. They set a pot of water to boil for the tea, and Katniss went hunting for food while waiting for it to heat. As she had feared, the noise of their arrival had scared the game away, but she set some snares around the treeline. Unfortunately they wouldn't find any waterfowl here in the dead of winter, nor the katniss plants that were abundant in the warmer months, but she hoped the snares would yield some meat.

When she returned, Peeta was warming some cheese buns by the fire. Even though she still wanted to be mad about the food he'd brought, her mouth watered at the scent of the toasting cheese buns. Peeta threw her a confident smirk as she sat opposite from him by the hearth. "Go ahead and enjoy them. You can go back to being mad at me later." He tore the toasted bun in two, and held out the larger piece for her.

Katniss was struck as she took the proffered bread. "Are we toasting bread together? A girl could read more into this than you meant."

Peeta looked away, but she could see his face flush. "Do you want to toast with cheese buns?" he asked. "I'll have to keep that in mind. For future reference."

Katniss froze at his words. She never gave thought to the future, let alone their future. The present was enough to occupy all her efforts and worries. And deep down, she knew what future there was in District 12 for a Seam girl and a town boy: None. So she didn't let herself think about it, because as much as she had accepted the inevitability of their relationship petering out at some point, the thought of it was like a knife in her heart.

As they waited for the water to come to a boil, Katniss found herself turning the bottle of medicine over in her hands. The light passing through the bottle cast ever-changing shadows as the contents shifted around. The blue color of the glass made her think of Peeta's eyes. Would their baby have those eyes? She hadn't let herself think of it as a baby, but now in her mind she saw a chubby baby boy, with Peeta's blue eyes and blond hair. A baby that would never exist.

"Katniss?" Peeta called her attention back to reality. The water in the pot was boiling, and Peeta had taken it off of the fire. Katniss numbly cracked the seal on the bottle and emptied the contents into the hot water. Peeta stirred the mixture a bit, then set it aside.

"So..." he said as the silence began to feel awkward. "Ten minutes."

"Will you hate me for doing this?" Katniss asked, her eyes fixed on her now empty hands.

"I could never hate you," Peeta answered. She looked up to see his eyes trained on her. "What about you? Are you having second thoughts?"

Katniss shook her head, but found her tongue was frozen. "Katniss?" Peeta asked again after the silence dragged on.

"Do you want to keep the baby?" she asked. She realized she had never heard Peeta say one way or another. She had been barreling ahead doing whatever she wanted, as she usually did, and Peeta had been left following in her wake, like he usually was. Katniss wasn't used to making decisions with another person, she'd been providing for her family on her own for what sometimes felt like forever.

Peeta was quiet for a while before answering. "I haven't let myself think about it," he said. "I want to be in this with you as much as I can be, but in the end, you're the one who's pregnant. That makes this your decision. If I decide that I want this baby, or that I don't want this baby… If I do that then I might end up disagreeing with your decision, and I don't want that at all." He paused, and let out a breath. "No matter what you decide, I'm behind you one hundred percent. There are no other options here."

Katniss said nothing. She didn't know how to respond to his statement, so she said nothing. The level of devotion Peeta was giving her made her feel comforted and uncomfortable at the same time. When she remained silent, Peeta said, "You have to make this decision for you, Katniss. You always put others in front of you, whether it's me, or Prim, or even your mother. But this is all about you. What do you want?"

As Peeta spoke, Katniss realized how wrong he was. "I can't decide this for me," she said with a shake of her head. "I'm making this decision for the baby. If we keep this baby, it will only suffer. We won't be able to take care of it."

"We can-" Peeta began, but she didn't let him finish.

"Your mother will kick you out. You won't be able to work at the bakery anymore. I won't be able to hunt if I'm home with the baby. We couldn't take care of ourselves, let alone an infant." She looked up to Peeta, waiting for him to contradict her, but she could see in his eyes that he knew she was right.

They were silent for the remainder of the ten minutes. When enough time had passed, Katniss poured the medicine from the pot into a flask, careful to leave the leaves in the pot. The liquid had cooled enough that it was drinkable. Katniss lifted the flask, but hesitated to drink. She stared at the opening of the flask, willing her arm to move to take a drink.

"You're doing the right thing," Peeta said. She looked past the flask to where he was watching her. "I don't think I'd be strong enough to admit that if I didn't have you to force me to face the facts, but you're right." He huffed out a humorless laugh. "It's hard enough to survive in District 12. There's no way we could support a baby, and your family, not when we're both stuck in school for another year."

