Posting this a day early because my Monday will be busy. Thank you everyone for your reviews, they mean A LOT to me. As for why Vittor was smiling? He might just be a little smarter than what anyone would expect him to be.
The games passed agonizingly slow, the bigger events were a blur to the Hawthorn and Everdeen family. When they arrived at the arena none of them knew how to react to it. Last year Rory had been a part of it, so very much alive, but this year the games were a mark of his death. At first they tried to pretend like it was much like any other year, but their walls quickly crumbled and left them far more exposed than they had been before. After that they tried to find solace in each other, in the sorrow of their grief, but found that it somehow became a quick downward spiral where they would be unable to utter a single pleasantry without almost combusting at the weight of triviality.
After a while they tried to find a way to grieve in their own ways, but still hold each other's hand. Gale would hold his mother as she wept, tell stories of Rory to Posy, Posy would play with Vick, and Katniss would listen to Gale as he vented his frustrations. Once the game finished they were abruptly interrupted in their grieving by the startling news that Vittor Myle had won. For the first time in 27 years district 12 had a victor.
"Maybe things are changing for the better?" Katniss mused to Gale the morning Vittor would arrive back in the district. They were lying in bed, legs intertwined, having the day off for celebrations.
"We won't starve as much," he said with a smile.
That summer was the first time many had seen a child be able to eat until he was full, young girls bloomed out in puberty and people smiled more. Though the food was far from enough, it was just enough for everyone to be thankful.
It was strange for the district to have cameras lingering in town, capitolites milling in the better parts of the district. People had a hard time knowing how to behave, but Vittor seemed to understand completely. While he was nice to everyone people still didn't know if they should like him based on how much he seemed to have liked participating in the hunger games, which was something the district seemed to be unified in hating. It was never done openly, but everyone expected to be on even ground when it came to feelings of the hunger games, but Vittor shook that up.
Vittor moved to his house in the victor's village with his younger sister, leaving his parents behind in the apartment over the store. It seemed only natural, since his parents still had their pharmacy to run.
Katniss and Gale spent most of their off days during their summer lying in the grass next to the fence, relishing in the tranquility of the place that was detached from the rest of the district, away from the noises and the crying babies on their street. They would lie in the shadow, it was too warm to lie in the sun, their clothes sticking to their skin and sweat tickling their faces and chest. Neither felt the need to talk, just the need to breathe for a while.
Life had gotten rough, despite being a winning district. The two of them worked all days but Sundays, and neither of them felt like they had any energy left at the end of the day. Both of them longed for the woods, for the scent, for the feeling of branches being crushed under the feet, and coming eye to eye with a wild animal. Out there they were free, but in here they were caged animals with nowhere to go. Some evenings that summer they would go home and make love, but most of the evenings the humid heat was enough to deter them.
In the middle of august the heat got less pressing, and as the monthly supply of food came in a cargo they celebrated Posy's 7th birthday with what in Seam standards were a bang. With home baked bread, that wasn't the usual flat bread, and a chicken soup. Posy was wide-eyed and completely taken with everything, it was the best birthday she had ever had, and the adults all feared that it would be the best birthday she would ever have.
When Posy's birthday had passed, there was one looming ahead in November. It was what would have been Rory's eighteenth birthday, the one that would have marked his last year in the games. This year's birthday would be nothing compared to the next year's, the one that would have been his nineteenth, the one everyone wishes they would get to experience. It meant that they lived to see the end of their stay in a reaping bowl, the end of their risk to be reaped, the start of a life. The birthday next year would be hard for all of them to cope with, harder than any other before it, or after it.
During September Gale was promoted to cart supervisor, an above ground job, as if he didn't have scars on his back to remind him of him edging the line of treason when he uttered his anti-capitol opinions that spring. Gale had learnt a long time ago that when you were given you did not ask, what you did was thank and make yourself worthy of what you were given, and give back. It gave the two of them more money, most of it they gave to their families since they needed it the most. Prim would graduate from school in the spring and take on a job as a caretaker at the local care ward for the merchants that got sick, they had already offered her a job there. She looked like a merchant girl, and she had the knowledge of caretaking as a Seam girl, which made her perfect fit for the job. Even the merchants could not deny that the people from the Seam were far more knowledgeable when it came to caretaking. By that time they would all have it a little easier with money, and eating, something that they had never had at any point in their lives.
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Katniss had never had any fuzzy feelings when it came to animals, unless they were wasted food. Ever since Buttercup became a member of their household she had a hard time understanding what it was with him that made Prim want to keep him. A less charming cat would be hard to find, yet he stayed.
The chills had started to draw in when Katniss made her then weekly visit back home to see Prim and her mother. Their mother daughter relationship was still strained, but somewhere they had found a tolerance for each other that made civil conversation much easier.
