I find things with a touch of familiarity, but different. My lounge chair has found a spot by the fire place, placed right across Peeta's. My wall clock is hanging in the kitchen beside the window. We use my dish set during dinners. One of the guest rooms he renovated and arranged to be my office where I can write my lesson plans and mark tests in peace. He doesn't like that I scatter my books and disorganized papers all over his coffee table in the living room, and he does not understand how I manage to do my work while watching TV, surrounded by constant noise. So now my nice little office is situated beside his art room. Pebbles has her toys strewn in the hallway, and we didn't mind for a long time. Not until a mid-sized bouncy ball sent me gliding gracelessly in the dark and I brushed too close to what would have been my next major injury after the gun shot. Peeta prepares and packs me lunch every morning because he is awake even earlier than I am everyday. It is usually after he ensures he has all items and ingredients for the day's production and compacts them into a bag before he sets off to the bakery.
What's different is the renewed sense of euphoria of randomly waking up next to him in the unholy hours of dawn, in a tangled mess of limbs and legs, giving me a fleeting sense of joy that does not really go away. And sometimes he rattles me from slumber, after his alarm goes off at five forty-five and he drags me close to him like I weigh nothing, and peppers me with the lightest kisses wherever he could plant it on my face before he groans his way off the bed.
Beads of sweat are starting to frame my forehead as I glare down at the piece of plastic I'm wringing in my hand, as if waiting for it to come alive. I start to shake it, flip it, and shake it again in hopes that the device would indicate something else to me, just in case it changes its mind, but the small, greenish screen does not change. There is still one tiny red line telling me that I am not pregnant.
I curse inwardly at my disappointment, glancing one more time and wincing at the wretched line, waiting for another one to appear. I have stopped taking birth control pills almost over a year ago. I know how to maintain myself; I eat well, and I'm physically fit. A slow thought creeps in and I wonder if there is anything wrong with me. My hand rests on the rim of the sink as I conduct another round of staring contest with the pregnancy test, sighing out loud as I close my eyes, and I could almost hear the silence hissing at me.
And somewhere in between the deafly stillness and my running thoughts and confusion about babies and the reproductive system, Peeta starts rapping at the door with slight urgency.
I jolt back and gasp, the plastic slipping through my fingers as I scurry to grab it before it drops on bathroom floor. My heart has almost jumped out of my throat as he reminds me that the football game is starting in an hour and that his attendance in the team meeting and preparation is mandatory. It seems he has his lips pressed against the thin gap of the door to ensure I can hear him clearly. I tell him I am almost finished getting ready and snap a good length of toilet paper, and wrap it around the pregnancy test tediously before I throw it in the garbage can. I quickly glance at myself in the mirror before I open the door and join him in the hallway.
I sit on the highest platform of one of the bleachers donned in my thick jacket and scarf as I watch our local players clash with the big men from District Three. It is too early in winter to be this cold. I watch my breath leave my mouth and quiver because of the cruel chill in the air and because I haven't figured out a way to tell Peeta about my current, nagging concern.
Snow is continually falling and there is a thin layer of it accumulated on the grass as the game progresses. I don't keep track of the score because I'm too absorbed in all of Peeta's movements on the field, and I jump off my seat everytime he is struck down by an opponent. I wince through the snow and feel sick from worry when the back of his head lands on the ground, followed by a couple of bodies toppling over him. He is lacking in height compared to the rest of his team, but he doesn't fail to surprise and impress everyone by his admirable grit and strength.
Peeta is in high spirits after our district wins the game an hour later, jumping off and pumping his fists, congratulating his team mates. I leave my seat and climb down the bleachers, positioning myself by the fence that borders the field, trying to get his attention. He sees me and almost hops towards me, curling his fingers around the fence as we peek through at each other.