It pained Katniss to hear him so dispirited, but at the same time she was heartened to hear him vocally supporting her decision. She gave him a weak smile, which he returned. He reached over and took her free hand. "It's okay," he said. She squeezed his hand tightly. He squeezed back. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and lifted the flask to her lips.

…..

Katniss was in agony.

Well, that wasn't really true. She'd been in far worse pain before. The time she wrenched her knee two miles from the fence. The time her knife hand slipped while she was skinning a rabbit. The feeling of her stomach slowly digesting itself after too many days without food, and seeing the same pain clearly displayed on Prim's face. Compared to those, the aches and soreness she was feeling now weren't so awful. She was really, really uncomfortable, but she could bear this level of discomfort for hours if she needed to.

The problem was that it had already been more than twelve hours since she woke up feeling like this, and it just wouldn't stop. Marger had called it the monthly from hell, and she wasn't far off.

Katniss had slept soundly the night before, taking advantage of the all-too-rare opportunity to sleep next to Peeta. By the time she woke late in the morning, she had already bled through her trousers and all over the blankets they had slept on. She really should have expected it, but in the moment she was mortified with embarrassment, and refused all of Peeta's attempts to help her as she gathered everything up and rushed outside to wash them in the cold water of the lake.

While she was washing the blood out, she had time to calm down. As her rush of adrenaline ebbed, she became more aware of her condition. The cramps she was feeling - the muscles of her body working to expel her would-be baby - were worse than anything she had felt before in her regular cycles. The scent of the blood she was washing out made her queasy, and she vomited twice before she was done.

By the time she went back inside, cold and wet and drained both emotionally and physically, Peeta had a roaring fire going, and had laid out new blankets from his own pack, as well as a stack of towels he had brought. He also had a small pile of rolls freshly toasted and waiting for her, the mere sight of which helped settle her stomach. She gratefully burrowed her way into the blankets and accepted the bread as Peeta passed it to her. "They're not cheese buns, but I hope they'll still meet your approval," he quipped.

"I'm sure they will, everything you make is delicious," she said, earning a blinding smile.

They passed most of the day like this - Peeta maintained the fire and cleaned towels as needed. Katniss nibbled on bread and tried to nap through the process. In the early afternoon she went out and checked the snares she had set, surprised to find a decent-sized rabbit. However, her attempt to skin and gut the animal caused another vomiting fit, and she was forced to leave the food preparation to Peeta. She wound up eating very little of the meat, preferring the way the hearty bread calmed her stomach, but Peeta coaxed a few pieces down her throat.

It was dark again now, sometime overnight Saturday. That meant that her ordeal should be one-half over already. She tried to convince herself of this, but after a full day or unending pain it felt more like it would never end. She had long ago run out of the small quantity of painkillers she had taken from her mother's supplies, not daring to take so much that it would attract the older Everdeen's notice. Her body was exhausted, her mind was exhausted, but she couldn't sleep through this. She should have brought sleeping syrup, she thought, but she didn't know if the syrup would interfere with the process her body was going through. She vented her distress by snapping at Peeta, who wordlessly accepted her abuse, making her feel guilty as well as irritable and tired and scared.

"You have a fever," Peeta commented at one point, taking note of the sweat covering her face and growing concerned with how hot her skin felt. "Do you want to take off a blanket?"

"No, no," she said, shaking her head weakly. She remembered her mother's advice on fevers. "If the body is that warm then it needs to be for some reason. Just need to keep the head cool." Katniss huffed out a laugh. "Wish all this heat would calm the aches in the rest of my body," she said bitterly.

Peeta quickly retrieved some cold water from the lake, then slid behind Katniss and sat against the wall. "Here, try sitting up for a while," he said. He helped lift her into a sitting position, and pulled her back to sit against him, wrapping them both up in a cocoon of blankets. He guided her head back to rest against his shoulder, then wet a towel in the cold water and wiped the dirt and sweat from her face. Katniss sighed audibly at the touch of the cool towel against her heated skin, and felt herself begin to relax for the first time in hours. When he was done, he rinsed the towel several times, then folded it and placed it across her forehead.

"Just try to relax," he said in her ear. She felt his arms snake their way around her waist. His large, warm hands began moving across her sides and stomach, the gentle pressure and smooth motion easing her tired body. Her eyes fell closed, and she found she didn't have the energy to reopen them. "Is this okay?" Peeta asked. "We do this for sore muscles after wrestling practice sometimes. I thought it might help."

"My back," she said sleepily. "Can you rub my back?"

"Of course," he said. He kept one hand over her stomach while moving the other to her back, and moved them both in tandem. Katniss leaned against him more and more as her body relaxed. When she unsuccessfully fought off a yawn, Peeta whispered, "Go to sleep. I'll be here when you wake up."