On Tuesday evenings she left the laundry at a merchant's house that was only ten minutes away from her mother's, instead of twenty to her own house, so she would stop by there to talk to them. Prim always had something to tell, and her mother would sit by and sometimes give advice on whatever they were talking about. Prim had a crush on a boy, she had found out the last week she was there, he was older and completely unaware of her existence. Typical boy trouble, if she had learnt anything from the talk in the school yard. Katniss had been unable to offer advice, and her mother seemed unwilling to give advice, wanting to keep her daughter innocent a little while longer.
That Tuesday she found Buttercup with his tail stuck under some fallen rocks. How he had managed to get stuck there she had no idea, but it suddenly struck her right in the heart to see him helpless like that, and quickly lifted the small rocks that trapped his tail. At first he hissed at her, expecting foul play, but quieted down as she lifted the rocks. Even she was surprised at her lack of animosity towards the cat, and at how eagerly she helped him. Usually she would only help him because it would've hurt Prim if she didn't, however she was completely aware that this wasn't done from Prim. She did it because it hurt her to see him hurt.
As soon as his tail was released he ran off, without a single glance back at Katniss still holding the last piece of rock.
"Ungrateful brat," Katniss muttered under her breath, all of the sympathy she had for the cat lost. She followed the same path the cat had taken, which led towards the house she had grown up in. Even from a distance she could see Prim holding Buttercup in her arms, stroking him with one finger between his ears. The cat loved that, and would purr contently and never allow you to stop.
"Hey, Katniss," Prim said with a smile as Katniss walked up on the porch.
"Hey Duck." She kissed her little sister on the cheek. "How was school today?" Prim rolled her eyes in response.
"A girl in my class believes that school is some competition, she never lets anyone speak in the classroom but her." Prim giggled. "Even after the teacher told her to keep quiet she kept talking, she's going to talk herself into trouble."
"How is it with the boy then?" This time Prim's whole face flamed up in a blush that she tried to hide by turning her back to Katniss and walking inside.
"Good," was all she said. Katniss closed the door behind her, and watched Prim release Buttercup who quickly ran upstairs.
"Good?" She tried to pry.
"Katniss," she whined. "I don't want to talk about it, okay?" Katniss nodded. "How are you and Gale?"
"Good, Gale likes his new job better than the old one, but the hours are the same if not a little longer… and laundry keeps me busy and properly exhausted," Katniss said. "Prim, can I just use the bathroom and then we'll talk some more?"
That was something she had wanted to talk to her mother about, during the past two weeks she had needed to use the bathroom more often, and she knew that was a sign of a serious infection. She had a UTI when she was younger, but she didn't remember the medicine her mother had given her. Any infection left untreated could have devastating results. When she came back Prim was sitting by the kitchen table with her nose buried in a book.
"Where is mom?" Katniss asked.
"She had to go next door, the youngest boy is wheezing when he breathes so they wanted her to look at it, but she's probably back soon," Prim said. When it came to sick children no one wanted to say it, but a single infection could wipe them out quickly, and be deadly. Instead they would treat it as a simple cough or a wheeze until there was no possible way of denying it anymore.
While she waited for her mom she sat down next to Prim and tried to help her with her homework, but Prim was already far smarter than Katniss, and if anything Katniss slowed her down, but Prim didn't mind. Ever since Katniss got married they hadn't been able to see each other as much, and any time together was enough to make her happy, even if she would have to stay up late to finish her homework.
About half an hour later their mother came home, and started with the dinner. Katniss watched her carefully, trying to gauge her mood to see how it had gone with the little boy, but her mother's face remained neutral.
"Mom, I wanted to ask you about what you gave me to treat my urinary tract infection a few years ago," she said, and her mother turned around with a thoughtful expression on her face.
"What makes you think you have one?" Her mother kept stirring the pot behind her as she watched her daughter.
"I need to go to the bathroom a lot," Katniss said.
"Does it hurt when you go, or does the urine look cloudy?" Katniss shook her head. "Does it smell?" Katniss shook her head. "It doesn't sound like one, Katniss, but sometimes you can have one without all of the symptoms, I'll give you the recipe for what you need." Her mother went upstairs for a while and then came down with a slip of paper that she handed Katniss. "Boil this and then drink it as often as you can, it will flush it out."
"Thank you." She stuffed the piece of paper into the pocket of her pants, and watched her mother return to the pot. Her mother seemed different this time, as if she was hiding something. Katniss was unsure if she wanted to ask her what was wrong, but she was afraid of the answer. Instead she returned to her sister's side and watched her plow through the questions without any hesitation.
