Chapter Twenty One

In the car the next day, Mum is driving us to the hospital because I'm due for my twenty week scan. I'm actually quite excited, because I can find out what gender the baby is at this appointment. It's a full car, because Peeta; my mum and Prim all wanted to come along to support me. I feel bad, because instead of bringing Marvel the last time I should have just brought my family. I'm not making that same mistake again. I want the people who are important to me to there for me, not someone who I thought was going to step up but didn't. This moment is too important for that.

"So do the assholes at your school still think Peeta is the father?" Prim asks.

"We don't talk about it often in school, but since Marvel has made no move to say otherwise they probably still do," I answer.

"Thankfully, they seem to have become very subdued," Peeta says. "Although I fear that may have something to do with Madge's parents. At least they have the common human decency to be respectful, I suppose."

Peeta didn't say much to me about his talk with his dad. He didn't seem upset, nor did he seem overly happy. I didn't feel it was my place to push it because it's none of my business what was said. If he wants to tell me, I'll be ready to listen to him, but from what I can tell, the conversation hasn't bothered him at all. Maybe it went well. Mum did tell me that Peeta dad's was a good guy.

"How is Madge, have you seen her yet?" Mum asks.

"She was supposed to start on Friday but there was complications with her flights or something like that so she'll be back next week," I say.

"Poor girl," Mum sighs. "We'll have to get her a sympathy card. When she returns to school, Katniss, you should ask her if there's anything she needs."

"I will," I promise.

I slump in my seat and uncross my ankles, placing my hand on my stomach and giving it a rub. Sometimes I can feel them moving inside me and I'm awaiting the day I can feel the kicks on my stomach so I can show Peeta. The thought brings a smile to my face. The baby kicking is always made out to a lovely moment and, since the father isn't interested anymore, I'm glad to have Peeta to share it with.

The car passes the park and when I glance out the window, I notice there's more tyres beside the climbing frame. "There's more tyres," I murmur, my breath fogging up the glass. "Where could they possibly be coming from?"

"The Government is apparently shutting the park down," Prim says. "Making more room for housing estates or something."

I frown. "What? We don't need more housing estates. Even if we did . . . Why the park?"

"Who knows but it's a disgrace!" Prim declares, hitting her fist against her palm. "Rory and I are going to do a protest on the day of that Craft Fair your school are doing. We're going to spend the whole day up in the climbing frame, waving signs and stuff."

"Do you think that will work?" Mum asks.

"It might. We don't know yet. I figure it's worth a shot though."

I smile at Prim in the rear-view mirror. The determination in her big blue eyes makes my heart swell. She's got her own battles to fight, even if the scale of them are not as large as mine. Each and every day I get more and more proud of her.

~xXx~

The creature on the screen has grown. The smile on my face is so large it practically hurts as my eyes consume the image of my beautiful baby on the computer. Tears fall freely from my eyes and I clutch Peeta's hand desperately. "Look, can you see it?" I whisper, drawing the outline with my finger.

"Yeah," Peeta says, his voice awed. "It's . . . it's amazing."

Portia taps something into the computer and moves the attachment across my stomach. I catch something on the screen, something that makes my heart flip. "Was that . . . ?" I point to where, for a brief millisecond, what I saw had been.

Portia smiles. "It was indeed," she chuckles. "I'm sorry if you wanted it to be a secret, it's unpredictable what will show up on the screen."

"Peeta, did you see it?" I cry.

"What was it?" Peeta asks, confused and a bit scared as he doesn't understand what's wrong. "Is everything alright?"

"He's a boy!" I sob, covering my hand with my mouth with joy. "I'm having a boy!"

Relief floods Peeta's face. His grip tightens on my hand and tears well in his own eyes, making the blue orbs glisten. "He's beautiful," he murmurs.

"He's perfect," I whisper. I look to Portia. "Can my mum and sister come in to see?"

Portia nods. "Of course they can."

Peeta fetches Prim and my mother. When they enter, my mum gasps at the image of my baby and starts to cry. Prim is confused and Peeta outlines where the baby is to her. "Do you know what the gender is?" she asks.

I nod. "Do you want to know?"

Prim looks to Mum. "Uh . . ."

"You can tell us if you want, sweetheart."

I look to the screen, where the image moves again as Portia moves the attachment some more. "I'm having a boy," I tell them. "A beautiful baby boy who's completely happy and healthy."

"What are you going to call him?" asks Prim.

"I want to call him Oliver," I tell them. I don't say the name often, because it hurts too much, and even now I feel like a ball of lead has formed in my throat as I speak. Mum cries harder, unable to stop herself, and I reach out and grab her hand. "I want to name him after Daddy."

