This fanfic takes place after The Mockingjay book. I feel like the book ended at a good place to start another story so that's kind of where I am going with it. I plan on making this a multi-chapter story but looking at it from different points-of-view between the characters. I hope you like it! Please feel free to critique me! I would love some feedback. Enjoy!
Peeta
The air is thick with smoke, like a heavy blanket trying to hide the people I hold closest to my heart. Screams pierce the night sky and I struggle to stay on my feet but know I must keep going. For them.
"Katniss! Katniss!" I yell but my voice is barely audible above the chaos around me. I hear the bullet wiz past my head before the sound of the gun goes off and I fall onto my stomach trying to stay hidden. That's when I see them. Lying on the ground, wrap around each other, motionless. My heart stops and feels like it falls out of my chest. I crawl towards them and take them both into my arms and I sob.
"Peeta! Peeta! Wake up! It's just a dream, its not real. Your dreaming baby!" Katniss says hastily but her voice barely reaches me. I'm still in panic. My wife. My daughter. My unborn child. Gone.
"No don't leave me! Please Katniss... Stay..." I sob, begging her to hold on as I grasp her tightly.
I feel pressure around my body but can't figure out what's happening.
"Peeta I'm not leaving. I'm right here, I'm here.." Katniss whispers softly into my ear. I feel tears streaming down my face and my heart is beating so hard I can hear it. The pressure around my chest and back tightens and something is in my hair. No. Someone is stroking my hair.
"Katniss" I sigh, relieved that my nightmare was coming to an end. But it felt so real. I open my eyes and return her embrace. It's been 15 years since the Hunger Games and yet they still haunt me. People, places, smells, voices. It's almost like I never left sometimes. But this dream was different. Present, new and all too real.
I feel the tiny bump in between Katniss and I, the tiny reminder that she is carrying my second child. I hope for a boy only because we already have a beautiful daughter, Lily Primrose Mellark. Dark brown hair, stubborn, and independent like her mother but with blue eyes and charm like me, she is perfect. I smile at just the thought of my 4 year-old little girl.
"I.. I'm sorry it was just a..bad dream." I say trying to steady my voice unsuccessfully.
"I realized. It must've been pretty intense, are you ok now?" Katniss replies, pulling away to look at me.
"Dammit! Katniss your cheek!" I yell under my breath as I reach up to touch the already bruising and swelling scuff on her right cheek. This isn't the first time that I have hit her accidentally during one of my nightmare fits and she isn't innocent either. Sleeping together is a risk for either one of us but it still crushes me every time.
I jump out of bed, grab a towel and start running cold water on it to hold on her cheek.
"Babe I didn't even feel it. I'm fine. Just come back to bed." she says reassuringly but I know she is just trying to make me feel better.
"No Katniss I can't sleep. Not by you anyways. I could hurt the baby!" I am yelling now my voice still unsteady from the recent dream. "And I already hurt you AGAIN. So no. I'm not coming back to bed."
Katniss remains silent as I quickly hand her the damp towel and stride out of the room, confirming what I said to be true. Our baby cannot be harmed. And I am the danger.
Rage fills me to the core as I enter the kitchen and open the cupboard. I grab a large mixing bowl and get to work. Flour, sugar, salt, baking power.. I run the ingredients through my head as I take them off the shelf. I hear footsteps behind me but I can't. I can't face my wife after hurting her. I hate myself for it.
"I'm craving blueberry muffins. And Maybe some brownies." Katniss says seriously as she plops down at the kitchen table. Cocoa, oil, blueberries.. I quickly change the route of my baking to match her request.
"Peeta, I really am Ok. It's not like this hasn't happened before.." her voice trailing and I sense the regret in the action.
The comment rocks me to the core and I freeze. I set down the bowl and lean against the cold marble counter.
"Peeta.. I didn't mean...it like..that." she stammers out but it's pointless.
"I'm sorry" she says quietly and it breaks my heart.
Forgetting everything I run over to my beautiful wife and gaze into her gray-seam eyes. Her long-wavy brown hair, which is usually braided, now trails down her back and over her right shoulder. Her face seems to glow when I look at her and my whole soul feels like its floating. She is so beautiful. I bring her into my arms and she buries her head into my neck. Her breath tickling and warming me, and I like it. I breathe her in and, of course, she smells like the world right after it rains. Refreshing, woodsy, and pure. Everything my girl is and has always been.
"You have nothing to apologize for. You are perfect. And I am so sorry. I just hate myself for hurting you. You deserve everything that's good in this world and I feel like I'm not giving it to you." I say but not being able to hold her gaze any longer.
Before she can reply a loud and rapid knock pounds on our door. I check the clock. Four-thirty in the morning. I look at Katniss and find my look of confusion mirrored in her expression. I quickly go to the door and find a sober Haymitch wide eyed and alert and I know something is wrong. Haymitch is never sober.
Though his hair is now almost completely white and his skin sags farther from his face, Haymitch's eyes are as bright as ever giving off a boyish quality. He opens his mouth but nothing comes out. His brows furrow in the weight of the news he brings to our home.
"Haymitch what is it?" Katniss says, now at my side, grabbing onto my arm, her other hand planted gently on her growing belly.
Haymitch seems to be taking us all in with his eyes because he steps back and looks at us, his eyes now heavy with concern. He still can't seem to find the right words and I'm not sure I want to hear what he has to say anyway.
"Haymitch, it's ok just tell us." I say as I walk towards him and place a hand on my most trusted and dearest friend.
He looks into my eyes for a long moment and then back at Katniss before he has the decency to drop his gaze.
"Its.. Its Happening again." he says in a voice so low that I have to strain to hear him.
Lead seems to fill my veins, organs, mouth, everything Until I feel like I am weighted where I stand. I hear Katniss's stifled cry behind me but I can't moved. Even Haymitch seems to incapable move. We all stand there reliving the terror of our past knowing that it could now be our future. Realizing that once you've played a game. Its hard to quit it.