This chapter isn't edited that well, I'm not feeling too grate and it's taken the better part of the day for me to be able to concentrate enough to edit. I know last chapter was a bit dull, and I have to admit this one is a bit dull, too. A few more things happen in this chapter. When writing I go by the rule "if there is a gun hanging on the wall it has to go off at sometime during the story", everything I write has to mean something, and I don't believe in writing unecessary parts. Which is why about 8 months is covered in one chapter and in others there's only a week or a few days. And also why it can get a little dull from time to time, because I need to get from A to B but there are certain things that need to be covered first (and I don't think you'd have liked me skipping Katniss' pregnancy completely!)

Anyway, here's a new chapter. Warnings to readers are: mention of rape, and death. If mention of rape bothers you stop reading at the "AAAAAAAAA" devision line, and start reading again where there's another "AAAAAA". If death bothers you; stop reading after the second AAAAAA line. I hope this helps for those of you with triggers. I don't want any of my readers to be triggered here! I will mention at the end of this chapter what it is that happened, if you want to read a summarized version of it.


78th annual hunger games

The reaping was two days after she had been at Vittor's house, and it was also in the early mornings of that day that Katniss was woken up by contractions. She knew that some mother's experienced false labor for weeks before birth, but she didn't want to risk it. Instead of keeping quiet about it she quickly woke up Gale and asked him to get her mom. Earlier in the year her mother had agreed on that she would assist her in labor, so Katniss would know what was going on and what she should do. She had seen a few children being born from difficult births in her childhood home, but she had never paid much attention to the stages they were happening in.

Gale quickly shot out of bed, running around frantically in their bedroom, wondering out loud if he should just skip pants and run out in his night shirt. After a little convincing Katniss managed to assure him that it wasn't that much of a hurry, and he definitely needed pants if he was going to take the over twenty minute walk to her mother's house and back.

During the hour Gale was gone, Katniss talked to her baby, explained to him, or her, that she would do the best she could to be a good mom, but there were things that were out of her reach, but she would do her best to protect him from that. She said that in twelve years his name would be in a reaping bowl, and that for six years she would live in terror, not knowing if her child would die that year, or the next, or the next, in a game that the capitol had invented to revenge a rebellion.

"It's not that I don't want you… I don't want this for you," she said after a while, trying to think of a way that she would be able to explain to her child why she didn't want it to be born. Tears pressed against the back of her eyes at the thought of being forced to have this child, this child that she both wanted and didn't want. She loved her child, there was no denying that the child inside of her had her heart so completely and it wasn't even there yet. But what did she have to give her child? A life where it'd have to come with her to work everyday and watch her wash other people's clothes, a life where there was so much death and poverty, a life where her child would stare into the windows of a bakery at the cookies in different shapes and colors, and eventually a reaping bowl that once out of… he or she would merely become a person meant for breeding, and nothing else.

She had nothing to give.

When Gale came back with her mother she had gotten through three contractions, which were painful but not horrible. For then she could manage. According to her mother it seemed like she had a long way to go.

They spent the day in the house, watching as people left for the reaping, and sending the message with Lys that she was in labor and therefore the three of them would be unable to attend. All of them were worried about Prim and Vick who were in the bowl that day, wondering what they would do if either of them were picked, they wouldn't be able to make it there in time to say goodbye, especially not Katniss, she was not going anywhere that day.

She walked around the house, trying to keep herself busy but the pain got increasingly more intense, and would have her almost down at her knees eventually. The time passed, and Katniss had been in labor ten hours, they knew that soon they'd know if Vick or Prim had been born, and none of them knew where to focus their attention on the most; the road outside to see if Vick and Rory were on it, or Katniss whose contractions were growing closer and closer.

Katniss worried about her baby, worried about her baby sister, worried about herself, worried about the pain, worried about everything. Her heart constricted and all she could think of was how unfair all of this was, how unfair it was for her to have to worry about these things. She didn't want her sister to die, she didn't want her baby to die, but she was doomed to worry about it. Unable to stop the tears she broke down, sobbing against Gale's chest as he held her tightly, massaging and pressing down on her lower back to help with the pain.

"I want Prim," she said as the time had passed when the reaping usually was. In about half an hour they would know. They had promised that they would come to their house afterwards, so that they would all know they were safe, and to be there when the baby was born.

"She'll be here soon, Catnip, just relax and focus on your breathing," he whispered in her ear.

"I can't, I can't focus, I need her here I need to know that she is safe, please Gale!" she begged.

"She'll be here soon," he repeated, kissing her cheek.

Eventually they did arrive, and despite the pain Katniss was in she immediately drew Prim into a hug, kissing her all over her face.

"You're okay, you're okay, you're okay!" she chanted, stroking her cheek. "You're okay, duck."

"I'm okay Katniss," Prim replied with a smile.

