A/N: edited 08/01/15

This is a short chapter but the previous two were 10k and 7k words respectively so no one can complain :) It's also a culmination of everything that's built up over the last few instalments. I know lots of you have already guessed/are suspicious of what Peeta is up to.

Chapter 28: Nightmare Upon Waking

Katniss

I can hear someone screaming.

It doesn't sound like an adult screaming. Or a child.

It sounds like… like a baby.

My heart skips a beat. "Peeta?" I whisper into the darkness. "Can you hear that?" There's no answer. I roll over. Peeta is gone. The bed is cold and empty. The bed sheets are bunched up around me, and as I fight to break free, they seem to wind themselves tighter around me like snakes, tighter and tighter and tighter, suffocating me. Finally I manage to rip them from my limbs. I stagger to my feet. Looking down, I'm shocked to find that my stomach is flat, as if I was never pregnant in the first place, and my shirt is stained with blood. A choked sob escapes my lips and I stagger forward, wrenching open the bedroom door. What is going on?

Whipping my hair away from my face, a strong, freezing wind that numbs my ears screams down the empty, darkened hallway. Where is that coming from?

Lying on the hallway floor, sprawled out in a fashion that would suggest that he was trying to run away from whoever or whatever was chasing him, is Peeta. I stumble on shaking, unstable legs towards him, falling to my knees beside his head. I shake him, crying his name, but he doesn't respond, his open eyes staring at me, wide and glassy and lifeless. His lips are blue. His body is limp.

Peeta is dead.

Dead.

A wail escapes my throat and I back away, shaking my head in horror, until I'm pressed against the wall. I clamp my hand over my mouth to stop my screams. How long I sit there, staring, waiting for his chest to rise and fall, for a smile to reappear on his lips, I don't know, but when I finally move, I feel numb and empty. Blood soaks the carpet underfoot. It squelches as I crawl along its length. I reach the room that will become my child's bedroom when he or she is born. The walls are splattered with blood, a morbid mural, and when I drag myself over to the crib Sae gave us a few weeks ago, the bed is empty. There's no baby.

Suddenly there's a knife in my hand. It's bloody. I fling it across the room like it's burnt me. Did I do this? Did I kill Peeta? Where is our baby? What is this place?

"Katniss!" I can hear someone shouting my name, but it's muffled, as if I'm underwater.

The wall turn to black sludge, melting around me, drowning me, pulling me under, filling my lungs and choking me.

"Katniss!" I reach up, trying to escape from the darkness as if closes in above my head.

"KATNISS!"

I gasp for air, struggling to get away from the hands that hold me down, glancing around with wild eyes. A cold sweat gleams on my forehead, and trickles down my back, making my sleep shirt stick to my clammy skin. My heart is beating so hard it hurts.

"Katniss. Not real, not real," Peeta soothes, hugging me close to him and not letting go even as I fight against him. I push him away, grasping at my stomach. My belly is still there. My baby is safe. I look up at Peeta. It's early in the morning, around three a.m. I must have woken him up with my screaming and thrashing about. He looks shattered, with purple bags under his eyes. "It's okay. I'm here," he says, his hair is sticking out in all directions, and his blue eyes are wide.

"You're okay?" I ask breathlessly, tracing my hands over his broad shoulders, over his arms. He's here. His lips are not blue. His eyes are not glassy. Peeta is alive. I throw my arms around his neck and bury my face in his shoulder.

"I'm okay," he whispers.

"You were dead. The baby was gone. There was s-so much blood," I sob. Peeta rubs my back in soothing circles, hushing me.

"There's no blood. No one is hurt," he says, pulling me into his lap and cradling me. He presses a kiss to my forehead. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No. I was... just..." I stutter, and he smiles sadly, lying back, resting against the pillows, and pulls me down with him. My heart is still racing, so I press my ear to his chest, listening to his steady heartbeat, using it not only calm down, but to anchor me back to reality. We're silent for a while, and I swipe my hand over my cheeks, wiping away the tears. "Peeta, how come I never know when you're having a nightmare?" I say, finally breaking the silence. He stiffens beside me, his hand pausing on my lower back.

"I don't know. I don't think I cry out or thrash around or anything. I just come to, paralyzed with terror," he says, and then continues rubbing my back.

"You should wake me."

"My nightmares are usually about losing you," he says. "I'm okay once I realize you're here."

"I dreamt that I lost you." I confess.

"You haven't lost me," Peeta murmurs. "I'm right here."

"Stay with me?"

"Always." His reply is short, but definite. I snuggle into his side. Memories of my nightmare stick with me like ghosts, but I manage a few hours of dreamless sleep in Peeta's arms. Without him, I doubt I would sleep at all. Back home, when I had a nightmare, even the presence of both Mom and Prim couldn't calm me. Sometimes I'd just lay there, staring up at the ceiling, my breath coming out in rapid gasps.

Peeta wakes me the following morning by pressing soft kisses down my neck. I smile, pushing him away playfully. "Are you alright?" he asks, taking my hand and kissing my knuckles.

"Yes," I nod. "It was just a...a... horrible nightmare."

"Do you have nightmares often?"

"Sometimes... they're normally about my father."

"Normally?"

"That one was about you and the baby," I say, pushing myself upright. "I was holding a knife... and there was blood everywhere." I tuck my knees as tightly to my chest as possible. Peeta frowns.

