a/n: I apologize PROFUSELY for the long, long, long wait between chapters, but I am hopeful that I will be back on track posting a new chapter at LEAST once a month if not more frequently until the story is complete! I have about 4-5 chapters plus possibly 2-3 interludes planned out and thanks to a tumblr buddy (I'm looking at you esq2u!) There will most likely be a brief epilogue to follow the final chapter as well! I sincerely apologize and I hope this tides you over until the next chapter which I hope to have out sometime this month.
Thanks very muchly to my beta, ct522. If you haven't yet, run don't walk to find her Hunger Games stories on here!
Also, come find me on tumblr and say hi! my username is madambeth and I am on at least a few times a day to check messages and laugh heartily at all that the tumblr-verse has to offer a sick and twisted mind like mine.
I didn't know I was lonely til I saw your face
I wanna get better
I didn't know I was broken til I wanted to change
I wanna get better
"I Wanna Get Better" –The Bleachers
Chapter 43
(KATNISS POV)
We'd all slept peacefully once we'd returned home and cleaned up following our Harvest Festival-ending food fight. In fact, when the cat decided he'd waited long enough for his breakfast and pawed at my face to wake me up around nine the next morning, I was surprised to find myself the first one up. Being as there were seven other people in the house, each of whom were no strangers to sleepless nights, I considered that to be an impressive feat.
As much as I love Peeta, having friends and family visit was not only a pleasure because I had grown to love and care about these people so much, but also because it was yet another way to distract us both from the dangerous thoughts that were never far enough away for our liking.
Sharing the news of our baby with Annie, Zale, Johanna, Jaxson, and Effie was a more special and emotional experience than I thought I had the capacity to feel with anyone outside of Peeta (and possibly Haymitch, though I'd never let him know it). Going against my usual psychological leanings, I decided to give optimism a try and let myself believe that accepting the happiness and well-wishes from our friends was okay.
That I was entitled to feel pride and joy in the little life Peeta and I would be bringing into the safest world any of us had ever known.
When everyone left in the middle of the week and I found myself quickly brushing tears from my cheeks at the train station, I waved off their concerned glances and sympathetic hugs. Never one to take pleasure in having attention on me, I blamed the hormones that had begun flooding my body from head to toe since I became pregnant. This only made them try harder to hide their amusement at my growing sentimentality as a last round of hugs and kisses spread through our little group.
They'd all climbed aboard the train after extra tight hugs followed by careses to my swelling belly, Annie promising in compassionate tones that the influx of hormones would pass once the baby was born…or…well, eventually. Jaxson even teased that my emotional state could be explained by the fact that I had an extra strong dose of hormones because I was carrying a girl, which earned him a smack on the back of the head from Johanna as they disappeared around the corner into the train car.
Annie offered to come visit and help out for a week once we were settled in with the baby to give Peeta and I what would surely by then be a much needed break. She understood firsthand how an infant monopolized all of the waking (and sleeping) hours of a new parent's day, and she was in the unique position to know the effect that had on a parent who was also a Hunger Games Victor.
I agreed only if she promised to bring her new 'friend' along for us to meet. It took her a moment, but she promised she would with a shy smile and a reddening of her cheeks that made me extraordinarily happy to know Annie had found love again after the devastating loss of Finnick.
"Sad to see them go?" Peeta asked wrapping his arms around me from behind as we watched the train pulling away. We both chuckled and threw one last wave to Zale as he hung his head out the window. He was grinning and waving his arms goofily, teetering on that strange divide between sweet, funny kid and cool teenager and I felt a sharp tug on my heartstrings as I thought of his chubby baby face and experienced what I hoped was even the smallest taste of the love I would feel for my own child arriving in the summer.
I rested my hands over Peeta's at the rounded sides of my little belly where they'd seemed to be glued lately. I pictured the playful smiles on the faces of Jaxson and Johanna as they climbed aboard the train, thinking how no one who saw them together could ever doubt the love and affection that had blossomed between them.
