[At long last, the next chapter! It's a long one and hopefully worth the wait. Enjoy! Reviews are very much appreciated.]
Peeta:
Gloria sleeps peacefully as I resettle her small body into the cushioned chair beside me. She looks so much like Katniss, but I've never seen Katniss sleep so peacefully. Perhaps that's because she's had so little peace in her life, but I still remember a relatively carefree and very young Katniss who jumped, ran, played and climbed trees. Her piercing eyes would occasionally stare down at me from the tree right outside the bakery's kitchen window while her father and Papa bartered. I'd smile and shake my head. How many other girls would climb a tree to stare into a bakery kitchen? Not any that I knew. Of course, I'd hoped she was climbing up there just to watch me but knew that was unlikely. She probably just liked the adventure or wanted to see bread being made.
Thinking about Katniss was starting to make me nervous because I knew she was frustrated with me, so I thumbed through the folder Delly gave me. It contained all the information that the orphans' home and Delly's orphan aid organization had compiled about Gloria and her mother. There wasn't much.
Some prison records…
"Name: Helena Robertson"
A photograph was imbedded in the text of the initial prison record. In it Helena had auburn-colored hair and green eyes. Her nose was dotted with freckles, and her skin was at least as fair as mine.
"Age: 26; Height - 5' 8"; hair: red; eyes: green; weight - 136 lbs; injuries: none; illnesses: none;
place of birth: Capitol City; Prisoner # 132451; security level: medium-high; "
I wonder if Gloria's mother knew she was carrying my child. I know other prisoners were aware of the presence of the victors in the prison. And did Gloria's mother think she was Gloria's mother or did she suspect that somebody else could be the mother, even Katniss?
"Charges: Treason against the Capitol; Conspiracy; assault with a deadly weapon on a Capitol official; Possession of illegal weapons."
She certainly sounds like someone we'd all liked to have met.
Gloria's mother's medical records from the hospital were dated after the war ended, during the time Katniss and I struggled to heal physically and emotionally.
I wonder what it would have been like to know about Gloria back then?
"Maternal Diagnoses: active labor; malnutrition; iron-deficiency anemia; protein deficiency; poorly healed closed fracture of the right arm - patient unable to provide further details regarding injury at this time; history of severe traumatic injury to the tongue ('avox')."
I guess even if you are carrying Peeta Mellark and Katniss Everdeen's baby the Capitol still didn't feed you in prison, at least not very well. I wonder if they broke her arm also. Probably. I can only hope that Helena was treated just a little better because she carried Gloria
"Fetal Diagnoses: 36 weeks and 5 days gestation; intrauterine growth restriction; estimated weight by ultrasound = 4 lbs. 10 oz."
What was the Capitol going to do with Gloria?
I shiver.
She's ours now. We can take care of her and protect her because that's what we do in this family, protect each other.
/
Katniss:
I miss Peeta most at night. When he comes home I'll still be missing him at night because he won't be with me. My dreams are dark and scary even when they aren't terrifying. True rest is elusive.
"Momma, please," I plead. My arms crossed over her knees, I drop my forehead to rest on them. "Prim's talking out of her head, and calling for…" I pause. It's probably better not to mention him. "Her fever's really high. Please, I don't know what to do. Help me."
Sounding so desperate unnerves me, and I'm weak too. Up until yesterday, I was nearly as sick as Prim. Miraculously, I'd recovered enough to be of some use to her today.
This is my fourth appeal to my mother, pleading with her take care of my baby sister. She's our healer, and she refuses to care for anybody including her own daughter. Her lack of response only underscores my growing resentment of her.
My mother stares at the fire.
"At least tell me what to do!" I scream.
"Katniss!" Prim calls weakly. "Katniss, please come back."
"What will be, will be," my mother whispers.
"How can you say that? Go and look at her. See if you can do anything."
"I don't need to. Nothing I do will matter anyway," she mutters.
"She needs you! If nothing else, comfort her. She needs you!"
"I can't imagine why she would."
I realize she's serious.
Standing up and stomping my foot, I decide my efforts are futile. Prim's delirium continues, and she's calling for our father again. My time is probably better spent trying to comfort her.
I open the door to gather fresh snow in a bowl because the water pipes are frozen. As the snow melts I wet a cloth to cover Prim's forehead. I'm not sure if I should wipe her off with the cloth or not. With the wind whirling outside and blowing through every crack in the house's walls, I wonder if it might make things worse.