As Katniss was able to relax her labor started to progress much faster, and within an hour of Prim, Vick, Hazelle and Posy arriving at their house, Katniss was pushing. Katniss didn't know how long she pushed, it was as if time stood still and she couldn't understand what was happening. It was as if she disconnected from herself and was watching from the other side of the room. The pain, unbearable, was still there, she still felt it completely. Yet it wasn't her body.

As her son arrived she was helped to lay on her back and was placed on her chest. Her shirt was quickly unbuttoned by someone, she didn't know who, and she could feel her son squirming as he screamed against her. He was sticky, but she didn't feel that, she didn't feel much at all except the throbbing of her vagina, still in pain. Even that was canceled out by her son's face, body, his small fingers and toes, and feet and arms. His tiny nose and head.

"Wow," she heard herself say before she had even thought it. She and Gale reached to touch him at the same time, making sure that he was real. He was, completely and absolutely real. He had thick dark hair growing on the top of his head, and even though she couldn't see who he looked like she recognized him. Like she'd seen him before. Her mother put a blanket over the two of them, and their son was slowly starting to calm down, searching for her breast, and finding it. She thought she would have trouble breastfeeding, but it seemed like he had solved that on his own.

Someone knocked on the door downstairs, and Gale gave Vick a pointed look to tell him to open the door. While Vick went downstairs everyone else crowded around Katniss to look at the new boy who had just entered the world. It was incredible that he was inside of her less than a half an hour ago, and now he was here.

They were interrupted by two sets of heavy footsteps up the stairs. Katniss' mom quickly made sure that Katniss was completely covered by blankets and adjusted a few of them before Vick returned with the person who had just entered the house with him.

Everyone curiously looked behind Vick to see who it was, and was dismayed to see that it was a peacekeeper.

"I was told a few of you couldn't attend the reaping because of a woman in labor, I have to check that this is true." The peacekeeper said in a bored tone, looking down at Katniss on the bed, holding her newborn son close to her chest as he was feeding.

"He was born about five minutes ago," Gale said, a threatening gleam in his eyes. It was one thing for peacekeepers to impose on him at work and on town, even on his home, but a completely different thing to impose on his son's birth, ruining the precious moment.

"And we need to deliver the placenta soon, so it's best if you leave," Katniss mother said then, narrowing her eyes at the peacekeeper. It wasn't the first time she had met a peacekeeper that believed he had a right to impose on a child's birth and first moments in life, and it wouldn't be the last.

"Alright," he said nodding a goodbye, and then left the room.

"Somehow they manage to weasel themselves into pretty much all laboring rooms," Katniss' mom muttered, then sent everyone but Gale out of the room so that Katniss would be able to deliver the placenta in peace.

"What are you going to name him?" Posy asked later that night when the newborn baby slept in Gale's arm in bed. She was almost sitting in Gale's lap as she watched over the tiny boy. Katniss was sitting on the other side, resting her chin on Gale's shoulder.

"Talon, Talon Hawthorn," Gale said with a smile.

"I like that," Posy said. "He looks like a Talon."

"He does," Katniss agreed.

Katniss was in no way prepared for motherhood, as she discovered more with each day that passed. Though breastfeeding was working for her, that was pretty much the only thing she had down. When it came to knowing if her son needed to eat, burp, sleep, if he was too warm or too cool or if something was too tight, she had no clue. When Talon woke up at night she often found herself helpless, unable to sooth him, and many times she ended up crying them both back to sleep.

Being a new mother made her miss the whole hunger games that year. Not because she refused to watch, but because every waking moment she was either taking care of, or worrying about, Talon. It was on constantly, but she was never able to watch, and if she ever sat down in front of the TV it was to fall asleep sitting on the chair.

Gale had to go back to work the day after Talon was born, so he wasn't able to help during the days, Prim had started working too, so she wasn't able to come by, and Hazelle was busy trying to fit most of Katniss' schedule into her own. That left her mother, who was only able to come by every other day or so, and Vick who proved to be an excellent babysitter for an hour after school while she caught up on sleep. To say the least, she was exhausted.

With all of her worry for the hunger games that Talon would have to experience the threat of later in life, and the worry that they would somehow sink into poverty again, she had forgotten to worry about how it would be like to take care of a child during her pregnancy. It was unlike anything she had done before, and if she felt that the now electrified fence was restricting her, motherhood was like a prison.

She loved her son dearly, but within two weeks she was driving herself up the walls with lack of sleep and lack of ability to take a breath sometimes. The walls of the house were also starting to close in on her, and she was quickly getting claustrophobic in there. But just as she thought she was about to combust she had to return to work. While still recovering from birth, work still was something she needed to do.