I thought of the list of baby items Effie had to send us that she'd been rambling gleefully on about since they'd all arrived and discovered the condition I was in.
Finally, I thought of Annie's cheeks pinking with the bashful excitement of new love when I insisted she bring her boyfriend the next time she visited us, and I shook my head no in answer to Peeta's question about being sad to see them go.
"Uh-uh, nope." I said with a sigh and relaxed back into his arms as we watched the train getting smaller and smaller as it sped away into the distance.
"No?" Peeta responded playfully and stroked his thumbs methodically against my sides through my light wool sweater.
"They're all…happy, Peet." I whispered in quiet awe. Even so many years since the fall of the Capitol, I still had a hard time comprehending how those of us who had been most affected by the Games and the war had been able to find even a modicum of happiness after such horrors.
"How can I be sad when they're all so happy…when we're all so happy?" I said and lightly squeezed his hands at my middle to emphasize where our own happiness was coming from. Despite the autumn chill, I felt a wave of warmth spread from Peeta's body into the back of mine and screeched a laugh when he playfully blew a raspberry on my neck.
When I think back on that time now, I know a part of me should have anticipated that with the joy and excitement we were welcoming into our lives with the arrival of our daughter, we were also inviting changes big enough to interrupt the routines that had helped hold our often brittle psyches together since our return to 12 so many years before.
As usual, Haymitch played the part of mentor and kept better, more sober tabs on both Peeta and I as the pregnancy began to advance into the cold, dark winter months.
He knew even before I did that the loss of hunting, the general dreariness of a season where everything in my beautiful woods either died or lay dormant until spring, and the likelihood of greater confinement to the indoors, would wreak havoc on my emotions.
Emotions that had already been magnified by the heaping dose of hormones racing through my bloodstream and triggered by worries I'd come to accept that I would never be rid of.
Haymitch and I were sitting on his front porch one morning in late December at the end of my fourth month of pregnancy when the first sign that the beautiful tapestry of peace and happiness Peeta and I had stitched together over the years was beginning to unravel slightly appeared.
I was sitting lengthwise on the porch swing with my feet in the place Peeta usually sat, and Haymitch was sitting in his usual spot across from me pushing himself gently back and forth in a rocking chair at the railing. We were each sipping hot chocolate (Haymitch's spiked for a little stronger kick than I was allowed in mine) while the first real heavy snowfall of the winter was just beginning to cover the brown grass.
I was playing the game that had helped me to keep my sanity for so many years as I stared up at a sky that had been grey for more days than it had been blue throughout the last month. The familiar mantra I'd used to get through so many, many bad days was running like a tape recording on a loop inside my head as I watched the little world I enjoyed closing in to the point it seemed in danger of suffocating me. With each new flake of snow that landed and stuck to the cold ground there grew a sense of fear and a feeling of entrapment that only a hunter and a person who had once been hunted herself could understand.
My name is Katniss Everdeen …I mean…Katniss Mellark…I'm 32 years old…
Peeta had left for work hours before when it was still too dark to see that snow clouds had blanketed the skies over Victors Village and as far across District 12 as we could see in any direction. I had planned to wake and follow him there around eight o'clock, but rose only long enough to call Peeta and tell him I hadn't slept well the night before and might try to make my way in by lunch time. He'd updated me on the forecast of snow and admitted he'd rather I not walk into town if it was bad weather, a request to which I had grudging surrendered.
I was learning to pick my battles with Peeta's overprotectiveness. I knew from what my mother told me that it was normal for a first time father, and I knew it was also connected to the bottomless lake of fears my husband carried around with him from his time spent being hijacked by the Capitol.
When I complained about it, my mother made sure to remind me that Peeta's Capitol torturers had tried very hard to convince him that the fake pregnancy before the Quarter Quell had been real, and that I had ended it to hurt him. I wanted to argue that one of the other stories they'd try to convince him of was that the baby was Gale's and I'd aborted it to keep him from finding out the truth, but Peeta hadn't mentioned that story in so long that I decided it would be petty of me to bring that to my mother's attention now just to win an argument. I also didn't want to chance Peeta hearing and dredging up old fears of his that he'd worked so hard to manage over the years.