"I hate you," I mutter under my breath from behind my mother. She can't hear me, but I'm struck by the guilt I feel from even saying the words. Hating your own mother is an awful feeling.
Prim's quiet when I go to her. I crawl in bed beside her and place the cloth on her head. She flinches but doesn't wake up.
Sometimes I think it would be better not to love people. Then you wouldn't fear losing them, wouldn't mind when they shut you out, wouldn't hurt when you did inevitably them. Such ideas don't apply to Prim. I can't help but love Prim, but she's the last person I'm ever going to love like this. Love makes me feel weak and vulnerable. I need food, water, and shelter. I don't need love.
Peeta:
Gloria clutches my shoulder sleepily as a struggle to keep her upright against my chest while I talk on the phone. I've waited half an hour to even make this call and I'm using the phone outside the train station because I don't want to be seen by the other passengers who are delayed in their travels as well. It wouldn't be so bad to talk in the phone outside if it hadn't started pouring down rain about 10 minutes ago.
"Hello?" Katniss answers sleepily.
"Hey, Honey. I guess I woke you. Sorry. The train's been delayed, but I guess you assumed that. We won't be in until about 1 am they said. I'm so sorry."
Gloria starts to slip out of my arms and I raise my bad leg to try to catch her with my thigh as well as my arms. The motion upsets my already tenuous balance.
"No, don't worry about it," Katniss says. "Just be careful. Nobody's recognized you have they?"
I manage to keep Gloria from falling, but she opens her eyes slowly. My attempts to avoid falling or dropping her probably jostled her too much. If it weren't for the rain I'd have probably just sat her down on the ground for a minute.
"Daddy?" She says in a groggy voice.
My heart skips a beat. Katniss has never heard her call me that, but I suppose she was going to hear it soon anyway.
"Peeta, just be careful. See you soon, okay?" Katniss says much too quickly.
"Yeah, see you soon. I love you."
"Love you, too."
/
We finally make it to my house at quarter after one. Gloria, who's slept for almost the entire train trip, is suddenly full of energy.
"Eat!" She demands as she dances around the living room.
Well, at least she's happily famished instead of throwing a temper tantrum.
I check the cabinets and find them bare since nobody has lived here in some time. I check the fridge, but I'm not sure why since I seriously doubt anything edible would still be in there. We don't even use the one at our house that much because we still aren't used to reliable electricity yet.
When I open the fridge I'm suddenly overcome with gratitude. Katniss has left two plates, each with a dinner of stew, vegetables, and bread.
"Thought you might be hungry. See you in the morning." The note beside the plates reads.
Gloria shovels food into her mouth with her spoon as her eyes dart all around the kitchen. She's fascinated with even the smallest of details. As soon as she's finished eating she jumps up from the table and runs up the stairs. I follow her, smiling to myself. Exhaustion is starting to win out over delight though, and I know I'll have to sleep soon. I can never rest on trains, not after all the terrible places they've taken me over the years.
One by one Gloria grabs the door facing of each room upstairs with her tiny fingers and then peaks inside as I turn on the lights for her. When she's finished she looks up wide-eyed with curiosity.
"Where Katniss?" she asks innocently.
"Oh, she's at her house. She'll be here in the morning. In fact, if you go back to sleep she'll be here before you know it."
Gloria scowls and then tilts her head as if in deep thought for a three-year-old.
"Katniss not here?" she clarifies.
"No, but she'll be here tomorrow."
Gloria's expectation to see Katniss surprises me because I hadn't really emphasized that we'd be seeing her when we got to District 12.
"She's the one who left that food for us," I offer. "Wasn't that nice of Katniss? She was thinking of us."
Gloria's lips pucker, and she cuts her eyes off to the side. Then she sighs as if satisfied with Katniss' efforts even if she's not here with us. I anticipate the difficulties of trying to explain why Katniss doesn't live here. Now that I think of it, I told Gloria that Katniss was my wife and we lived in the same house long ago. No wonder Gloria's looking for Katniss. Kids must remember everything you say!
My head begins to feel light, and I know I have to sleep. Sleep deprivation can bring on my episodes, and trains can be triggers for flashbacks sometimes. I definitely don't want any of that when I'm trying to help my daughter settle into living here.
"Gloria, Daddy has to sleep. Okay? You need to sleep too. I was thinking this could be your room."
Gloria smiles and runs over to the bed and climbs in.
Great. She likes it. Maybe she'll sleep now.
