Chapter 3: All Along

Heavy In Your Arms - Florence & The Machine

I was a heavy heart to carry
But he never let me down
When he held me in his arms
My feet never touched the ground

After our initial embracing finished, Peeta wouldn't leave me without some sort of contact- holding my hand as he discussed finances with Powell, animatedly talking with me while decorating cupcakes, eyes flickering back and forth between my face and the oven from which he was now unsteadily removing hot rolls. I seemed to be distracting him, as he had worked on parts of three different projects but never finished anything all the way through. I made the suggestion that I leave, but he adamantly refused.

Instead, he led me up off of the sacks of flour to his first project- a pile of raw dough. He stood behind me, showing me how to properly flour-coat my hands, guiding my wrists in kneading techniques, delivering feather-light kisses to my neck while I helped him. By the end of the afternoon we had a dozen cinnamon loaves cooling. They looked a bit more lopsided than Peeta's usual. My face was decorated with flour, placed there both by my own recklessness in baking and by Peeta's flirting. We walked home that night, his arm around my shoulders protectively, shielding me from the night with his warmth.

That night he poured his heart out to me in a beautiful myriad of forms.

Since that day, Peeta's eyes seem to constantly dance. Sometimes he grabs my hand and makes me dance along with them, leaving me breathless and him laughing with delight. Peeta has always been romantic; never have I felt neglected. However, recently his displays of affection have been rekindled with a new spark. Come morning I wake up to adoration and fondness; when night falls I return to bed with a different version of the same.

It's in the last two and a half month of this that I've realized how little I am aware of the practicals of being pregnant. In my mind, I would just know when it happened- there wouldn't need to be any sort of discovery or analysis. Surely, I thought, it would make itself clearly known in one way or another.

Because Mother and Prim were the healers I learned little about how bodies work. Externals- tourniquets, burns, hunger pains, and migraines- I can skillfully deal with. However, when it comes to deciphering internal changes and picking up on subtle cues my body delivers, I am useless. Even more than that, never once did I think it useful or important to learn about pregnancy.

When I sleep in long past sunrise and find myself yawning at dinner I blame it on boredom. When what little remains in my stomach is forcefully and repeatedly upheaved I blame it on bad rabbit meat. When I find myself repulsed by onions I blame it on eating them too frequently. When the waist of my pants grows just a fraction tighter I blame it on aging.

Part of me is curious and suspicious that the series of abnormalities going on within me isn't coincidence, but I don't tell Peeta, just in case it isn't real.

He suspects though. I see it in the way he looks at me, how he traces patterns on my stomach with his nose, when he often brings home cookies and the best bread loaves. In my mind, it points to the likely possibility that he's just waiting for me to confirm. I try to hide the things that could look like pregnancy- napping while Peeta is at the bakery, eating around onions, excusing myself calmly when I need to throw up, just so he doesn't see, wearing baggier shirts just in case he'd notice.

Maybe I do know. Mostly I am confused and stalling.

I could call my mother to get clarity, but I don't want her to ask questions on how I agreed. Besides the desire Peeta has for them and the desire I have for Peeta's highest good, I am not convinced this is the best idea. I remain afraid of the world at large, knowing many of the horrors I faced as a child are now different. However, it doesn't dismiss the possibility of those same problems rising in a new way. I don't talk about these thoughts with anyone. Talking would just increase them, not diminish their significance in my thoughts.

There are tests to take, various ways to know if and when I am pregnant. However, I can't think of a way to get ahold of one of the manufactured tests without people being alerted to Peeta and my circumstance, further alerting the media who would be at the doorstep within hours. I don't want them having any part of this process, friends and neighbors or not. Even the smallest bit of public disclosure means possibility of cameras.

Perhaps these are excuses. A very real part of me simply does not want to acknowledge that this could be real. Right now, a baby is still just a possibility and not yet a reality. The moment it is solidified and certain, I have to be brave. I have to trust. I have to share. While the baby would be Peeta's and mine, others would know about it. Others would see it and influence it. That is something I can't fully control.

It's easier to remain uncertain, so I do.

Although, it can only last for so long.

On a warm day in May I know for sure.