Prim drifts over to me and hugs me. Our teenage lives may have tugged us apart, but the experience of losing our Dad was something that we had a mutual understanding over. Not only did we both lose our Dad, but we both lost a man who had been so heavily involved in our lives that once he was gone, it felt like a huge hunk of ourselves had been torn off. Even when I veered off into the void of the unknown when he was gone, turning to cheerleading and being the major bitch that I was, every year, on his anniversary, without fail, we went to his graveside as a family.

"I love you, Katniss," she whispers.

"I love you too, Prim." I nestle my head in the crook of her neck and close my eyes. I need to say that more often.

I never say it enough.

~xXx~

"Hi, yeah, this is Katniss Everdeen. I'm calling in regards to plans I made with Alma Coin before Christmas? It's just I haven't heard a lot from her and I was wondering if there was any news?"

Peeta is watching some Marvel programme on Netflix with Prim in the living room. I'm not really into the superhero thing so I just decided to come in here and take a nap. I'm lying with my head at the foot of my bed, picking at some fraying paint on my wall. I haven't heard from Coin in ages and I'm growing concerned about whether we're still going to try to take down Snow or not.

"No, I'm sorry, Alma hasn't divulged any new information on your plans," Boggs informs me.

I tsk. "Oh."

I hear papers shuffle on the other end of the line but Boggs doesn't hang up. I don't either, curious to see if he'll do it first. "Katniss," he suddenly says, "have you thought about what I said to you before?"

Propping myself up on my elbows, I frown. "Not really. What did you mean by that anyway? Has Snow done something on Coin? Why is this case so personal?"

Boggs sighs. "Alma's daughter went to the same school as you, while Snow was principal. She was not popular, so he neglected her. She was bullied horribly because her mother was on the education board and . . . she committed suicide in her Junior year."

My stomach bottoms out and I actually have to sit up straight to stop myself from throwing up. "What?" I whisper. "I don't remember hearing about a suicide."

"It was long before you went to the school, don't worry you didn't have a hand in it," Boggs assures, making me feel slightly relieved. "Coin's life has never been the same since then. Her husband couldn't handle the grief and overdosed himself, leaving Alma on her own, swearing revenge on Snow."

"Why are you telling me this?" I ask fearfully.

"Because that kind of grief can do horrible things to a woman," Boggs tells me. "Can you imagine the lengths a person would be willing to go to in order to seek redemption for their family? The people they would be willing to go through? The lives they'd be willing to destroy?"

I can't help it, I hang up the phone and throw it across the room. Peeta must hear the bang of the device against the wall as he pops his head around the door. "Everything okay?" he asks.

I nod, even though my hands are shaking. I can't tell him what Boggs told me. Alma won't do anything drastic. She can't. There's nothing she could do that would be considered severe, even if she wanted to. Snow is a principal, we're his students. The only direction this will go in is with the sacking of Snow so he never controls a school environment again at the end of it.

"Hey, you're trembling." Peeta comes into the room and sits beside me, placing his hands over mine. "What's up?"

"Nothing," I say, forcing my hands to stop shaking. I don't want to think about Boggs or what he told me about Coin. I want to forget that it ever passed my ears and entered my mind.

I close the distance between Peeta's mouth and my own, kissing him firmly. I turn into him, trying to seem confident and sexy, but I can tell he's reserved, like he knows I'm trying to distract myself from something else. "What's wrong? You can tell me," he murmurs against my lips.

"Nothing!" I growl. "Can't you believe me?"

"I know you well enough by now to know when you're trying to distract me from something," says Peeta. "And choosing this way of doing it is rather crazy since I am fully capable of turning it down, which I'm sure you know by now."

I scowl. "That's because you don't know what you're missing yet," I huff.

Peeta quirks an eyebrow at me. "I could live happily without knowing for the remainder of my life." This makes me gape at him. He laughs at me. "You're lucky that I'm not as pure as I let on to me," he says.

I roll my eyes. "I knew it was an act." I'm glad the conversation has moved on. I don't want to tell him about Coin's family. It would be an unnecessary reason to bring his mood down. I push it to the back of my head and kiss him again. This time he kisses me back.

My hands go to his shirt, which I burrow my hands under. Peeta yelps and breaks the kiss. "Your hands are made of ice!" he exclaims. I laugh and make my hands crawl up his back, inflicting a shudder and another girlish yip due to the temperature drop.

We move up my bed to the top, where I turn us around and sit on Peeta's hips. He kisses my neck and I shiver, threading our hands together and pinning them to the mattress. He bites my skin and I moan, unaware that our hips have started to move together. The sensation is just so natural and feels so good I barely notice it happening.

I scoot backwards, dragging my ice cold hands down Peeta's chest and stomach as I go. He laughs, despite the situation, and bats them away. I grin and waggle my eyebrows at him. "Want to take another step?" I ask.