So she would wrap her son up in a scarf and carry him around on her chest as she did laundry at people's houses. Many would comment on Talon's beauty, and melt at the sight of Talon's face peeking out of the scarves. Even the head of the households would come to the door to look at him. It was a new thing for Katniss, to see people approach her with a purpose other than to demand something of her. People she had never seen smile would smile, people would glance her way on the street. She had found that while people had little patience for children and teenagers, there was something magical with babies that would have them all melt into a puddle.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA A

It was starting to become the reaction she was used to, so when she visited the mayor's house and his daughter Madge opened it, a girl she used to talk to sometimes at school and considered a friend in a way, she expected a similar reaction. But instead of smiling and gushing, Madge appeared to be holding in tears.

"Wow, he's beautiful Katniss," she said, her voice thick.

"What's wrong Madge?" she asked. They hadn't talked for years, not since school ended a three years ago.

"Can you… do you want to come in?" Katniss nodded. The mayor was never strict about getting his laundry back at a certain time, and she knew Talon was starting to get hungry by the way he was sucking at her collar bone. It would be a welcome break to be able to come inside to feed him, and not have to sit outside of the hot laundry room on a shaky wooden bench feeding him.

Madge led her through the house, and it struck Katniss that while she considered Madge a friend, they had never been to each other's houses. That wasn't something that had crossed her mind before, but as she saw the pictures on the walls, the knickknacks lying on random places, she realized that this was a part of Madge she never had known. A house said a lot about a person, and a house where useless things could just lay around showed just how much money they had.

"Please, sit," Madge pointed to the couch in the living room. Katniss briefly worried about her soiled trousers, but then figured that Madge knew she was dirty, so she sat down anyway.

"Is it okay if I feed him?" she asked. Madge nodded quickly. A bit too quickly, and then looked down in her lap as Katniss adjusted.

"Does it hurt?" Madge asked after a while.

"Yeah, it's supposed to get better though." Madge looked at Talon's head, quietly taking in Katniss and her son together.

"I never pictured you as a mom, you were always the one who was free, going anywhere, I was sure that you would be able to weasel your way out of that one…" Madge said, but trailed off as her voice grew thicker.

"I tried to," Katniss admitted, blushing. "It failed."

"Would you… do you regret it?" she asked. Katniss frowned, trying to come up with the right way to say what she was going to say.

"I love him, I don't regret him, but I wish I wouldn't have to have him… I don't believe any child deserves this kind of life, and did I have a choice, I wouldn't have had him," she said. Madge nodded.

"I'm pregnant," she blurted out then, tears welling up in her eyes and spilling over her cheek.

"Madge…" Katniss had no idea what to say, no way to comfort the friend she hadn't spoken to for years.

"I don't want it, if that makes me a horrible person I am a horrible person, but I don't want it." Madge broke down sobbing in front of her, and Katniss was unsure of what to do. She carefully got up from the couch she was sitting on, hoping that Talon wouldn't lose his latch, and gingerly walked over to sit next to her, wrapping her free arm around her shoulder.

"We could maybe find a way…" Katniss said, trying to think of something. She had thought about ending her pregnancy herself when she first found out, but realized she knew no way how to. If she had, she wouldn't be sitting with a three week old baby I her arms. "Who is the… father?" Madge wasn't married, and she hadn't heard or seen her with any man.

"I don't know," she mumbled. Katniss frowned. "They… I walked home from work and a few men they started following me, started saying that I was a whore because I wasn't married, they…" Madge broke down, falling into Katniss' shoulder as her sobbing seemed to tear her apart. It was one thing to get pregnant when you don't want to with a man you love and trust, and another to get pregnant after being violated and abused. It wasn't that Katniss hadn't heard of rape before, it was one of the reasons why she married Gale, so that she would avoid a fate like it. But the fact that rapists weren't pointed out and hung for their crime made Katniss' blood boil. She wanted to ask if she had pressed charges against them, but who would believe a young unmarried woman? Especially when people said they were only unmarried so that they could have as much sex with as many people as they please?

"I'll talk to my mom, it's summer now… we might be able to find some plants, maybe, the fence is on so we can't go out to find any," she said. Madge nodded morosely .

"Thank you Katniss."

She was very late home that night, but she didn't care, all that she could think of was Madge and her story. Who were those men that did that to her, and why did they get away? How can someone do that to a person? She wanted to tell Gale, but Madge's story was so personal, and she didn't feel right sharing, even though it would ease her own burden. It wasn't her story to tell. Instead she curled up to Gale, thankful that she married him, even if it meant having a child against her will, and even that she had decided wasn't too bad. She loved her son, completely, wholeheartedly, like no one else in the entire world. No one could take that from her.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

"I have some bad news," her mother said almost two weeks after Katniss' talk with Madge. They had talked about herbs that could be used as an abortifacient, but none of them were available inside the fence. They had tried to find them, but came up empty. She hadn't been able to give Madge the news because of her hectic schedule, but her mother had a few days earlier broken the news to Madge. "It's about Madge."

