A/N: Again, thank you guys for the wonderful reviews! You're all so supportive and it makes me feel great! Anyway, salvation has arrived in the form of my iPad, so I can keep updating even while my crappy computer is broken. I'm doing the next chapter now—and this is the big exciting one!—because I have FINALS this week. :( If I can find the time to update, I will, but if I can't, chapter seven isn't going to be up until next Tuesday. Thanks—EPC

Peeta's POV

I wake up one night several weeks after Gale's heart-to-heart with me (I have to admit that it was a little bit awkward) to find that Katniss isn't in bed. Since she's not supposed to be up, this worries me. I jump out of bed, taking a moment to balance myself on my good leg, and begin the search for Katniss.

The search doesn't last very long—I find Katniss pacing around the bathroom in obvious pain. Add that to the fact that she's thirty-nine weeks pregnant and absolutely HUGE, and I'm instantly worried.

"Katniss, what's the matter?" I ask gently.

"Contractions," she hisses through clenched teeth, squeezing her eyes shut.

"What?" I cry. "I thought she wasn't due for another week!"

"Peeta, will you just calm the hell down and go get my mother? Your hysteria isn't helping me mentally prepare for the feat that I am about to perform, which involves pushing a watermelon through a hole the size of an egg." She says this in a voice that is so deadly calm that it takes me by surprise.

"Are you sure?" I ask.

"GO, Peeta!" she orders, and I do.

I meet Katniss' mother in the square outside. "What's going on?" she asks. "I saw lights on in your house."

I barely have time to get out the word "baby" before a look of understanding dawns on her and she dashes for the house.

My next stop is Haymitch's house, where Gale, Annie, and Haymitch are all sitting up around the kitchen table.

"You're not staying with her?" Gale asks, automatically assuming Katniss has gone into labor.

"We decided it would be better for our long-term relationship if I didn't have to hear her call me all sorts of names for several hours straight." I say.

Haymitch snorts into his bottle of liquor. "Katniss is a peach."

Annie gives me a reassuring smile. "Just don't think about it too much. You know she'll be fine. She's not the only woman ever to have a baby."

And so it's this way we sit, while Katniss goes through hell, and Gale regales us with a funny story from District Two about a Capitol client of his who came to a meeting with him wearing nothing but a dress made of multicolored feather boas sewn together.

There's a knock on the front door, and Dr. Aurelius rushes into the kitchen. "I've only just arrived... is she in the house?" When I nod, he dashes right back out again.

"I've only just had those walls fixed, and here's that idiot flinging doors open left and right," growls Haymitch, thumping the empty liquor bottle on the table for emphasis.

It seems like it's been several days when Dr. Aurelius walks back into the kitchen. "Congratulations, Peeta! A healthy baby girl, and she weighs eight pounds."

"Can I go now?" I ask him, and he nods. As I step out into the chilly night air (it's only two in the morning), I'm practically bouncing up and down. This marks the start of the next great adventure.

Katniss' POV

I'm transfixed by the beauty of the little baby I hold in my arms. While her eyes are closed, I can see that her hair will be dark brown, just like mine. She sighs contentedly in her sleep, and at this moment the door opens.

"Oh, Katniss, is she really ours? Do we really get to keep her?" Peeta breathes. I can't help laughing because both the expression on his face and his tone of voice resemble that of a toddler begging his parents for a pet.

"We better get to keep her, after what I went through to get her here."

"Was it really bad?" he asks.

"Bad? I used ever single curse word I could think of, and a couple even my mother had never heard before."

He grimaces. "Katniss, I'm so sorry."

"Don't be. What matters is that she's here now." I push myself up on the pillows and hold Rose out to Peeta. "She's your daughter too."

She fits so naturally in his arms, it's unbelievable. I'm looking at big, strong, stocky Peeta holding our delicate little angel of a daughter, and yet it looks so right. He reaches down with one thumb and brushes it across Rose's forehead. "Hi, Rosie. This is Daddy. Mommy and I love you so, so much."

Rose opens her eyes at the sound of Peeta's voice, and his face lights up. He looks at me, awestruck. "Katniss, her eyes are just like mine!"

"Yeah, we're both there," I say. I look at Rose and see her eyes for the first time—clear, deep blue. Just like Peeta.

"She's so amazing," he says, lookimg at me again. "Katniss, have I ever told you how much I love you?"

I grin evilly at him. "Maybe once or twice."

Haymitch comes in to visit later. When he gets a good look at Rose, he smiles. "I just found a new person to call 'sweetheart'. She really is adorable," he says.

"Wow, she broke through to you THAT fast? She's good," I say, while Peeta has assumed a kneeling position on the floor, saying, "I am not worthy, I am not worthy, I am not worthy..."

Haymitch mimes kicking him before saying, "Congratulations, kids," and sidling out of the room.

With Rosie in her crib for her first night and Peeta beside me once again, I feel that same strange happiness I felt before. Babies do have a way of getting through to people.

Who knows? Maybe she'll work on Gale.