A light breeze spreads through Victor's Village, wafting the smell of the fully blooming primrose bushes into our house. I sit on a loveseat with Peeta in an airy dress Annie sent me, my legs tucked up beneath me, his arm around me. On his lap is my family's plant book. We look over what we'd accomplished so long ago. I study the scribbles of my tortured slanted handwriting, admiring Peeta's drawings, still put together and detailed in the midst of all that was happening. As Peeta flips the pages, my eyelids grow heavy. Each blink elongates itself; the time before my eyes fluttering open lasting longer and longer despite it being mid-afternoon and the sun resting high in the sky. The whoosh and click of a turning page reveals rosemary. In response, my head, which has been swinging back and forth, finds its home on Peeta's shoulder as my eyes anchor shut.

I hear something muffled, but can't make out the exact words. Groggy, I take in the surroundings. The sun is process of setting, darkening everything. A chill runs through me- it's so cold. I snuggle into Peeta closer, but Peeta sits up rather than relaxing into me.

"Katniss, you're burning up." Peeta's cool hand covers my forehead which brings relief I didn't know I needed. "Do you feel okay?"

Slowly I raise my head off of Peeta's shoulder and sit up. It hits me then that. In the last few hours of napping, it seems that my body has fully betrayed me. A small ache grows in my lower back. Drummers hit the back of my head with wooden mallets. I shiver. I don't want to move ever again.

Peeta sees it in my expression and carefully shifts me to the side, getting up to help me off the couch. "Come on. You need to rest."

I try to stand but my knees are wobbly and I feel weak. I look down and back up before shuffling forward, wanting to push back the sickness and fight through. Efforts are futile. I wince in pain as something twists in my abdomen.

At once I am scooped up off my feet into his arms. Peeta carries me up the stairs quickly yet gently, trying his best not to jostle me. The twisting stops, but the fever presses on.

Peeta tucks me under the covers as I continue to shiver. It reminds us both of the cave in the arena so long ago, although then we both knew exactly what caused the fever that wracked him. "Hold on," he croons, "I'll be right back."

When he comes back up the stairs, in hand is a damp cloth of cool water. He presses it to my head tenderly. I am amazed at the contradiction of my body- my limbs feel so cold but the cool water on my blazing forehead feels excellent.

Momentarily it all makes sense. I'm just sick. No baby. It would seem that the last week was just leading up to this fever: why I've been so tired, throwing up, not wanting food… it was this. Part of me is relieved, yet another surprised. That surprise is accompanied by disappointment, which sends another shiver through me. As unsure as I was about why normal bodily routines seemed so out of line, part of me suspected and anticipated it was a very different reason than the flu.

Deep down, I thought I had been pregnant.

The next hour progresses in a similar fashion. Peeta cares for me, remarkably calm throughout all of it. I try to tell him to go downstairs to save him the trouble of seeing me like this. He meets my suggestion without any regard, calmly pushing the hair back from my forehead and placing his lips to my skin, speaking words into my very existence: "to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; as long as we both shall live". My mind conjures the memories of us standing before each other hand in hand in front of our fireplace. On our toasting, Peeta had insisted on reciting this for only one another to hear, loving the tenderness and the authenticity in each phrase. It didn't paint marriage, love, life to be easy, a fact both of us knew far too well.

With the reminder, I fall silent and let him continue without another word.

When I need, he refreshes the cool cloth on my forehead, rubs my arm to warm me up, tells me stories of his childhood to distract my mind from focusing on what is wrong with me. When the twisting in my abdomen returns, he offers his hand for me to squeeze. The pain comes in sharp waves, slowly returning back to a dull ache before rearing its ugly head again.

Eventually Peeta brings me soup. He props me up with one arm and feeds me a few spoonfulls, cueing another bout of pain in my stomach. It passes, and Peeta offers another spoon. I shake my head. "I can't… I've been throwing up a lot this week. I didn't tell you, but I think… I think this is why."

Peeta takes in this information. He seems calm and calculating what it means, but I can tell there is a new suspicion and panic in his eyes. He begins moving around more erratically, leg bouncing and thumbs twiddling.

"You need tonic." We both know him leaving isn't an ideal option, though. "Maybe I can send Haymitch out to get some."

Peeta calls only to find Haymitch is drunk. He suggests giving me a different kind of tonic. Peeta swears under his breath before slamming the phone down.

Looking at me with regretful eyes, he proposes a new plan. "I'm going to have to go get it."

I don't want him to leave, but I nod bravely. "I know."

"Will you be okay?"

I shrug. In reality I struggle not to tell him I need his cool hands and the damp cloth, that I need him to be there when the pain starts again, but I say nothing of the sort.

"Hurry home," I manage, knowing the sooner he leaves the sooner he'll be back, and the sooner all of this will pass.