The silence in the house was a bit too much for Katniss, so shortly after dinner she excused herself to go back home to her husband, when she quickly fell into a deep slumber next to her husband.
She drank the liquid her mother had given her a recipe for in great quantities over the next two weeks, but there was no change. She kept having to run to the bathroom at random times, and the liquid just gave her heartburn, so when she came back to her mother two weeks afterwards she had to tell her it didn't work.
"Are you drinking enough of it?" her mother asked, eyeing the liquid that was left at the bottom of the bottle Katniss carried with her.
"Yes, and there's no change, only that it gives me heartburn," Katniss admitted.
"There is nothing in there that would give you heartburn, if anything it should ease it." Her mother frowned at her daughter. "Are you feeling okay, otherwise, are you feeling tired?"
"I work over sixty hours a week, so yes I'm tired." Katniss felt impatient, and turned her gaze to look at her sister who was supposed to do her homework, but instead she was looking at her.
"Katniss, I don't think you have a urinary tract infection," her mother said, her voice trembling slightly as she tried to pace herself.
"Then what else could it be?"
"Katniss, I think you're pregnant." The words fell flat in the house, Katniss was frozen in shock over the unexpected words that had fallen from her mother's lips. Gale and her had been taking precautions, they had only slipped up once at the end up June, but she had gotten her period after that. She'd gotten her period several times, her last period was only… she got stuck there, knowing that her period was supposed to have been there about two and a half weeks ago.
"But we've…" She tried to find the words. They had been careful. "I've got to go," she said, quickly redressing herself, and she was out of the door in seconds.
Pregnant, surely there was something they could do to stop it, she wouldn't have to go through with it. After all these years there was bound to be something to prevent it from going any further than this stage, to prevent it from becoming something more. The tears got stuck in her throat, the pain filled out her chest and made it hard for her to breathe.
I can't do this, she thought, thinking of this child in her belly. All the things that she would wish to provide it with, but none of it was anything she had. She couldn't give it freedom, she would only give it this caged life facing death each year at every turn. It could be a daughter, one that would risk pregnancy just like her, with all the complications along with it, or it could be a son that would slave down in the mines, threatened by the explosions that could strike at any time. No life, no path, nothing of it was something she wanted to give a child of hers.
Suddenly she was standing in front of the door to her home, tears threatening to spill from her eyes and no idea how she got there that quickly. When she stepped inside she saw Gale sitting by the fire brushing his shoes, looking up at her surprised.
"Why are you home so early?" He looked her over, saw the panic on her face, the tears in her eyes. He could only assume the worst. When the door was shut behind her she whispered to him;
"I'm pregnant." The dams broke, and the tears streamed down her face with no sign of the end of them. "I don't know how, but I'm pregnant."
Always running to the bathroom, the heartburn, the ability to smell what the neighbors were cooking and the nausea at the smell of it, the sudden sympathy for the cat she hated, and these tears. All of it was because she was pregnant. She hadn't realized that she had missed her period, she had been working so hard and the exhaustion at the end of the day made it impossible for her to even remember the fact that she was supposed to have it then.
"Catnip," he whispered and drew her into a tight hug. "It'll be alright, maybe this is even a sign?"
"What?" Katniss said through her tears.
"Rory's birthday is tomorrow, maybe this is a sign?" His hand reached to touch her stomach but she jerked away from him.
"No Gale, we have to fix this okay? We have to fix this together!" she pleaded "Please Gale, I don't want to be pregnant."
"Catnip…" His eyes pleaded her. "This might not be such a bad-"
"No Gale! We agreed, we agreed that we didn't want children, we agreed on that!" she yelled.
"I agreed on trying to prevent it!" he yelled back. The two of them stared at each other, trying to understand this misunderstanding. She had thought that no matter what they would prevent a child of theirs to be born, no matter what, but he thought that what he agreed to was to prevent it, not to stop what had already happened.
"No Gale, please." She took his hand. "I can't do this." She put her hands on her stomach.
"I don't know if we can stop it," he said, calmly.
"We've got to try," she said.
"It's illegal, Katniss, they'll kill us," he said. Katniss shook her head.
"What we've done was illegal too, nothing happened," she said.
"Yet, nothing has happened yet, we've only been married for 17 months, they might be coming next month asking, and it's easier to prove that you've gotten rid of a pregnancy!" He had started pacing in his rant. "I know Katniss, I know exactly why you don't want to be pregnant, and I don't want you to be either, but you are, we can't change that, we don't know who they will go after more than us," he said, trying to talk sense into her.
"I'm scared." He drew her into a hug again, holding her close and trying to comfort her the best he could.
Woops, well... Better fed + unreliable birth control method = baby. So really, don't do pull-out!
Anyway, scary times ahead for Katniss... motherhood is not something she expected for herself.