a/n: Many thanks to Sponsormusings, MalTease, and Salanderjade for their hugely helpful feedback as I wrote this chapter.
Thanks so much for reading. If you'd like to find me on tumblr, I'm there as jeeno2.
They haven't been to Eleven since the Victory Tour sixteen years ago.
The circumstances bringing them here today are very different, of course. And so's the train. Katniss and Peeta are riding a regular passenger train today, designed for speed, practicality, and day-to-day inter-district travel. Not something created for the express purpose of parading Victors about the country.
To her credit, Paylor has no use for the ostentatious displays of wealth now synonymous with Snow's brutal regime. There are no mahogany tables or gold-plated appetizer trays here. Just rows of seats filled with ordinary travelers. Families, most of them, but also businessmen in three-piece suits, farmers wearing denim overalls, and miners sooty with coal dust.
But despite the many differences between today and that trip sixteen years ago, Katniss is still en route to Eleven with Peeta, a man who is not only her husband but also the co-Victor who travelled with her to Eleven on the Victory Tour. As Twelve's misty mountains slowly give way to flat farmland and trees laden with summer fruit Katniss is overwhelmed with a sickening feeling of déjà vu that threatens to taint what's supposed to be a joyous day.
From the look on Peeta's face Katniss guesses he feels it too. The uncomfortable familiarity of all this. When they cross over Twelve's border with Eleven he pulls Katniss onto his lap, just like he used to do when they were first married, and buries his nose in her thick unbraided hair.
"The last time we were in Eleven we said goodbye to Rue," Peeta murmurs into her ear, too quietly for the passengers seated near them to hear.
Katniss nods wordlessly against his chest, her mind a muddle of too many conflicting memories and emotions for her to find her voice. Little Rue's sweet singing voice ringing through the treetops of the Arena. The incredible stoicism Rue's mother showed at that horrible ceremony they were forced to attend on the Victory Tour. The tiny pink dress Peeta picked out two years ago in the hope that today would eventually come.
The dress. Katniss quickly reaches down and rummages around in her suitcase for a few panicky seconds, letting out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding when her fingers brush up against the little outfit.
Oblivious, Peeta tucks a stray lock of Katniss' hair behind her ear and kisses the top of her head.
"I packed it," Katniss says abruptly. Peeta arches one eyebrow at her, confused.
"The baby's dress, I mean," she clarifies. "I remembered to bring it along."
Peeta doesn't respond at first. But eventually he understands what she's telling him. He lets out a shaky exhale and pulls Katniss into a crushing embrace.
"Thank you," he murmurs, his voice thick with emotion. "I'd… actually forgotten all about it," he admits sheepishly.
Katniss nods and presses a gentle kiss to his neck. "Well. It has been a very long time."
They hold each other close as the train slowly pulls into Eleven's train station, still as dilapidated as it was sixteen years ago. It looks so much like it did on the Victory Tour that Katniss freezes in panic when it's time to disembark, her muscle memory kicking in despite the fact that she and Peeta are in no danger here and have been eagerly awaiting this day for many years.
Peeta ultimately has to help Katniss off the train as memories too horrible to bear flood her senses.
Ironically, when they had their toasting the year after the war ended, Katniss believed she never wanted children. Not after everything they'd been through, and not in a world where she still couldn't trust the government.
And not while she and Peeta were still far too broken to even properly care for themselves some days.
Yes, Paylor abolished the Games as one of her very first acts as Panem's new President. But nothing was certain in this world except death, and Katniss refused to bring an innocent child into the world only to risk it suffering and dying as so many of their loved ones had done in the all too recent past.
In the weeks leading up to their toasting Katniss told Peeta, again and again, that she never wanted to have children. But she knew he did want children – that he'd probably wanted them ever since he was a child himself. He never said as much to her but he didn't have to. The way his eyes softened every time a mother, an older sister, a grandfather brought a small child into the bakery told Katniss everything she needed to know.
After everything he'd been through, she owed it to Peeta to give him an out before they were married if not having children was something he couldn't live with. .
But at the time, Peeta had readily agreed to go along with her wishes. In retrospect, Katniss is pretty sure he'd have agreed to just about anything, then, if it meant she'd agree to marry him.