Peeta raises his eyebrows. "Like wha . . ." His voice trails away as I play with the zip of his jeans. His eyes roll behind his head and his chest puffs out as he huffs out a breath. There's a tug in my gut as I realize that this is the reaction of a pure soul. Someone who has never experienced such sensations before. By someone else's hand anyway but let's not open that can of worms . . .

I kiss his navel teasingly and flick the button of his jeans open with my thumb, waiting for him to tell me to stop if he wants me to. I'm just sliding down the zip when Prim calls. Fuck I forgot she was in the house. "Don't come in here!" I bark at her.

"Alright, sheesh," she shouts, "There's someone at the door for you!"

Peeta groans and throws a pillow over his face. I laugh at his reaction. "Stay here, I won't be long," I tease, sliding off him. Going to my bedside cabinet, I produce a set of novelty handcuffs I got one Halloween. Only for a bit of fun, I lock his wrist to the head of the bed. "Stay put."

Peeta scoffs. "Like I can go anywhere," he says, making himself comfortable. He stuffs the pillow under his head with his free hand and lets his eyes fall closed, ready to wait for my return.

I kiss him and leave my room. Prim passes me as she goes to the bathroom. "I let them in, they're on the sofa."

"Okay," I answer, adding, "don't go into my room!" as an afterthought.

I'm baffled to find Ms Trinket sitting on my couch when I enter the living room. It's always a galling experience seeing teachers outside of school. Like when you walk into them at the supermarket and don't know what to say to them because you're not in school. Except triple the awkwardness because this is my house, not the supermarket.

"Ms . . . Trinket?" I ask, confused.

Ms Trinket jumps to her feet. "It's Effie outside school, Katniss," she tells me.

"Um, okay. W-Would you like a cup of tea or anything?" I approach the armchair and sit down, gesturing for Effie to do the same. She shakes her head as she sits and we stare at each other for a moment. Her eyes fall to my stomach, which is the size of a small beach ball now.

"I heard you had your 20 week scan," she says. "Did everything go okay?"

I nod. "Yeah," I say. "He's happy and healthy."

I'm startled when tears gather in my teacher's eyes. "He's a boy?" she asks.

"Um yeah," I say cautiously. "I'm going to call him Oliver, after my father." I rub my stomach, hoping Oliver can feel it inside of me. "I don't mean to sound rude Ms Trinket but why are you here?"

"I know this is sudden," Effie begins, her fingers twitching nervously in her lap, "and you have every right to say no because it may be too close to home for you but we talked about it at length and we just want it so badly . . ." I raise my eyebrows at her. "Haymitch and I would like to adopt your baby."

I blink with surprise. So much information in that one sentence. "You and Mr Abernathy?" I ask, flabbergasted.

Effie nods, her face turning pink. "We've been married for some time but Snow believed it would be in the school's best interests if we kept it quiet," she explains. Another life Snow has complicated. That must have been why Mr Abernathy joined our cause, with Effie in close tow . . . "We've tried to conceive, we really have, but I'm polycystic and Haymitch isn't the young man he used to be."

My hand continues to rub my stomach subconsciously. Effie watches me, anxiously chewing on her lip as she awaits my answer. "I haven't even thought about it yet," I admit. "I don't have anyone who I thought would want me to be involved in his life"-

"You can be as involved as you want," Effie quickly tells me. "You and Marvel and even Peeta."

I ponder it over. "Ms Trinket," I say carefully, "My baby . . . he will be born with Downs Syndrome. Is that something that you and Haymitch are willing to accommodate for?"

Effie's eyes glitter with determination. "If you allow us to adopt Oliver, I promise your son will be loved. I will give him everything he needs and more, working until my dying breath to protect him. And you can bet that Haymitch will go through anyone who dares touch him."

Her words make tears well in my eyes. I curse and wipe them away with my knuckles. "You understand that I'll need to think about this?" I say.

Effie nods. "Oh of course, take all the time you need," she says, standing up. I stand up too. I'm taken aback when she hugs me and stand there awkwardly, unsure about whether this crosses some sort of teacher student line. Oh well, hardly matters. I'm not going to go telling people that she came to my house anyways.

When she pulls back, she smiles at me. "Thank you Katniss."

I nod. When I see her out, I lean against the door once it's shut again and rub my eyes with the heels of my hands. I hear the toilet flushing in the distance and the bathroom door opening. I'm smiling. It's instinctive. I couldn't pick better people to parent my baby if they'd fallen from the sky and landed at my feet. I'll talk it out with Peeta just to be sure.

Peeta . . .

Prim screams in surprise and my eyes widen. I bolt across the living room. "Prim, get out of my room!"

A/N: Some people predicted that Effie might ask to adopt Katniss' baby but I hope it was a surprise to some people! Katniss' baby being a boy is a homage to my sister, who found out a couple of weeks ago that she's having a baby boy also ^_^

Please R&R with thoughts on the chapter!