"You promise?" Katniss mumbled. "You'll stay with me?"

Peeta whispered a word back, but she was too far gone asleep to catch what it was.

...

Katniss was disoriented when she woke up, and it took her a few moments to gather herself. She was lying down, for one thing. A now-warm towel fell from her head as she sat up. She felt clammy and uncomfortable, but she wasn't sweating like she had been before she fell asleep. Her fever must have broken overnight. Her abdominal pain was different, too - she still felt sore as hell, but it was the kind of soreness that comes after you overexert yourself, not the kind of pain that comes from continuing to overexert yourself. She was barely bleeding anymore, less even than her normal monthly cycle. Based on the angle of the sunlight filtering in through the window, it was about noon, 42 hours since she had first taken the medicine to end her pregnancy. She optimistically hoped that the worst of the process was behind her.

Also, she was alone.

She wasn't surprised, really. She knew that whatever they had would have to come to an end sometime. She certainly hadn't been very pleasant to be around since she found out about her pregnancy, particularly the previous day when she was suffering the worst of the side-effects. This scare was like a splash of cold water, washing away the fantasy world they'd been living in where they could have anything real together.

She had just resigned herself to this new reality when the door opened and Peeta came striding in, clutching a fistful of freshly washed towels in one hand and their drinking flasks in the other. "Hey, you're awake," he said with a wide beaming smile. He walked over and dropped a quick kiss to her forehead. He left the flasks next to her before moving to hang the towels by the fire to dry. "Feels like your fever's getting better," he commented as he worked. "There's still bread and a bit of rabbit if you're hungry."

Katniss's world had been turned upside-down too many times in the previous two minutes. "You were gone," she said numbly. Peeta turned and cocked an eyebrow at her in question. "When I woke up, you were gone."

"I was just outside," he said, as if it was obvious. "I washed out the towels we used overnight and refilled the water flasks."

That made sense. "I thought you'd left."

Peeta finished hanging the wet towels, and turned to face her fully. "I'd never leave you."

Katniss wanted to believe him, but the past week, not to mention the last day, had left her tired and frayed. "Don't make promises you can't keep," she muttered.

Peeta sat next to her, turned so they faced each other. She didn't resist when he took her hands in his. "Do you really think I'd ever leave you? You think I ever could?"

"What else are you going to do?" she asked, tearing her hands away to wipe angrily at the tears she couldn't hold in anymore.

"I could stay with you," he said, recalling her sleepy request from the night before. "For as long as you'll let me."

Katniss shook her head, unable to speak, trying and failing to stop the tears that continued to flow down her face. "Look, Katniss," Peeta began gingerly, "We've never really talked about this. Because, frankly, I was afraid what your answer would be." He reached out to rest his hand on her knee over top of the blanket, but stopped half way and returned both hands to his lap. "I don't know what you're feeling. I don't even know if you know what you're feeling. But this, you and me, this is real for me. This isn't something I want to lose anytime soon. Or ever."

"What happens when we finish school?" she asked, her voice so quiet that it was barely audible over the crackling of the fire. "I'll have to go to work in the mines. You'll have to marry some girl from town. What do we do then?"

"Who says I have to marry someone from town?" Peeta said. "Since when are you and my mother on the same page about anything?"

That actually got a small smile out of Katniss. "Just trying to be realistic," she said. "I know how merchants' third sons have to support themselves."

Peeta paused for a moment. "Do you remember last month, when I told you that Barlee was planning to marry?"

Katniss was confused by the sudden change of subject. "Yeah..."

"He's marrying the florist's daughter," Peeta said. "He's already started working over there."

Katniss sat dumbfounded for a moment. "Really?" she asked. "He won't be taking over the bakery?"

"No. And neither will Rye. My mother isn't exactly my biggest fan, but even she admits that I'm more dependable than Rye," he said.

"Well," Katniss said, struggling to keep her voice steady. "Our next baker. Any town girl will be lucky to have you."

"What if I don't want any town girl?" Peeta said. "What if I only want you?"

Katniss was quiet for a long moment. Finally she spoke. "I never let myself think about a future for us. Because I knew there couldn't be one."

"It's all I think about," Peeta admitted. "It's all I've thought about for years."

Katniss was momentarily stunned by this. She'd never thought Peeta was using her, not the way that most people assumed when they heard about a town/Seam couple, but it was a whole other thing to hear him speak so plainly about things she hadn't ever let herself hope for. "To tell the truth, I really thought this would be it for us. The pregnancy. The baby. I thought that this would show you what a horrible risk you were taking with me and you'd finally come to your senses before I cost you your future And I'd be okay with that, because I don't want to hurt you."