This information that was so easily accessible and obvious to me, to her, to Haymitch, was to Peeta like the tiny, jagged shards of a beautiful vase that had been shattered into a million pieces. He might have been able to eventually put it back together, but it wouldn't ever look exactly like it had and the pieces would never fit back quite the same way. She said that some part of Peeta's mind would always hold those memories in question and I ought to be sensitive to his needs in that respect.
I'd kept my mouth shut pretty well on the subject up to that fourth month, but as I saw and felt the changes occurring almost daily in my body, it became increasingly more difficult to do so. Especially when Peeta just went right along peeing a reasonable number of times in a day, being able to pick up things he dropped on the floor with ease, and sleeping on his damn stomach like it was the most splendidly simple thing in the world to do.
The asshole.
My expanding midsection had gone from looking like I'd just eaten a few too many of Peeta's cheese buns (which I'm sad to say I remained disgusted by for the duration of my pregnancy) to looking like I'd swallowed a small, partially inflated playground ball in only the matter of a month.
Peeta and Haymitch both tried to tell me I wasn't that big, but the midwife, and my mother (who had just a week before moved back to District 12 and lived only a half hour away from us) told me the baby was measuring a little large for how early in the pregnancy I was and they would both be keeping an eye on her size. They were hopeful that it was just an unusual growth spurt and that she'd slow down for a while. I tried my best to evade the panic that seemed to always be a step or two behind me, stalking like a hunter confident and familiar with the weaknesses of its prey.
I was thinking about that new 'mild' concern my caretakers had regarding my pregnancy while sitting on the porch that morning with Haymitch, when he cleared his throat after a long draw from his mug.
"You know, if you wanted I could walk into town with you." He shrugged. "Keep Peeta from getting a bug up his ass about you bein' out on your own in this weather." He mumbled with the typical Haymitch indifference he uses when he's trying to do me a favor, but senses he's in danger of getting accused of something despicable like…being nice.
"I need to pick up my shipment of liquor anyway and…"
I cut him off with a shake of my head. "Peeta said he was going to stop by the train station and bring it home with him tonight, so he won't see that as a reasonable excuse from either of us." I sighed and sipped my mug wishing for a moment that it had the extra jolt Haymitch was enjoying in his.
I've never been much of a drinker, (Haymitch has set a superb cautionary example of what can happen when one becomes too dependent on the emotion-dulling power of booze) but damned if there weren't weak moments during my pregnancies with both Bow and Finn that I didn't long for the temporary mental and physical escape found in that white liquor.
Haymitch shifted himself into a less slouched sitting position on his rocking chair across from me and looked off down the road towards town shaking his head in frustration.
"He's gotta stop that," he growled and ran a hand through his unkempt hair in an attempt to make it appear as though he was, in fact, able to take care of himself without mine or Peeta's help. "At least for the time being…He'll wanna save up his energy for when the little one comes along." he said waving a hand my way and glancing briefly down at my belly.
It was beginning to protrude far enough out from my body that even the baggiest of the maternity sweaters Effie sent me could no longer conceal its presence completely and I nodded as Haymitch alluded to the wonderful chaos our lives were about to become.
I knew Haymitch was just as worried as I was about how the stress of taking over a portion of the day to day physical work Peeta and I had previously split between the two of us at home and in the bakery had to be affecting Peeta. Not only that, but he was now also providing me with extra emotional support thanks to the new fears I'd developed as a result of the pregnancy. This left less time for Peeta to manage his own usual parade of fears and doubts which in turn, only stressed me out more.
Then there was the job of keeping Haymicth fed and in relatively good health, on top of Peeta working through his own mental and emotional baggage surrounding first time fatherhood. Neither of us said it aloud, that wasn't our style, but just below the surface of every conversation Haymitch and I had when Peeta wasn't around was the thinly veiled concern that these extra stressors might push him to more frequent and potent hijacking episodes.