"What about her?" Katniss asked. She was in the middle of cleaning up the kitchen place, it was Sunday, and a good cleaning of it was well overdue.

"After I told her that we couldn't help her she seemed okay, to me, I thought she would be alright." Her mother drew a deep breath. "She tried to abort herself, with some metal device, but ended up striking a bigger blood vessel."

"What are you saying?" Katniss stopped what she was doing, staring at her mother, daring her to say what she was going to.

"She died, Katniss, she died of internal bleeding…" The pain that hit her, it hit her straight in the chest knocking the breath out of her.

"No." She said, in shock. Did Madge know she risked dying, did she want to die? Katniss sat down, trying to calm the questions that were running around in her head, and trying to sort out her feelings. She hadn't been her friend for a long time, and when she talked to her she offered little help and left so quickly. She didn't go back, she could have gone back and they would've tried to solve it together. If she had gone back, she thought, maybe Madge wouldn't have died.

"Her funeral is in four days," her mother said, giving her daughter a hug. Katniss wondered if she should have told her mother about what happened to Madge, she hadn't told her mother the whole story, but maybe if she knew she would have been able to help in other ways. Her mother, while not being a person Katniss trusted much, was good with words and knew much more about how to help people than what she did.

"Okay, okay," she nodded. Madge's funeral. She was only twenty, people rarely died at twenty, there was usually a break in deaths between eighteen and thirty, those twelve years were years of prosperity for most. But not for Madge.

Gale was just as surprised as she was at Madge's death. For moral support he took a day off for her funeral, which was only okay since it was the daughter of the mayor that had died.

The funeral was extravagant in the district's standards. Flowers were lying on the casket and there were at least around thirty people in attendance. The mayor spoke a few words about his daughter, talking about her quiet life, how she was as a child and the dreams she had for the future. Dreams that would never be able to come true.

While Katniss, Gale and her mother knew the real cause of Madge's death, the official cause was a fever that spiked too high. The mayor's daughter couldn't have died from a botched abortion, it would put shame on the whole district, and the mayor would lose his job, maybe he would even be prosecuted and sent to jail? It was easier to cover it up, it wasn't that uncommon for someone to die of a fever, mostly it was young children or older people that died from it, but it happened sometimes that a young adult did. No one would ask questions, and everyone would remain happy.

Katniss wondered a lot about how everything would've turned out for Madge had she not died. What would have happened if the abortion was successful, and what would have happened had it not been? Those thoughts would have her run to her little sister to give her a hug. There were no words that could bring a person back, but there were words to help her sister live. She told her sister to never walk alone at night, to always have a friend with her, and to marry. She begged her sister to please marry the boy that she loved, and the boy that loved her back. Marry as soon as you are out of the bowl in two years, she had begged her sister.

When she was Prim's age she had not understood marriage or having children, but now she did. It wasn't a choice, it was a must to protect yourself. No one would trust an unmarried woman, and no one thought a married woman as anything other than a mother. Death was a far worse faith than bearing a child, at least while having a child you could still protect the ones you love.


CONTENT SUMMARY:
Katniss had her son, named him Talon. She goes to see Madge who tells Katniss that she had been raped and gotten pregnant. Madge asks for help to abort her pregnancy, but they can't find the herbs inside of the fence. Madge attempts to self-abort but ends up hitting a vein or artery, and ends up bleeding to death.

Explanation (will contain talk about rape culture, so once again; it may be a trigger): I think many of us are aware of what victim blaiming is, and this is not something made up to fit this universe, but something that is happening everywhere right now. I know in my country it is illegal to make a case against a woman who has been raped based on what she wearing to make her seem... like she actually wanted to have sex. But in some countries this is common practice, and in District Twelve, that's what is happening. A woman who doens't marry is promiscuous (a slut), and someone is promiscuous (a slut) can't be raped.

As for abortion. Abortion is a common practise and has always been, even when it was very very illegal. Even when women knew they would be sentenced to death if someone found out. Today in the US only one person dies in an abortion every other year (even every three years sometime), the years before it became legalised it was around 250 a year or so, which is still a low number but was due to doctors breaking the law and doing it. It is impossible to know how many died during the 20-50's when the prices for illegal abortions were sky high and still illegal (and rarely done by doctors if you were not rich).

So, that was a little history lesson! I might've said it in the beginning but most of the things I bring up in this story are things that we have in our society only these are more extaggarated and visible. If they aren't present today, they have been not so long ago (the pronatalism that the Capitol has was something that went on in Italy just about 60-70 years ago). It is based in actual historical fact, and not as outlandish as you'd wish it all to be.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter, I know that I like the next chapter a bit better... :)