Trigger Warnings: Minor injuries, lack of sleep, and minor expletives.
It's the middle of the night and I can't sleep. I've been up and down for the past week and a half since the party. My sleeping pattern has become irregular, which I know has Katniss on edge. I can feel her shifting beside me when I get out of bed in the middle of the night, and more than once I've had to return to our room after hearing her screaming, awakening from nightmares and jolted by not finding me resting next to her. We've both begun to nap more during the day to make up for it, but I can feel that I'm not resting as much as her. I'm rushing; trying to finish everything in time and make sure we're prepared.
In the days immediately following the party I had to take apart the spare bedroom, removing all the furniture and setting it up to paint. I wound up going with a deep green color for the walls, which would both compliment the dark wood furniture we were gifted and help sooth Katniss. Next I had to build all the furniture in the boxes, which included a crib, changing table, and dresser. Interpreting the instructions with its confusing pieces was a struggle. Haymitch sat in the rocking chair we did have, the one Mrs. Everdeen brought to the Seam when she married. He drank deeply from a bottle the whole time, not helping but still feeling comfortable enough to tell me I was doing it wrong, even when I wasn't. Slowly as the days ticked by I started feeling restless at night, and instead of lying awake for hours, I would get up and begin working on the nursery. I've noticed Katniss watching me carefully. Lack of sleep normally makes me snap, but the adrenaline running through my body at the prospect of soon being able to hold my daughter has me up and moving, without feeling the presence of the mutt who lives in my head.
Tonight Katniss hits the thirty-eight week mark, and the nursery is practically finished. I move all the furniture into the proper positions, place bottles, soothing music machines, stuffed animals and books in a neat order around the room. I tip toe to the door and stand admiring my handy work, feeling that I am forgetting something, when it clicks. Kicking myself for nearly forgetting, I rush out of the room. I pause only when I make an unusually loud thunks with my prosthetics, as I pass the master bedroom. I freeze, listening for sounds of movement within. Not hearing anything, I continue down the stairs to my studio. Opening the door, carefully so as not to wake Mrs. Everdeen. I see it in the center, covered by a sheet. I walk over to it and give the sheet a gentle tug. It slips away and in the faint light from the moon I can just make out the painting. Katniss dark hair tied back into its classic braid, her grey eyes fixed on the baby in her arms wrapped in a multicolored blanket. Not knowing what our child would look like, I settled on painting her as I wished she would look. She had her mother's dark hair and my curls. Her lips are stretched wide, into what I can only describe as a beaming baby grin. One of her hands is outstretched to Katniss'. The two of them are joined at the fingers. Willow grasps one of her mother's fingers in her own tiny little fist. I painted Katniss with one of her slight smiles and she almost seems to radiate joy.
I grab the painting off its stand. It's been done and dry for days now, but I wanted it to be the last touch. Careful not to make too much noise, I walk back up the nursery, pausing again at our bedroom door. I lean into it a little, and still hear no noise from inside. Letting out a sigh of relief, I push on down the hall back to Willow's room. The door creaks a little as it opens, and I cast my eyes about the dark room, focusing on the walls, and pick out the wall space above the crib as its resting place. I grab one of the hammers and nails from the changing table, where I left them, and prop the painting up against the wall, in order to free a hand a reach for the stepladder. I place it next to the crib, climb up and position the nail in order to give it a good whack into the appropriate spot, when she speaks.
"I really thought that someone who was in not one but two arenas would be more observant." I jump at the sound of her voice, causing me to nearly topple over, but in the process of regaining my balance I drop the hammer. I comes down on my foot. Out of pure instinct, I lift my leg up to grab my foot, which causes me to fall over backwards anyway. "No!" She's on her feet in an instant moving towards me quickly. "Peeta!" Her screams of concern echo around in my head and nearly pull me back to dark memories, but she's quickly by my side and as she leans over me, trying to get my shoe off to look at my foot, her baby bump, now massive, brushes against me, grounding me in the present.
"I'm fine," I gasp, air knocked out of me from the fall. "Really it's okay."
"Don't be ridiculous," she snaps. "You might have a broken foot." She finally wrestled off the shoe and is working on the sock. As she speaks she manages to pull the fabric aside and lets out a little gasp. I start to giggle. I see her lips twitch, in the light of the moon.
"You're right, if I still had a foot there it might be broken," I tell her honestly. She snorts, involuntarily, and claps a hand to her mouth, to hide her smile. I tilt my head back and start to laugh. "You scared me," I confess to her, chest heaving. She slaps me playfully on the arm.