It was a fear that had been growing within both of us for several weeks as we watched Peeta working harder and harder to juggle all of the jobs he was trying to so casually take on. Whether it was some misguided sense of responsibility for my condition, the fact that Peeta is just a take charge type of person when the going gets tough, or a combination of both, Haymitch and I sensed the exhaustion of this undertaking was beginning to wear on him.
"Thanks for trying though, Haymitch." I said with enough sincerity in my voice that he didn't even turn his head to check my face for sarcasm before a grunted 'you're welcome' passed his lips along with a stifled belch.
I took another slow sip of my drink and smiled briefly when the little flutter inside my womb signaled that my daughter had already inherited my love of all things chocolate.
I had just begun feeling those little fluttering (like how the wings of a butterfly feel when one accidentally flits by your cheek on a summer day) inside my womb a week or so earlier.
Experiencing further proof that I was in fact carrying a tiny life within my body had stirred up a whole new bunch of terrifying thoughts to discuss on my, by then, almost daily phone calls with Dr. Aurelius. Even after all I'd been through in life, I found myself completely unprepared for the fresh surge of crippling fears that came with being solely responsible for the child growing within me.
Was I eating enough? Too much? The right foods? Something that could hurt her? And then worrying about those things made me worry that the stress of that worry would somehow harm the baby too.
Basically, I had turned the dial back up to being just about as crazy as when I first returned to District 12, only this time I had the added bonus of 50 or so bathroom breaks a day and I was starting to have trouble seeing my feet.
These fears were made even more distressing when I focused for even a moment on the fact that it wasn't just my child I was carrying, but Peeta's as well. To be in care of something I knew to be so precious to him was, at times, the most overwhelming concern of them all.
Luckily, offsetting those fears for a short time was the absolute joy I saw in Peeta's eyes when I grabbed his hand and placed it on my belly with equal parts panic and excitement that first time I felt our child stirring inside me.
The movement was too deep for Peeta to feel with his hand pressed gently to my abdomen, (something my mother explained, but then assured us he'd be able to feel the baby moving soon enough) but to finally have something more concrete than the morning sickness of the first few months to see he truly was going to be a father was like an awakening for Peeta. He said it was the best version of the real or not real game we'd played yet. The love I saw in his eyes at that moment alleviated my stress briefly, until the weather took a turn that threatened the amount of time I'd be able to spend outside of the house.
I was so caught up in my daydream of that morning with Peeta, lying in bed with both of our hands on my belly trying to feel our daughter move, that I almost missed the little smile on Haymitch's face as he watched me enjoying my daughter's hot chocolate motivated backflips.
"What?" I asked quickly bringing the hand on my belly back up to hold onto the other side of my mug. One of the biggest comforts in my life has always been that out of everyone in my life, even more than Peeta, I can always count on Haymitch to give things to me straight. There exists absolutely no room for bull shit between the two of us and I appreciate that more than I could ever adequately express to him. Even if I did find it absolutely infuriating how well he was able to read my mind sometimes.
"Oh, nothing." Haymitch smirked and brought his mug to his lips for another sip just in time to hide the genuine smile threatening there.
"Ah, shut up…Paw-paw." I teased using the endearment we told Haymitch we were going to teach the baby to call him. It was an endearment whose use he protested so often that we were almost certain by the 4th month of my pregnancy that he absolutely loved it.
Looking back on it now, I realize that the exchange on the porch and the quiet sharing of fears Haymitch and I both had as the pregnancy was really starting to advance, was the beginning of the longest stretch of difficulties any of us had faced since that first year when we'd returned to 12.
The light snowfall Haymitch and I watched together that morning was just the beginning of a lousy winter that kept me indoors most of the season and into the first week or two of spring. If there had been no other problems to face during the middle months of my pregnancy, being a person who thrived in the outdoors forced to stay indoors would have been enough.