"Peeta, can't you please play a little bit careful next time?" I ask him with a straight face as my breath fogs the space between us. His face is unreadable at first but then he suddenly bursts out in laughter, big, hearty laughs, his fingers still clutching the wire as he stands behind it. He leans over and gestures for me to inch closer to the fence, and through the wire he chooses an opening and he tilts his head and moves his lips behind it, asking to meet mine. All the noise from the field and the audience drown out as we kiss.
We have the rest of Saturday to stroll around in the town square.
A mind-numbing, even colder gust of wind pushes us to go to inside the indoor market place, and we're surprised at the huge number of people floating from booth to booth, shopping. Peeta and I dive right in the middle, as he picks a utility store and I am further enamoured by a huge shop for infants, the only one existing in this district.
I smile at the tiny milk bottles and ornamental baby carriages, the bright colours of baby bonnets and embroidered blankets. The diapers packaged in bulks are currently on sale, and so are the containers of baby powder. My heart melts at the smallest pyjama set I have ever seen, and I pick it up and coo over the small pink dog prints all over the fabric. Peeta suddenly brushes against my back, beaming at a snow shovel in his hand as he presents it to me.
"This thing here is half its retail price right now," he pauses as he marvels at all the glimmer and shine on the shovel. "We need a new one. It might be a bad winter this year."
I acknowledge his success in finding a good deal and show him the pink pyjama in my hand, grinning at him as his eyes soften.
"Isn't this the cutest thing?" I ask him, holding it up close to him so he could see the puppy patterns. He doesn't respond but he shoots me a quick glance, then the corner of his lips tug into a smile. He turns to look down at the rest of the selection of the infant nightwear, picking up a blue one imprinted with a dog with fluffy, white fur and black, beady eyes.
"Hey this one looks like Pebbles!" he exclaims. We giggle over it a little bit more and tear away from them, placing the garments back on the table as the smiles disappear from our faces. We carry on and canvass through the rest of the stalls, Peeta further purchasing two new pillows, and I march out empty handed as we leave the market.
My fists curl and uncurl as I fidget in my chair, feeling nauseous and boxed in from all the white in this doctor's office. White walls, white chair, white desk, white lights, white computer. I let out another exasperated breath as I wait for my doctor to come back from the adjoining room. Which is another continuation to all the white that is starting to blind me. There is something about hospitals that make me uneasy.
He finally reappears, holding a thick folder jammed with papers. He sits down across from me, a flicker of recognition in his eyes as he scans me up and down. He opens the folder and skips through some pages as his other hand adjusts the glasses on his nose with a pointed finger.
"Miss Everdeen, the war icon of the second dark age," he tells me, not the greeting nor the kind of warm welcome I was expecting to hear. "I watched you assassinate Coin."
I don't know why he is smiling at me, but I feel the sudden need to leave and ditch my appointment. I stir in my chair as I look at him agape, not sure how to respond. My fingers come up and fiddle with the handle of my bag, as my eyes shoot down to the tiled floor. He notices my troubled expression as he waves his hand in mid air, apologizing, but I don't think he knows what he's really sorry about.
"Pardon me, it's just that...I was a volunteer doctor during the war. I was stationed at the Capitol, tending to the injured," he takes in a quick breath when he notices I don't plan to respond. "Anyway, you have quite a medical history," the doctor pauses as he reviews a glossy document.
"You came in diagnosed with depression, and Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. You also suffered from... death wish..." he trails, and is more or less talking to himself as his eyebrows furrow at the print.
I shake my head. "I submitted myself for treatment when I was twenty. They were the roughest times, and it took around six or seven years for me to battle my depression and trauma." It hits me how dark and twisted the troubles were that I went through. And how successful I prevailed over it, even though it took an extensive amount of time. He nods at me, flipping more pages. He responds positively and closes my document of medical history and places it down on the desk.
"You've come a long way. What are your concerns now Miss Everdeen?"
"I'm uncertain about my...capability of bearing children."