I close my eyes to try to stave off the fuzzy thoughts exhaustion brings.
Then I hear her laughing and the loud squeaking of the bed springs. Looking up, I see my suspicions are confirmed. She's jumping on the bed! My mother would have beaten me for that. In fact, she did beat me for that at least once.
"Gloria! Don't do that. You'll fall."
Gloria just giggles and continues to jump, stretching out her arms as if she could reach the ceiling if she could only jump high enough.
I walk over to the bed and try to catch her, but she backs up toward the wall. All the rooms in the house have large beds, and I can't lean over far enough to get her without climbing onto the bed myself. So I sit down in the chair near the bed. Maybe it is better to let her jump and exhaust herself. Gloria keeps jumping and laughing, laughing and jumping. The blue blanket on the bed starts to gather around her feet as the jumping loosens it from where it was tucked under the mattress. Gloria starts singing the "Children's Song" and jumps to the rhythm of it. The next thing I know, I'm dozing off.
Katniss:
I wake up before dawn, having gotten only an hour of uninterrupted sleep. I spent the wee hours of the morning wondering what having Gloria and Peeta as my "neighbors" will be like. This is not what I want. I want my husband living in the same house with me. He could be, but I've been unwilling to sign the foster parent agreement.
"Peeta's coming home only to leave me. He wants to be my neighbor, not my husband!" I told Haymitch not long ago.
"No, he wants to be your husband. He wants to live with you, but he can't as long as he's Gloria's foster parent and you're not. You need to sign the papers, Sweetheart. They don't obligate you to anything long-term. The girl will never even know you signed them."
"No, I won't do it."
"You are being stubborn. You and Peeta have to try to work this out, and that's going to require at least some compromise," He added.
But what did Haymitch know about love, marriage, and children? What did he know about being a woman forced into motherhood? He should keep him opinions to himself.
In the pre-dawn light I dress in my hunting clothes and go downstairs to get a bite to eat before heading out the door with my bow and quiver. I can feel that today is going to be a great hunting day.
As I pass Peeta's house I see lights on in the kitchen, living room, and a bedroom upstairs. I felt sure they'd sleep in this morning. So I'd planned to come back from hunting and make them brunch. Rounding the kitchen window I hear a bang and a clatter that sounds like metal hitting the floor. The sound startles me.
In a fraction of a second I'm already imagining that Peeta's having an episode. After the severity of the last one, I privately vowed to keep a closer eye on him. After all, that's what Peeta and I do, protect each other. Protecting him during his episodes is certainly part of that now.
There's an even louder clatter so my walk from the backyard to the front becomes a run. Throwing the door open, I look around for Peeta and call his name. He's not in the living room, but when I wind my way through the living room furniture and into the kitchen I start to wonder how he could be in the house at all. The entire kitchen is in disarray with pots, pans, silverware, cooking utensils, an open suitcase and clothes everywhere. In the midst of all the disorder sits Gloria covered in flour which she's currently dumping from a one-pound bag onto the floor.
"Katniss!" She calls as she raises her flour covered hands into the air. She jumps up and runs to me. I pat her on the back lightly, and a cloud of flour puffs up into my face. Just then I hear the sound of Peeta's uneven footsteps in the hallway upstairs. When he makes it to the landing, and I can see him I could burst with happiness. I missed Peeta so much.
"Katniss, I'm so sorry. I fell asleep."
Peeta runs his fingers through his blonde curls making them look even messier than they did before. He slowly descends the stairs as he does when he's tired and wants to make sure his bad leg doesn't give out on him unexpectedly.
"I told you that you wouldn't have to do anything like this," he says gesturing subtly with his hand toward the flour covered child who's still holding onto my leg.
"Don't worry about it."
I look over into the kitchen.
"I suppose you might need some help with this kitchen."
Peeta turns, sees his full destruction of his kitchen, and gasps.
"What happened here?" he asks rhetorically.
I answer, "Gloria happened."
/
Katniss:
That night Haymitch offers to watch Gloria so Peeta and I can spend some time alone together. I make Peeta dinner, but when he arrives we let the food get cold while we rekindle our passion for each other. Afterwards we lie quietly in bed, and I feel calmer and closer to him than I have in some time.
Maybe he senses it, and that's why he starts to talk about things he's never put into words before.
"I always thought I'd have children someday, but I never imagined it would happen this way." He's staring at the ceiling, not making any eye-contact at all. "Whatever they did to me to make Gloria, I don't remember it. No matter how 'clinical' it was or wasn't, it still sickens me."