The problems started out quietly, like the first fat raindrops that fall before a summer thunderstorm when the air is still and belies the tempest brewing inside the thick black clouds.
Before we'd slept together as a couple, sharing a bed to make the night more bearable had been a welcome comfort once Peeta returned from his treatment in the Capitol. Unforturnately, the discomfort of my first experience with pregnancy was quick to interfere with this integral part of our nightly routine.
I would be exhausted during the day only to find myself wide awake when it came time to sleep. The restlessness would lead to me wandering the house whirling my way through various chores that I seemed to never feel were done to my newly intensified standards.
My mother called this 'nesting' and prescribed me a safe herbal tea to drink at bedtime to help calm my nerves enough for sleep. The tea worked at first, but it could do nothing for the back pain I began experiencing in the middle of my 5th month. Once this happened it became next to impossible for me to find a comfortable position to sleep in while sharing a bed with Peeta.
Not wanting to hurt his feelings or disrupt his own sleep patterns since he'd been working so hard at home and at the bakery, I would try to lay as still as possible until Peeta was asleep and then I would waddle across the hall to what would become the baby's room and sleep on the twin mattress in there. It worked for the first few nights I tried this, up until the night Peeta woke up from a nightmare in a panic and found me missing from our bed.
"KATNISS!?" He'd cried out frantically and I startled awake, unable to answer him for a moment because I was drowsy from the effects of the sleep tea. "KATINSS WHERE ARE YOU?!" he'd yelled with rising panic, probably after checking the next logical place I was likely to be found since becoming pregnant; the bathroom.
"I'm here, Peet. It's alright!" I called groggily and wiggled my body closer to the edge of the twin bed so that I could stand (a process I never once in my life expected to have to give conscious thought to).
I was just pulling myself up into a sitting position when the bedroom door swung open, and a frightened, sweaty Peeta rushed into the room and knelt by my legs which were dangling over the edge of the bed.
"Are you okay? What's wrong? Is it something with the baby?" He asked stroking my back and trying to take measured breaths to calm himself down.
"No, no…the baby's fine." I assured him and reached out a comforting hand to stroke back the wet bangs that were sticking to his forehead. "Just, growing to the point it's now kind of uncomfortable for me to find a good sleeping position." I said sheepishly and moved my hand down to stroke his back lightly and Peeta heaved a sigh of relief.
"I don't want to keep you up with the tossing and turning that goes on until I find one." I admitted with a sad smile and Peeta moved to sit beside me on the bed and took my hands between both of his.
"Hey, you don't have to worry about that, I can handle a little tossing and turning." He promised and then grinned shyly. "Granted, I like it best when I'm causing the tossing and turning…" he teased and I tilted my face away and cringed slightly, realizing that it'd been quite some time since I'd even thought about sex.
Whether he was willing to admit it aloud or not, I knew that was probably difficult for Peeta to deal with as well and he just hadn't mentioned it because he's too much of a gentleman.
Aside from it being the most physical expression of our feelings for each other, sex had been a huge stress reliever for both of us over the years.
I wish I could say that at that point in my pregnancy I missed it, but it was hard to care about sexual gratification when I spent around eighty percent of my day uncomfortable from actions as basic to daily life as walking, standing and sitting upright for more than 5 minutes at a time.
"Mmm…yeah, I'm sorry about that too…I…I know it's been a while." I murmured embarrassedly and Peeta began shaking his head as he rubbed my back. "I know it's been a long while." I added and he reached out with his free hand to touch my cheek and turned my face back towards his.
"Hey, hey…don't worry about it, I was just making a really…poorly thought out joke." Peeta whispered with an embarrassed laugh and pressed a kiss to my forehead. "Despite what certain parts of my anatomy seem to think, I can survive without sex." He promised and then brought my hands to his lips and kissed the back of one.
We'd kept up a pretty steady sex life through the years and I'd have been lying if I didn't admit that it had also become one of our favorite parts of the routines we thrived on to keep our sanity.