"I don't care if you don't want children," Peeta had said to her the week before they were married, lying through his teeth, unable to look her in the eye. "I just want you, Katniss. Only you."
Even though Katniss didn't believe him, Peeta consistently gave her the same answer every time she brought the subject up. She needed Peeta far too much to let him go, and loved him with every fiber of her being. And so in the end she kept her doubts to herself and took him at his word.
At their toasting ceremony they fed each other pieces of unevenly toasted bread as Haymitch catcalled; as Johanna made lewd comments; as Delly smiled so broadly it threatened to split her face in two; and as Annie Cresta Odair – her infant son Dylan soundly asleep in her arms – clapped and cheered.
"To my beautiful wife," Peeta said when it was over, his voice thick with emotion. He raised a glass of fancy Capitol wine into the air, saved for just this occasion, unable to tear his eyes away from Katniss or from her lacy white gown that had been her mother's.
"May your lives together be long and happy," Annie added, with just enough wistfulness in her voice that it made Katniss' heart ache.
The small group clinked glasses and drank. Katniss, wine glass still in hand, threw her arms around Peeta's neck and kissed him, hard, right on the mouth, ignoring Haymitch's and Johanna's comments, unable to believe that she and Peeta were finally here.
Peeta smiled against her lips and kissed her back.
Katniss was happier during their first few years of marriage than she'd ever dreamed possible.
They both worked hard during those early days. Everyone in Twelve did. Their district was struggling to rebuild, and its residents were determined to make it rise like a Phoenix from the ashes.
Paylor's new government helped the only ways it really could: by regularly injecting Capitol money into the local economy, and by providing a steady stream of train cars full of the raw materials the people in Twelve needed to rebuild. But it was the people of Twelve themselves who did the actual backbreaking work of building the district up again out of the rubble.
Through Katniss', Peeta's, and their neighbors' blood, sweat, and tears, the district was slowly – but surely – healing from its scars and beginning anew. People were tired, and broken, but there was excitement in the air, and hope for the future for the very first time. It was infectious.
Every night those first few years, after the hard work of the day was finished, Katniss and Peeta made dinner together. There'd be meat if Katniss' day in the woods had been successful and there was some left to spare after sharing with their neighbors; if the forest's yield that day had been meager they'd eat potatoes and other root vegetables instead. They ate together on their front porch if the weather was fine, and in their warm kitchen if it wasn't, their legs tangling together underneath the table as Katniss talked about how Delly and Thom and the others were getting along and Peeta gazed helplessly into her grey eyes.
After washing the dishes, they'd talk about their respective days and make each other laugh as they held each other close on their porch swing. On their living room couch. In their bed, after making love.
They both still had demons to fight. Powerful demons. Nightmares still plagued Katniss more nights than not, and Peeta still had frightful episodes at least once a week. But they had each other to lean on.
And as time passed and District Twelve was slowly reborn, their demons started fading, gradually, into the mist, and seemed more and more manageable with each passing day.
When they'd been married for about three years, the government aired a propo that changed everything.
It happened one late, sultry summer evening. Katniss and Peeta were cuddling on the couch in the front room of their Victor's Village home, an image of President Paylor standing on a sun-drenched beach in Four on the telescreen in front of them.
Katniss hated watching government propos. But in the first few years after the war, Peeta would insist they tune in occasionally. "We don't want anything to catch us by surprise," he'd tell her.
As much as she hated to admit it, his point was valid.
In this particular propo the President wore a modest grey suit and held Dylan, Annie's then three-year-old son, in her arms. The chubby toddler squealed happily and tried to grab the microphone out of Paylor's lapel, making both Paylor and the off-screen cameraman laugh.
Katniss rested her head in Peeta's lap as Paylor spoke. He caressed her hair in that special way he'd perfected over the years, running his thick but dexterous fingers through her long locks, making little braids only to undo them a minute later.
That day had been a particularly difficult one for Katniss in the woods. She was tired, and sore all over, and lying on the sofa in Peeta's arms was extremely comfortable. So she was really only half-listening to Paylor's speech.