"You're not over thirty-five years of age so I will not be referring you to a fertility specialist," he says firmly. "How do you know the issue here is yourself and not your partner?" the doctor asks. My eyes turn downcast and tell him I haven't even told Peeta. The doctor perks at the mention of Peeta's name, but he doesn't veer the subject away. He whips out a pen and starts to write on a piece of paper.
"Does he want children?" he asks me, and I almost jump as I answer yes. He continues, "Do you want children because he does?"
I make sure I look at him straight in the eye, and I remind myself to keep my voice from shaking. "I have reached the personal decision that I want children too, because I know I'm ready, after all these years. I want to be able to provide...and to nurture, and with Peeta by my side, he'd make a great father."
I realize I've said a mouthful, surprised at the enthusiasm of my own revelation.
"Come in next week for a test. I may have to prescribe you clomiphene citrate. As you may already know, this district now thrives on medicinal discoveries and manufacturing. You need not worry, Miss Everdeen." He hands me the paper with the appointed time and the name of the doctor I am supposed to see.
Peeta emerges from the kitchen where he was preparing rows and rows of dough for tomorrow's bakery production. He takes off his apron and wears his sweater, then fixes the belt on his pants. He is looking at me from across the room while I sit in front of the television, exhausted after work, writing lesson plans, and all the hunting I did in between.
"What do you want to do for dinner?" he asks me as he gives me a tired smile. I reach for the remote control and flip the channel.
"I'm not hungry. I mean, I was, about an hour ago when I told you about it, then my stomach started hurting from hunger so I ate some oatmeal," I display a quick interest on a random show and drop the remote control. "And now I don't really care."
"So...we're just...not going to eat anything for the rest of the night?" He is approaching me with a displeased look on his face.
"My appetite is gone," I tell him blankly. I feel really irritated at him right now. I've been starving for a couple of hours and I made a point about it over the phone when he called me earlier, but it seems he just dismissed it because I couldn't tear him away from kneading flour.
"Ok, Katniss, if something is extremely bothering you, you should communicate it to me."
"I did! I mentioned it over the phone."
"I've been pre-occupied the whole afternoon!" his arm gestures toward the archway of the kitchen. "You could have been firm about it and I could have done something to help," his anger grows right before my eyes. It's rather a rarity, but I feel like being stubborn, so I don't fold.
He stands in front of me, breathing heavily while he waits for me to continue the conversation, and turns on his heels towards the front door when he notices that I'm not going to bother. It has not been a good week between us. We are quick to get annoyed with each other and tempers have been flaring easily. I hope it's because we're currently undergoing the adjustment period of living in together. We have been discovering little habits about each other we never would have uncovered if we were not in each other's face all the time.
"And I don't understand how we have a full refrigerator and no food on the table." He grabs his jacket, swings the door open and slams it close. And he's gone.
I've seen this before. And I know what he is going to do. He is going for a long walk. He tends to walk his anger off when we fight, through snow storm or rain storm, and he will walk the whole district if he needs to. I shift on the couch and exhale, looking at the television screen but not really watching anything. I can't sit still, and I am suddenly disturbed by the silence in our house, by the lack of music from the radio whenever Peeta is working on his art or making dough.
Night falls. I open the front door to see the back of Peeta's jacket as he sits down on the porch, head hung low, arms crossed over his knees. I don't know how long he has been there. I tread slowly, and pause before I am mere inches away from him. I kneel down behind him and reach out to wrap him in my arms, resting my chin on his shoulder as his head lifts up and leans on mine.
"Hey," he says, and his hand comes up from between his knees and pushes toward me a small bouquet of small white and yellow wild flowers, the ones that survive through winter. "I picked these for you," he says solemnly. His hand disappears again and picks up a box placed by his feet. He carefully hands it to me as well.
"I got us some roasted chicken too. Greasy Sae made it," he tells me, and I smile to myself because Peeta would never entertain going to the Hob if he can help it. I guess it was one of his stopovers during his walk. I secure the flowers and the box in my arms and move around to sit down beside him on the porch.