Alone, I lay there and think about what it means that I'm probably not pregnant.

There's less worry to deal with and less threat, but part of my mind nags at me that the emptiness inside me is regret. I pass it off as not wanting to tell Peeta that conceiving isn't going as we had planned, fearing the disappointment in his eyes. Still, my own thoughts seem uncertain.

After a time, I think I may have to throw up the soup. Carefully, I drag myself out of bed to the bathroom. Holding my head over the porcelain bowl, I wait for the gagging to happen, wishing it would just be done. However, nothing changes. Momentarily my shaking stills, and as soon as I think maybe the worst has passed, out of nowhere the abdomen pain starts again. This time it's worse than it has ever been. I fall from my knees to a fetal position on the floor, curling into a ball, trying to wait it out.

It wont go away. A few tears fall down my face and I cry out. Why does it hurt with such intensity this time?

Then there is blood. So much blood. When I feel it, my heart stops momentarily. When I see it, I am immobilized.

Part of it triggers something in my memory. I'm taken back to hunting so many years ago and remember Gale telling me about this same scene. He said it happened to Hazelle, before she had Rory. Miscarriage, he'd called it. The definition of that word drags itself through my head, pacing back and forth.

"No," my head screams. "No, it can't be." What hope was left in me drains out of me. All along, it had been there, living in me. I never even acknowledged it was alive.

It's too late, though. All I can do is stare at the wall in front of me, still lying there shell-shocked, ears ringing.

Eventually I hear doors fling open and a quick thunking as his feet hit the floor, the boom of his prosthetic leg making the rhythm a disjointed and irregular cadence. I hear Peeta yelling my name. Breathless. Frantic. Scared. Knowing. "I called your mother," he explains, still not in the room. He's shouting as he comes up the stairs. "I had to. Something didn't seem right. I told her that we're trying to have a baby, and she thinks that you're having a…"

His voice trails off as he rounds the corner and sees me lying in the answer my mother probably gave him.

The moment confirmation and recognition of what had been dawns on Peeta, what now is strikes him hard. He is as motionless as I am. My eyes divert from his face to stare at my hands, pressed to the floor in front of my face. I focus on studying the creases in my fist, feeling the cool tile pressed to my cheek. I can't look at him, but I hear his sharp intake of breath, I hear the small catching noises coming from the back of his throat as he tries to hold himself together. He'll be strong for me, but I don't want him to. All along this was supposed to be for him.

The displays of his hope, his anticipation for our future, his delight in my bravery flash through my head, quickly replaced by the depressed look in his eyes, the falling of his features, the tensing of his muscles. My mind wonders how long those emotions will remain displayed across his countenance. I don't have to be looking at him to know it hasn't faded. And why? What has caused this agony? Me. His dreams have been once again desolated, by my own doing.

I want to scream at him to get out, to run from me, to save himself from the wake of destruction behind and before me.

I can't find the energy. I can't do anything.

For the second time that day, Peeta crouches down next to me and picks me up, carrying me away from the scene. He takes me away from the bathroom, away from the bedroom, around the corner into the parts of the house left mostly untouched. He carries me into the room set up for guests we never have, what could have been the room for the baby I'll never know. I expect him to set me down and tuck me in to let me rest. Rather, he sits both of us down in the middle of the floor, clutching me to him in a vice grip. The numbness wears off and I begin to tremble, though my limbs feel limp. He shakes too.

After a while, he starts whispering assurances.

"For better or for worse."

"Normal."

"Will be alright."

"Not your fault."

"Next time."

But I know deep down that there will not be a next time. I will not allow it.

All along, I was wrong. Unlike my fears, it was not the world that posed the biggest threat to Peeta's child. Bombs, governments, and starvation had nothing to do with the devastation that awaited such innocence. In reality, the most imminent danger was me.

Ending Notes:

This chapter is short and choppy. I did it purposefully, as I doubt eloquent statements and descriptions would be going through her head. It was so difficult to write. I wanted to finish it last night… but I couldn't and didn't. So many times I went back and forth on how best to word what I wanted to say. It still isn't what I want, because its so difficult to express this sort of thing. I tried to do it tactfully yet thoroughly. Please let me know if either one of those aspects wasn't grasped. I am willing to make adjustments.

I apologize to those of you who thought this was a primarily feel-good story. It's not. Although I do promise that in the end, there will be settling and peace and happiness. Stay tuned.