"Panem has overcome much," the President said. Katniss yawned and closed her eyes, and decided to tune out the President by taking a nap. Unfortunately, Peeta chose that exact moment to turn up the volume on the telescreen, meaning Katniss couldn't help but stay awake and listen.
"But there is still much rebuilding to be done," Paylor continued. "The Great War caused Panem's population to drop precipitously. We are dangerously close to having too few people left for us to survive as a race." At that, the President paused dramatically and looked straight at the camera. Katniss rolled her eyes and turned away from the screen.
"Only through determination, and hard work – and family – can Panem become great once more." The President placed special emphasis on the word family and jostled Dylan a little on her hip. She dropped a very deliberate kiss on his cheek, eliciting another delighted squeal from the boy.
"Peeta," she whined as Paylor moved on to a discussion of Panem's intra-district exports. "Can we please shut this off?"
"Don't you want to see how big Dylan's gotten?" he asked her, his tone of voice strange.
"We just saw Dylan last month, and we'll see him again when we go to Seven in six weeks for Johanna's birthday," Katniss pointed out.
But Peeta just shrugged and kept the telescreen on.
"Fine," Katniss huffed. "You can stay up and watch this if you want, but it's late and I'm going to bed."
She stood up from the sofa and stretched languidly. Peeta turned his head to watch her as she walked up the stairs, an inscrutable look on his face.
Katniss had been asleep for at least an hour when Peeta finally joined her in bed.
"Mmmm," she said, sleepily, as he gathered her into his arms and pulled her close.
"I love you," he said huskily, his breath hot against the sensitive skin just beneath her ear.
"Love you too," she said, still half-asleep. She rolled over and cupped Peeta's sweet face in her hands, kissing the tip of his nose.
She was about to roll over again and go back to sleep when Peeta stopped her and kissed her, hard, on the mouth.
Katniss could tell right away that despite the very late hour, Peeta was not tired. There was nothing sleepy or tentative about this kiss. He hungrily sucked her at her bottom lip, tracing it with the tip of his tongue just the way she liked and teasing it into his mouth. He ran his strong hands, calloused from the hard manual labor involved in rebuilding the bakery, up and along her sides until her nightshirt had ridden halfway up her rib cage.
"Peeta," Katniss said, gasping and laughing a little when he grabbed at the bottom hem of her shirt and quickly lifted it over her head. "It's almost midnight. You have to open the bakery tomorrow morning…"
"I don't really care about any of that right now," Peeta told her abruptly, bending down to take one of her bare breasts into his mouth. He sucked on the dusky pink nipple gently and swirled his tongue, and suddenly all of the very good reasons Katniss had for why this wasn't a good idea right now flew out of her head.
Peeta hadn't been back in Twelve for very long before they started sleeping together at night. And it wasn't very long after that before they began having sex. In the early years of their marriage they seldom went more than a few nights in a row without making love. They'd denied themselves what they really wanted – each other – for far too long. Now that there was nothing keeping them apart they had a very hard time keeping their hands off each other.
Much to Haymitch's immense annoyance when they slept with the windows open.
It was very late, and Katniss was mentally and physically exhausted, but as Peeta's hands worked themselves over her body none of that mattered anymore. When he thrust himself inside her and began to move in the way that felt both new and familiar every single time they did this, she arched her back and moaned, giving his lips and tongue better access to her breasts and changing the angle so that she could feel every part of him as he moved.
"Yes," Katniss breathed after only a few minutes, as he fell apart inside of her, taking her along with him as they toppled together over the edge.
Afterwards, they lay tangled together amongst the rumpled sheets, and as Katniss was once again on the verge of sleep, Peeta cleared his throat, startling her.
"I want to have a baby, Katniss," he said, sounding timid. Katniss' head was resting on his bare chest, her ear just above his breastbone where his heart rate was slowly returning to normal. The words, quietly spoken, rumbled in his chest and reverberated in her ear.
Katniss propped herself up on one elbow so she could look at his face. But Peeta's eyes were fixed on an invisible spot on the ceiling.
"What?" Katniss asked, trying to keep her voice level and reasonable even though it felt like she'd just been slapped.