"I was afraid of the same thing," Peeta said. "That this would be too much and you'd decide that sneaking around with me was more trouble than it's worth."

Peeta reached out again, this time taking one of her hands and holding it in both his own. "I've never said this out loud, because I wasn't sure if you wanted to hear it, but I love you, Katniss. I know you don't have the best experiences with love. And I know I probably haven't helped that any by getting you pregnant when we're both so young. And I know it sucks that we have to sneak around until my mother can't hurt me anymore. I know you're scared, hell I'm scared too. But I love you anyway."

She had never imagined that Peeta would actually feel that way about her, but somehow at the same time she wasn't surprised by it. "Even after..." she began, then had to stop to collect herself. "I almost ruined your life."

"I think we were both involved in that," he said. "But it doesn't matter now. Yeah we almost made a huge mistake, but it doesn't change anything for me. It doesn't change how I feel. I still love you. I still want to be with you. I still want to marry you. And someday, when we're both ready for it and we both decide that we want it, I still want to have children with you. I want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you, and I don't want us to miss out on one bit of it because of this."

Katniss was silent. She never let herself think of the future, always focused on how to survive the present. Peeta had just laid out a plan for their whole lives, full of love and marriage and children, all the things she'd spent years telling herself she never wanted. She should have been scared, or angry, or at least turned off from it. She surprised herself when she admitted that she was none of those things. She wasn't quite willing to say she wanted everything Peeta had just outlined, but she couldn't say she didn't, either.

She was usually reticent to expose her feelings like Peeta just had, but after all that, he at least deserved the truth. "I don't know if I'm ready for all of that," she said. "I never really let myself think like that, I don't know what I want. But..." She paused, and swallowed around the lump in her throat. "But I don't want to let you go," she forced out.

Peeta took a moment to process her answer. "Well, that's a start, right? You don't let me go, and I won't let you go, and we'll figure out the rest from there."

"Okay," Katniss said. "I can handle that."

Peeta grinned. "Then I only have one other question."

"What's that?" Katniss asked.

"Can I kiss you now?"

Katniss rolled her eyes. "I've been puking and I haven't brushed my teeth in three days."

Peeta hesitated for just a moment. "That didn't sound like a no," he said, and his lips were on hers before she could object.

...

By mid-afternoon, Katniss was feeling well enough to make the walk home. As they got closer and closer to the district fence, Katniss felt an odd sense of melancholy. As horrible as much of the experience had been, getting to spend the weekend alone with Peeta was something she would miss. It would be had to go back to sneaking around, hiding from everyone.

"Thank you," she said out loud.

"For what?" Peeta asked.

"For being wonderful."

Peeta looked down and blushed. "I think you're overestimating my good qualities."

Katniss shook her head. "You know, the lake, that house, that whole area, that was always something private between my father and me. Something special, just for the two of us. And when I realized that I had no where else to go this weekend, I thought I'd ruin it. That I'd replace all those good memories with bad ones. That it wouldn't be our special place anymore, that now it'd just be the place where I ended my pregnancy." She stopped walking so she could turn and face Peeta directly. "But when I think of this weekend, when I think of ending the pregnancy, all I think of is you. You toasting bread for me. You holding me to keep me warm. You massaging my pain away so I could fall asleep. You holding my hand while I took the medicine. You saved the place where I feel closest to my father for me."

She didn't realize she was crying again until Peeta took her head in his hands and gently wiped her tears away with his thumbs. "Damn hormones," she complained as she began wiping at them herself.

Peeta dipped his head and pressed a tender kiss against her lips which she greedily returned, then pulled her into a tight embrace. "You don't have to thank me for any of that. I'd do anything for you. I love you." Katniss tensed when he said it, and he must have felt her. "Shit, is that too much? I can stop saying it if it bothers you."

"No, that's okay," she said.

She didn't pull back to see his face, but she could hear the smile in his voice. "That's okay? Then you'll allow it?"

"Yeah. I'll allow it," she said. "And maybe, one day, I'll let me love you too."

Peeta's smile seemed to grow as her meaning sunk in. "Yeah?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said with a nod.

They walked the rest of the way back to the district hand in hand. They'd done this hundreds of times, but somehow it felt very different to Katniss this time. She wasn't quite ready to admit it to herself, but in the back of her mind, she knew that one day they'd be able to do this out in the open. Holding on to someone else was different when she knew she'd never have to let go.