His vulnerability is palpable, and an ache starts to build in my chest as he continues. So he does still think about this. I thought maybe I was the only one who did.
"There was this woman at the prison. I think she was a nurse or something. She was the one who usually gave me the venom, but she wasn't in charge. She claimed to be a rebel spy, but I didn't know that for sure until she helped us during the rescue. She was killed right before we took off in the hovercraft."
I swallow hard and suddenly wish we weren't lying here in bed together. I feel too exposed, both literally and figuratively, to be having this conversation. You'd think I'd be used to feeling exposed by now.
"She probably knew about it. In fact, she's probably the kind of person they would have assigned to get what they needed from me to make Gloria. And if she was assigned to such a thing, then I'm sure she was very clinical about it no matter what means they used, because that's how she was about most everything at the prison."
I stay still and listen, despite my growing anxiety. I wonder if he really believes that or if he's just trying to make himself feel better. Maybe Peeta finds it easier to believe that someone who was sort of looking out for him betrayed him with good intentions. For me the whole situation seems sinister no matter how I imagine it.
"One day, when I woke up from being drugged, I could tell that they hadn't given me any venom by how I felt, and I asked her what happened. She was very quiet, but she told me not to worry. 'Everything is okay,' she said. 'They won't hurt you today.' I guess she had a funny definition of 'hurt.' Then again, she was very focused on my survival, so she probably wouldn't have been all that concerned with the collection of some reproductive material because that wouldn't have threatened my life."
He reaches for my hand, grasping it tightly. He makes it sound clinical. That must make him feel better as well. Whatever. It's still wrong.
"I've never been sorry that she died because even though she saved my life at least once, she also tortured me by being the one who actually injected the venom."
He pauses before continuing.
"Now I wish I could ask her what happened. I actually think she'd tell me the truth, and I don't think I'd blame her if she was involved. That doesn't mean that the things she did don't bother me because they do, but before I found out about Gloria this woman was never a part of my nightmares. Now she is."
Wow, he wouldn't blame her? I guess that's my Peeta, ever forgiving. I can't forgive. I wish none of this had ever happened, but that would mean wishing Gloria had never been born. Somehow that feels wrong also. I feel numb, like my whole body has fallen asleep the way my legs do when I sit cross-legged on the forest floor for too long.
Peeta's quiet, closing his eyes as he strokes the back of my hand slowly.
"What do you think that means?" he whispers after a few more moments of silence.
I feel inadequate to answer, but I try.
"I think it means you are trying to come to terms with how our daughter came into this world," I tell him. God knows I am trying to do that too! I'm glad Peeta's talking about a similar struggle. Although I hate to see him feeling like this, at least I know we have some common ground on this issue.
He keeps staring at the ceiling. His fingers continue to stoke my hand.
"How do you feel about…" he struggles to get the words out, choking over the last few "…what they did to you?" Peeta turns on his side toward me, still holding my hand.
I could take the rest of the night to explain that, and I'm not sure that I want him to know exactly how I feel. But this is Peeta. He won't judge me, and he'll probably want to help me.
"I feel angry. So angry that when I got home to District 12 I went out into the woods and just screamed for an hour. They had no right. You'd been so badly hurt in the arena, and I knew you might die even after we won. All I wanted to do was wake up and make sure you were all right, but they kept knocking me out with their drugs. I used to think they did it to control me and keep me quiet. Now I wonder if part of the reason was to collect those eggs." I notice that I've brought my free hand to my belly. "Cinna told me that Haymitch argued with them and convinced them not to change my shape with surgery to suit their tastes, you know, like make my breasts larger or something."
Peeta kisses my shoulder softly. "I'm so glad they didn't do that. I like you just the way you are."
I smile sadly, "But this is worse. Nobody can see what they did to me, but they took away my choices. If Beetee's right they pumped my body full of hormones and cut me open to take things from me," I say with a shiver.
I hear Peeta let out a slight whimper at the thought of what I've just said, as if none of it had hit him fully until just now. I feel his forehead rest against the back of my neck, and he pulls his arm around me protectively.
"No matter how much I love Gloria, I want you to know that none of that will ever be okay with me, Katniss," he pauses, apparently hesitant to continue. Then he does. "But as bad as all of that is, I still believe that loving Gloria can transcend it."
[I'd love to know what you think, please review! :) ]