"I made your favourite salad. I made it better this time, I added pine nuts," I say timidly, and finalize to hell with this argument because it's not worth it. "Sorry I was being difficult. It's tough to come to a resolution with that kind of attitude," I offer him my apology as I brush my arm against his.
"Sorry I got upset. I tend to be short-fused when I'm hungry," he says. I nod because I already knew this about him. "Come here," he whispers as he shifts and drapes an arm over my shoulder, dropping his head down to mine and covers my mouth with his, the elevation I feel at the thrill and the touch of his lips dismissing the negative remnants of our fight.
We sit down for a late dinner as the fireplace crackles with flame, grinning at each other from across the table and talking about bills and splitting costs, how much snow has fallen that day, Greasy Sae's tasty roasted chicken and how it was the only dish he found appealing in the Hob that night, and then nothing at all.
I find him in the art room hunched over a big canvass later that night, painting snow-covered trees and a slim river running through it. My feet feel heavy, but it's due time that I should let him know. I should stop treating this issue as if it is a forgotten grocery item, or a broken shoe that can be repaired any time. I swallow a lump in my throat and put a hand on his shoulder before I lean back on the drawer beside the canvass in front of him.
"Peeta, I, uhh..." I start, the lightness of his aura is making me more nervous. He puts his paintbrush down on the ledge, giving me full attention. "I'm ready to have children. I want our little hunters and bakers..." I trail and can not continue because I am distracted by the widening smile on his face as he suddenly stands upright and his hands magnetize to my hips.
"Katniss!," he prematurely celebrates and I have to put a palm to his chest so I can finish the rest of the things I need to extend to him. I close my eyes.
"But something is wrong. I have been off my birth control pills since you left for prison last year," I'm afraid to lift my eyelids to see his reaction, but I do. He is looking at me intently, his blue eyes darting at mine, from one eye to the other, the smile diminishing from his lips and his eyebrows slowly creasing as he mentally reaches a full realization. His mouth opens in an attempt to respond but he doesn't.
My head threatens to drop as he maintains his grip on my hips, immobile at the news, flashes of trouble on his face. His breathing has become shallow and his lips have forgotten to move. I choke. "I've been seeing the doctor for a while. I have another appointment tomorrow."
I watch Peeta as he buttons down the blue dress shirt that I bought for him in front of the mirror. He picks up a comb and brushes his hair back, applying a small amount of gel. He puts on some old pair of jeans and chooses a pair of wool socks, and then sits beside me on the edge of the bed as I hold my compact mirror and carefully paint my favourite red lipstick on my lips. He smiles at me as he flips my wavy hair until they all land behind my shoulder.
We bundle up before we head out the door. It is our district's winter festival of lights, held near the end of the season. It is a fun outdoor festival in the town square, when all the booths are shut down and the main stage is allocated to a number of live bands. There are canopies over tables and chairs where people can lounge on and have hot chocolate or tea, strategically placed all around the square. In the middle of it all boasts a wide wooden platform for dancing, but it is not covered by a canopy, rather by long, interlaced strings of light in blue, yellow and orange. The mayor made sure there are more lights this year than last year, dangling just about anywhere.
The square is already busy and humming with laughter and chatter as we enter. Light, soft snow has started falling, playing and swirling in slight wind before it touches the ground. It is a perfect winter night with just a touch of coolness that does not send chills but enough to tickle the cheeks. All the spaces seem to be filling in faster than I expected and I begin to pull Peeta to the next empty table that I spot. But he stands firm and points at a table near the dance floor, a bit of shock on his face as he confirms with me that Gale is looking right at us. Peeta starts waving at him and starts to drag me across the square. We join them, and go through the motions of formal introduction.