It provided a closeness and comfort neither of us had experienced with anyone else, and it released the same chemicals in the brain as synthetic drugs like the morphling given to patients in the hospital to manage extreme pain. Pain-reducing medicines given to past Hunger Games Victors who didn't have the luxury of the love provided by another person to produce such pleasant chemicals naturally.
Haymitch had his supply of liquor to get lost in, Peeta and I had each other. Anytime Haymitch got overly drunk and grumpy and told us we were like a drug for one another, I would shoot back just as gruffly that at least mine and Peeta's "addiction" wouldn't ruin our livers.
At Peeta's reassurance and his gentle rubbing of my back, I finally smiled when his grin widened and he leaned in a little closer to whisper his next words to me in the quiet darkness of the nursery.
"But by all means, you know where to find me if you should feel so inclined. I can be ready literally at a moment's notice." Peeta winked and I chuckled softly and dropped my head to his shoulder.
"Thanks. You're being pretty awesome about all…this." I said and waved a hand over myself from head to feet alluding to everything from the crazy thoughts constantly swimming through my mind that I'd shared with him over the past few months, all the way down to the pain from swollen feet and ankles I probably mentioned 10 times a day.
"Shit, Katniss…" Peeta whispered with a slight gasp and turned my head gently with a hand on my cheek to look down into my eyes reverently. "Ditto…" He said and I narrowed my eyes, trying to figure out what he could mean.
Without me needing to ask in any way beyond the puzzled stare I gave him, Peeta smiled shyly and leaned in to kiss my lips tenderly and then with a little more force as a hitch in his breathing betrayed the emotions he must have been feeling.
"Peeta?" I asked, concerned, in the space between our lips when we finally came up for air. It was never far from my mind that when Peeta experienced a spike in his emotions, good or bad, it could potentially lead to an episode.
I pulled back a little more to look into his eyes and was met with a look of intense love and respect that I never tired of seeing directed my way by this man.
He rested his forehead to mine and continued."I don't want you to think for even a second that I don't know how tough carrying this baby has been on you, or how much tougher it's likely to get in just a few month's time." He explained and I smiled and reached up to stroke the rough stubble on his cheek affectionately.
"Well, good thing we're both crazy enough to believe it'll be worth it in the end, huh?" I whispered and pressed my lips to his in a gentle kiss and felt Peeta's lips curve up in an amused smile against mine.
"I think that…knowing at the end of this I'll get to see you hold our baby girl is worth every sore muscle in my back, every cheesebun-induced pukefest…" I chuckled and Peeta stroked a hand up my side and around my back to run his fingertips over the bumps of my spine on his way to cup both hands around the back of my head.
Whether it was because of Peeta's reaction to my words or because I knew in my heart that what I said was the absolute truth, I felt a peace settle over me that promised a more restful sleep than I'd had in quite some time.
"You love me…real or not real?" He whispered as we huddled closer together on the edge of the mattress and leaned back from one another a little so that we were looking each other in the eyes again.
"Real." I answered free of any hesitation and finally breathed my own sigh of relief when an easy smile fell across Peeta's face. Just like that, the tension of a few minutes earlier disappeared with those words that were like a touchstone for us.
"You ready to come back to bed?" He asked holding out a hand to help me up. I was sure that I wouldn't get anymore sleep that night if I returned to our bed with him, but I also was finding it nearly impossible to deny either Peeta or myself the comfort and safety we'd shared for so long.
"Mmhmm." I said trying to sound cheery and let him lead me back to our bedroom across the hall where a perky ButtercupTwo was impatiently twitching his tail back and forth waiting for us.
"Meow!" He cried out by way of greeting but I suspected he was really just more annoyed that we'd interrupted his sleep. The further into my pregnancy I went, the closer I was to returning to using the image of fur-lined gloves I'd sometimes visualized to cope with any ill-will I felt towards the original Buttercup.
"Yeah, yeah….back to bed." I groaned and pushed the cat to the bottom of the bed by my feet as Peeta and I climbed back under the covers.
