Chapter 9: Month Two Morning Bugs

It is not a nightmare that wakes me in the middle of the night this time. Oh no, ever since I have taken to making Peeta sleep in my bed, those hells have been happily missing.

The one hell that still insists on making itself known is my nausea.

I am now in my second month of pregnancy, and for roughly half that time, Peeta has been living with me.

I barely make it to the toilet before my meager dinner makes its reappearance, in the form of brown and yellow sludge that I shudder to look at. The assault does not stop, either, until I am hurling into the bowl in an almost continuous stream. I can taste the bitterness of the bile in my mouth, feel it…. Oh god, I can feel it in my hair. It's in my hair! Damnit!

I sense the light turning on in the greater bathroom just beyond, which houses my sink and shower. I hear the water at the faucet, then footsteps approach and the door to the toilet open. Peeta squats, Indian-style, on the floor beside me without a word, gathering the vomit-sprayed strands of my hair in his hands and lowering them into the bucket of water at his side. He gently but methodically begins to run his fingers through the strands, depositing the vomit there, to surely be thrown out later.

I appreciate his tenderness - more than I care to admit - but….

"You don't have to do this, you know," I get out, when the hurling lets up enough for me to speak. "It's not your baby."

"Sometimes it feels like it is…." he murmurs softly, as if he is far away from me.

"Huh?" I throw out there somewhat stupidly. I'm confused. What could he mean by that? A sudden thought leaps without permission into my brain: does Peeta wish that the baby I now carry was his instead of Gale's? I can't allow myself to think that, for its logical conclusions are so….

Terrifying.