Peeta glanced at her once, very briefly, before averting his eyes once more.
"I want to – I want us to – have a baby," Peeta said again.
"Why?" Katniss demanded, her voice shriller than she'd intended it to be. But she was far too shocked by what Peeta'd just told her, and far too rattled, to care. "We've discussed this, Peeta -"
"Katniss, please listen," he asked, his voice pleading. He sat up in bed and looked her right in the eye. Even now, years later, when Katniss thinks back on the look of desperation on his face in that moment her heart breaks for him all over again. "Just listen to me…"
But she didn't want to listen to him. "That propo tonight," Katniss spat at him. "Is that what this is about? Peeta. Don't you realize what they're trying to do?" Because suddenly, the purpose behind tonight's strange propo was perfectly clear. "They want to use Victors' babies as props to show a happy Panem, and well-adjusted and healing Victors. They want to use Annie's baby – our babies – all Victors' babies to encourage people to breed so that –"
Katniss was shouting now, and so hysterical she wasn't certain what she was saying anymore. She got out of bed and began pacing the room as she yelled, gesticulating wildly.
Peeta jumped out of bed and grabbed Katniss' arms so she'd stop moving. He tried to pull her into his arms but she yanked herself free of him.
She crossed her arms in front of her chest and turned her back to Peeta, facing the wall.
"Katniss. If we have a baby, and if Plutarch, or Paylor, or anyone else from the Capitol wants to put him in some propo," Peeta said through clenched teeth, "they'll have to get through me first. I promise."
At his words, Katniss turned and looked at him. His jaw was set and determined, and his eyes blazed with an intensity she'd seldom seen before.
"And. Well. I'm pretty fucking tough." His jaw relaxed slightly. His mouth quirked up in a half smile. "I've survived two Hunger Games, you know. Two of them. Not just one."
Katniss stared at Peeta for a long moment, blinking silently. And then suddenly, unbidden, a bubble of laughter escaped her at the ridiculousness of what he'd just said. Peeta's stance relaxed as she laughed, and he started laughing a little with her.
But at length, Katniss shook her head and buried her face in her hands. "Peeta - even if we can protect a future child of ours from being used by the government – which we can't," she added, quickly, "There's no way we can guarantee the baby will be safe. There are no Reapings now, but what if Paylor or some other president brings them back?"
"They won't, Katniss," Peeta promised.
"You can't know that!" Katniss yelled, throwing up her hands. "And besides, there's no way we can guarantee that you or I will be well enough in a year's time, or even in two years' time, to be fit parents."
Peeta pulled her into his arms, and this time she didn't resist. "We've managed pretty well the past few years," he murmured into her hair. "I haven't had an episode in – what is it, a whole month now? Your nightmares are getting fewer and farther between."
"But we're not all the way better," Katniss protested, her head resting against his chest. "Your last episode was a month ago but it was a terrible one. I don't think we'll ever be truly well, Peeta. I really don't."
Peeta kissed the top of her head and sighed. "We probably won't."
Katniss pulled away from him again. "So what if we have a baby, and there comes a day when we're both sick? A day when I'm too ill to get out of bed and you have an episode? What happens then?"
Peeta didn't answer her for a long moment. He chewed his lip and fidgeted with his hands, as though he were choosing his next words very carefully.
"If that happens, Katniss," he began, slowly, "We'll get through it the way we've gotten through everything that's happened to us since the first time we were Reaped. One day at a time, and with help from our friends. Haymitch – you know, that guy who lives next door to us. Annie. And Johanna." He smiled sadly at her. "People who know us and love us and who want to help."
Katniss closed her eyes and shook her head. This was all coming from nowhere, and she couldn't process it. She didn't want to process it.
"I'm tired, Peeta. I need to go to sleep," she said. She walked past him and climbed into bed, pulling the covers up over her head and effectively ending the discussion.
She could hear Peeta's loud sigh as he pulled back the covers on his side of the bed and climbed in next to her. His breathing evened out shortly thereafter, indicating that he'd fallen asleep.
But Katniss stayed awake long into the night, her mind racing.