"You're Katniss?" Gale's girlfriend is demure and not very generous with words, exuding the classic type of beauty and an air of grace. She sits, closed off, and flashes quick smiles across the table as she holds Westin in her lap, stroking his hair. I nod at her and offer a smile. She continues, "I've heard alot about you." And that is pretty much the only conversation she tries to engage me with.
Gale is seated beside her, holding up their second son on his legs as he tries to balance him. His name is Cliff, a bouncing little baby with dimples on both cheeks, showing an obvious fascination towards Peeta. Gale tells both of us that he is visiting his family in the district for the holidays. The second band has now set up on the stage, and smooth, classical music comprised of violin, drums and bass fill the winter air.
Peeta offers a hand to Cliff as a playful introduction and the baby wraps his tiny, chubby fingers around his, giggling out of control. Peeta is beyond delighted as the baby starts to reach out for him, and whimpers when he realizes he couldn't. Gale gathers him up and stands, approaching Peeta and handing Cliff to him gingerly, securing an extra blanket over his jacket. Peeta chuckles and lightly bounces the baby in his arms, asking him what his name is, along with other things that did not make much sense. The baby responds in babbles and blowing bubbles with his mouth.
"Once you have a kid, that's it, my man. Everything changes; your whole life. So while you have time, everything you want to do, do it now," Gale suggests and finishes his mug of hot cocoa, smiling at Peeta. But I don't think Peeta is paying him complete attention because he is charmed by the sounds the baby is making and how the little thing is now trying to shove Peeta's finger into his toothless tiny mouth.
I am enthralled by the mere interaction between Peeta and the baby that I don't hear Gale from across the table asking me for a dance. I slightly nod at Gale's girlfriend and shoot Gale a quick smile before I concede. Gale leads me to the platform, joined by other couples taking up the dance floor. He holds my hand with one of his, and places his other on my waist, but he maintains his distance. I sneak a glimpse of Peeta on the table still playing with the baby before Gale sways me around. He begins to snicker.
"It sure looks like Peeta is ready to launch into fatherhood," he tells me. I make a face at him.
"Cliff really seems to like him," I say, glancing again at Peeta over my shoulder as Gale and I make circular dance patterns.
"Any plan on having your own? With him?" he asks as he looks down at me, the brightness from small lights above us making my eyes flinch.
This time I almost hurt my neck as I take another peek at Peeta who is now watching me from his seat as Cliff sits comfortably in his lap, snuggled in close to his chest, his small hand clutching his jacket. I catch Peeta's smile thrown at me as Gale pushes me around again.
"We're on our way there...working on it," I answer, choosing not to fill in all the details. Gale and I catch up on each other's lives as he tells me he might be moving even further away to Capitol with his family, much to his mother's dissatisfaction. He also tells me his is proposing to his girlfriend soon, and he plans to have the wedding here in Twelve. We finish another song but I sense he's not planning to leave the dance floor any time soon.
I hear someone clear their throat as Gale looks at the person behind me. I turn my head as far back as I could and see Peeta waiting diligently, his hands locked behind his back, and balancing his weight back and forth on the balls of his feet. I can't help but giggle as he finally asks, "Can I have this dance?", a shy smile playing upon his lips. Gale detaches his hand from my hip and twirls me around towards Peeta, thanking me for my time.
"She's all yours," Gale tells him and good-heartedly slaps his back, nods at me and leaves the platform.
Peeta takes a deep breath as he takes a step forward and envelopes me in his arms, careful not to step on my feet this time, and begins to sway me.
I know the snow has not stopped since we arrived at the festival, but when I look up to lock eyes him, my senses react as if they were falling all around for the first time, little snowflakes landing softly on Peeta's hair and eyelashes. The strings of light glow overhead, piercing through the transparent puffs of snow as they float and spin, sprinkling us like magic dusts. And I rotate with them, snowflakes weightless in the delicate December wind, as weightless as I feel when I am in Peeta's arms, as familiar as touch of home.
"I know," he mumbles, almost inaudibly, as he presses his lips on my forehead.