Knowing that I'd probably be leaving the bed again as soon as Peeta fell asleep, I took a preemptive strike by pushing him onto his back gently and cuddling up to rest with my head on his shoulder and one hand resting flat on his taut stomach.
"Love you." Peeta whispered and reached around with the hand under my body to stroke his fingertips up and down my spine lightly. With his other hand, he reached past the one I had resting on his belly to lightly stroke my protruding abdomen. "Night, night baby girl." He whispered and I rubbed my cheek against his warm skin and leaned over to kiss his chest above his heart.
"We love you too." I whispered back in what had become yet another part of our nightly ritual.
I lasted about an hour that way and once I could tell Peeta was really asleep, I slipped quietly out of bed and headed for the door. The cat threw me an accusatory look for leaving him and Peeta once again, and I hissed softly back at him in retaliation. He scurried up to the middle of the bed as I pulled the door to gently behind me and turned the knob until it was closed to keep from making any sound.
I wish I had the way with words to sufficiently explain how it pained me just as much to leave our bed as it did Peeta to have me gone from it because it truly did. When it came down to it though, if the choice had to be between physical discomfort or emotional discomfort, physical was going to win every time during those rough few months in the middle of my first pregnancy.
I woke in the morning stretched out flat on my back in the middle of the bed in the nursery. My mouth was dry and my tongue felt like sandpaper. As I sat up slowly and cleared my throat, I suspected I must have been snoring as well and groaned as I blinked in the late morning light. Glancing around the room I noticed the door to the room was open a crack and I felt a momentary flush of embarrassment as I realized Peeta had peeked in to check on me before he left for the bakery.
'Yikes. That must have been a nice image.' I thought as I slid off of the bed and gripped the edge of the baby's crib to help propel me forward towards the door. As I headed across the hall to the bathroom, I tried not to picture the sad look that must have been on Peeta's face when he woke to find me missing from the bed once again.
I had almost reached the bathroom door when I stopped with a little gasp as I caught sight of the red X hanging on the knob of our bedroom door in my peripheral vision. I had been so busy worrying about how Peeta had reacted to finding that I'd left our bed again that I almost missed the evidence of how he'd reacted hanging practically right in front of my face.
"Oh, Peeta…" I whispered, hoping against hope that he was behind the door sleeping his way through this episode. That instinct to go to him and help that I'm sure will always tug at my heartstrings pulled me a few steps closer to the bedroom door like a moth to a flame.
It was even stronger because it'd been quite a while since I'd seen that little red letter and also because I knew it was there on account of my leaving our bed in the middle of the night. I reached out to touch the door lightly and sighed, thinking that I better call Calen and tell him he'd need to hurry in to open the bakery.
After one last glance back at our bedroom door, I slipped quietly into the bathroom and then waddled down to the study to make the phone call.
I was standing at the window watching as an icy wind blew outside, swirling snow up into tiny white tornados as I waited for Calen to answer his mobile phone.
"Hey, Calen…it's Katniss how are you?...Good, I just wanted to see if you could…oh, he already called you this morning?...Left you a message, right…I'm sorry Calen, but could I ask you…how…how did he sound…right…I know, you're right…" I said trying to keep my voice even as Calen gently reminded me that I'd told him once before not to indulge me when I asked questions like this while Peeta was having an episode. I knew it wouldn't help Peeta and would only end up making me feel worse. "You're right…" I said again and cleared my throat as I reached up to brush a few stray tears off of my cheeks and tried to compose myself. "Thanks Calen. Hopefully you'll see him tomorrow, but I'll give you a call before you close up tonight and let you know where we're at with…right…thanks and call me if you need anything, I'll uh….I'll be…here…" I said with a humorless laugh because there was nowhere else I could go in this weather or with my husband in the condition he was in.
It ended up being two more days before the red X came off the door and when it did, the events that followed Peeta's first day back to work afterwards brought news that almost qualified me for my own stay behind the door with the red X hanging on the knob.
With the news that a very dear friend had died…
To Be Continued…