In the middle of the following spring, on the first warm day of the year, Katniss decided to make the most of the beautiful day and take the long way home from the woods.
It was rather amazing to her, really, how easily everyone in Twelve had managed to find new roles and new routines. In those early days, Katniss and Peeta Mellark, together, were largely responsible for keeping everyone in town fed. It was a role that suited them both just fine.
There still weren't many people living here. Most survivors of the fire-bombing either stayed in Thirteen or had moved on to other places to try and escape the ghosts of the past. Despite that, District Twelve was now thriving – at least relative to the state it was in prior to the rebellion and after the end of the war.
On this particular day, Katniss walked by the new school that had been built the prior year for the district's youngest children, just as she always did on her way home from the woods. The weather had been far too cold this winter for the children to play outside, but today they were out, playing with balls and other small toys and being shepherded around by their teacher, Mrs. Heddle.
Most of the children looked like Seam kids. Or, rather, kids from what used to be the Seam. But here and there Katniss spotted a redheaded boy or a blonde-haired girl, playing with their darker-skinned friends like doing so was the most natural thing in the world.
Just as Katniss was about to pass by the school and head for home she turned her head to look back at the children one last time. Right at the fence, in front of the other children, was a tiny blonde-haired boy with bright blue eyes.
The boy's face lit up in recognition immediately when their eyes met. District Twelve was still small enough back then that everyone knew everyone else, at least by sight, and this child would likely have recognized her even if she weren't the famous Katniss Mellark, survivor of two Hunger Games and the symbol of the rebellion that brought down President Snow.
The blonde-haired little boy just stood there at the fence, staring at Katniss with one of his chubby thumbs jammed into his mouth, as his little friends played chasing games all around him. He stuck his free hand up in the air and waved at her, his baby-like fingers curling slightly at the ends.
Katniss felt a lump rise in her throat as she and the boy who looked so very much like her husband continued to stare at each other. Suddenly, and without warning, future images of this blonde-haired boy she did not know began to flash before her eyes. An image of the boy, next year, on his first day of grade school. An image of him on his graduation day, standing tall and proud with his family, after making it to age eighteen without the double specter of Reapings and the Games hanging over his head.
The boy, now a young man, nervously bringing a girl home to meet his parents for the first time. The broad smile on his face the day of his toasting.
A very long moment later, the boy's teacher called all the children inside for their afternoon snack. He immediately turned his back on Katniss and ran to catch up with his friends.
Katniss stayed rooted to the spot for several more minutes, uncertain of what had just happened, knowing only that something inside her had changed irrevocably.
She walked the rest of the way home in a daze, feeling, for the first time in her life, that perhaps hope for the future was a stronger force than fear.
After arriving home, and without thinking about what she was about to do – because if she thought about what she was about to do she wouldn't be able to go through with it, she knew she wouldn't – Katniss marched straight to their bedroom where Peeta was, fortunately, lying in bed taking an afternoon nap. A rare indulgence for him.
Taking great pains to make as much noise as possible Katniss stripped off most of her clothing. When she was down to nothing but her bra and underwear she stomped into their bathroom in bare feet and slid open the door to their medicine cabinet with shaking hands.
She took out her small package of birth control capsules, given to her at her last doctor's appointment. She clutched them tightly in her right hand and closed her eyes, working up the courage to carry out this plan she'd only just thought of on the way home from the nursery school.
By the time she returned to their bedroom Peeta was blinking himself awake. His eyes widened a little – in surprise or arousal; possibly a combination of both – as he took in her half-naked form.
"Katniss?" Peeta asked, confused, his voice bleary with sleep.
Wordlessly, Katniss peeled off her underwear and unclasped her bra, letting the garments fall to the floor. She sauntered over to the small trash can by their night stand and gave Peeta a half smile.
As Peeta watched her, Katniss popped her birth control capsules, one by one, out of their individual foil pouches and tossed them into the trash can with a small flourish.
"Ok, Peeta," she said, nodding. She climbed atop him as he laid there, his body rigid with shock.
"What – what -?" Peeta spluttered before she shut him up with a heated kiss.
"Let's try," she said simply against his lips. "I don't want to be afraid anymore and… and I think I'm ready to try."