"I scared you? I'm not the one up all hours of the night, doing odds only know what."
"Not odds only know what," I correct her, voice rising. "I didn't want to show you till it was finished." I tell her gesturing around the room. She's feeling along my fake foot, not listening. I can see the motion, but I can't feel her touch there.
"I think the hammer dented it," she says carefully. "I'm going to hit the lights."
"No!" I tell her, as she ignores me and gets up. "It's not done yet! I don't want you to see it till it's done." She flicks the light switch over my protests, bringing the light overhead to life. I hear her suck in her breath as she takes in the room. The dark green, contrasting with the furniture, gives it the same color scheme as her woods. I've even been dropping little bits of the sage essential oil her mother brought to make the place smell herby. I glance casually at the painting. It's propped so the back of it faces us.
"Peeta…" she whispers. I smile at her, and sit up to look at my foot. She was right. There's a dent the size of the top of a hammer in the metal. I let out an annoyed clicking sound. I feel Katniss' hand on my shoulder, and twist slightly to look at her. Her eyes are still wide, taking in the room. "I love it she," whispers. My smile gets wider, and I lean in and kiss her. We press our foreheads together, and I reach out and touch her belly with the tips of my fingers before softly splaying them out so my whole hand rests on the bump. Willow responds with a soft kick. "She likes her room," Katniss whispers. I tilt my head up and press my lips into her forehead. Her hand wraps around my shoulders. We stay like this for a few minutes, till the problem finally occurs to me.
"Katniss?"
"Hmm," she answers me sleepily.
"You aren't supposed to be out of bed." She sits, up, disengaging our cuddling, and making an annoyed noise in the back of her throat.
"I'm sick of lying around. You've been up and down and restless the past few days and I haven't been able to help. It's making me feel jumpy and frustrated." I push a strand of her hair aside.
"Knowing that you're taking care of our daughter sooths me. And I haven't been on the verge of an attack. I've been working on this," I tell her kindly, waving my arms softly around the room. "I wanted to surprise you."
"I could have helped. You shouldn't have to do things on your own."
"No," I say more firmly this time. "It's my job to take care of you and it's your job to take care of Willow."
"She's getting restless too," Katniss snaps, stretching a little bit.
"Has she been kicking more?"
"No," she answers. "She's been quiet. I can just tell. Bed rest bores her."
"Then she takes after you."
"Then the odds had better finally be in our favor then," she quips with a smile. Her eyes dart away and for an instant I'm afraid she's spotted the painting. My heart skips a beat. However her smile is quickly replaced with a frown. She moves away from me and stretches a hand down towards my fake foot, taking it in her hand and moving her thumb over the dent.
"You can't walk on that," she says matter-of-factly.
"I know," I grumble. "And this was my favorite prosthetic. I'll have to send it in, and it'll take them ages to fix."
"Where's the spare?"
"In our closet," I tell her but grab her arm so she can't move. "You're not supposed to be up though. You remember what Clora said?"
"What do you want me to do Peeta, leave you on the floor till my mother wakes up and can get you your spare leg? I survived two arenas and a war. I can walk down the hall and back," she snaps, pulling her arm out of my grasp. A sense of dread over comes me as I watch her try to get to her feet. She reaches up to grip the dresser to help brace her, and as she straightens up, I hear her gasp in pain a little.
"Katniss," I say warningly. She waves her hand at me to silence me, face contorted in pain a little. After a few seconds she seems to relax.
"It's fine," she says, voice calm. "I'm just going to get your spare and we'll go to bed together and then I promise I won't get up till she's ready to come into the world." I suck in my breath, keeping my eyes fixed on her for as long as possible. She moves back towards our room. Once I can't see her anymore, I lay back on the floor, straining my ears to hear her. I don't hear her soft foot falls, but I do catch the sound of the opening bedroom door and the occasional thunk of things moving around in the closet, which helps me track her progress. I close my eyes, listening. The sound pauses suddenly.
"Shit!" I hear her snap.
"Katniss!" I call in panic. "What is it?" She doesn't answer. The closet door shuts with a snap, and then there's nothing for a few seconds which seem to last an eternity. I twist my body around to bring the door back into my vision. I count heartbeats till she appears. She has my spare leg clutched in one fist, and is gripping the doorframe with the other. She tosses me the leg, and as I catch it I notice her bottom half is drenched.
"Put that on quickly," she barks, voice somehow shaking at the same time. "My water just broke."
AN: We are so close to the end! I'm grateful for all of you to for reading, and I hope you enjoy these last few chapters as much as I enjoyed writing them!