"It was only a nightmare."

"I know," I whisper. "But it was so real," He puts his arm around me and we sit in silence for a while, not needing words. "What time is it?" I eventually ask, climbing out of the bed.

"Nearly eleven."

"In the morning?" I exclaim, my eyes wide. I never sleep in this late. I'm always either out before the sun has begun to rise over the mountains. "How long have you been awake?"

"Not long, I just-"

"Why didn't you wake me?"

"Because you've been stressed. I don't want you tired and worried all the time- it isn't good for you or the baby." I run my hands through my hair and begin unpicking my braid. I need to wash my hair.

"Sorry," I smile ruefully at Peeta. "I don't mean to just... freak out like that. Sorry."

"It's okay," Peeta smiles. "Everyone has nightmares, it's just who we have to comfort us that matters."

Peeta

Katniss and I spend the morning sitting at the kitchen table. We don't bother with breakfast- by the time we've finished showering it's about lunchtime. We eat sandwiches just after noon, using leftover squirrel as a filling. Katniss sneaks into the pantry and steals some cubes of cooking chocolate. I pretend not to notice.

"Wolf said that you and Mitch had an argument," she says, looking up from the arrow she's carving. Shit. I hoped that she wouldn't pick up that. "You two are best friends. What happened?"

"Nothing," I shrug my shoulders, trying to act nonchalant. "It was stupid. A stupid argument."

"If it's so stupid, why can't you tell me?" she frowns. I run my hands through my hair exasperatedly.

"Because it's stupid. It doesn't matter."

"Will you be okay?"

"Yeah, he'll get over himself," I say. I stand to clear away the plates. I'm going to start to prepare and cook the turkey that Katniss shot before the snow came, so that by the time Mrs Everdeen and Prim and whoever else swing by for dinner tomorrow, it will be ready. Katniss moves steadily around the house, cleaning again. I think it's called nesting. Dad said Mom did it with Rye, and would clean and reorganize the house almost every day. I'm not going to complain though. I'm content with the house being clean, especially if I don't have to do the actual cleaning. And it keeps Katniss occupied while I'm busy.

As I prepare the turkey, my mind wanders. Most of the time I hate it, because I end up overthinking simple, often trivial things. But as I go into auto-pilot mode, cleaning the turkey, stuffing it and covering it in various herbs and butter, I can't help it. I hate keeping secrets from Katniss, but I know that it's the only way. If she knew she'd be distraught, I'm sure. Considering what happened to her father, Gale's father, and countless other people, it's better to keep it secret than tell her. She'd tell me that I couldn't do it. That I had to stop. We need the money though. The weekly pay is only just better than what I used to earn at the bakery but it means that I can build up savings for our future. I want to be able to buy nice things for my child, my fiancé. I want to be able to provide for them.

Risking my life seems like a pretty good way to go.

Katniss would disagree.

Spending hours in the darkness, hundreds of feet underground, the stifling heat of the mines is choking. How the Seam mean can spend their lives working here, I'll never know. It must be in their genes. I'm surprised that no one has told Katniss, actually. I've begged people to keep it a secret, and they've stuck to their word so far. That, or they just don't care about the underage townie who spends hours each night and most days chipping away at the rock, searching for coal that ran out generations ago. I'm just the kid who's stronger than many of the fully grown men around me. The kid who can carry more loads. The expendable worker.

Keeping this secret has taken its toll on me. Katniss has noticed the dark shadows under my eyes that come from the lack of sleep, and the scrapes that I've obtained. I assume, well, I hope, that she thinks that all my blisters are from work at the bakery. In an effort to get the coal dust out of my hair, out of my eyes, off my skin and clothes, I've taken to showering in my clothes in the dead of the night. Katniss is a deep sleeper, and I don't think she's ever woken up when I'm gone.

The mines are shut over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but reopen on Boxing Day. And off I'll go, pretending that I'm working at the bakery or running errands, when in actuality I'll be stuffed into a wire cage with seven other workers, lowered into the ground, and worked to the bone for hours, praying that today won't be the day when the ground collapses above or beneath me.

My employment at the mines is what started the argument between Mitch and I, though it was my relationship with Katniss that has prolonged it. He was walking back from visiting Madge- they're still going strong, and Mayor Undersee has been informed of his daughter's relationship- when he saw me, walking along the road, stamping my feet in an effort to shake off some of the coal dust that clings to every fibre of my clothing, not to mention my soul. He had demanded to know what I was doing, and I deflected his question with a query of my own.

"What are you doing out so late?"

"I've just been at Madge's house," he had replied, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.

"Does her father approve?" I asked, only meaning it as a joke, but Mitch took it the wrong way.

"Don't act all high-and-mighty with me," he had sneered. "When you're the one who knocked Everdeen up."

"This has nothing to do with Katniss."

"It has everything to do with Katniss! I've been your loyal friend, all these years, and the second you get anywhere with her, you completely abandon me!"

"She's pregnant!" I had retorted, suddenly angry. How he could he say that I'd abandoned him? I had been busy, for Christ's shake. I'm sure he would've have been in deeper shit than me if he had knocked Madge up. "Of course I'm going to be occupied with other things! I'm sorry if we haven't hung around lately, but I've been busy!"

"Don't tell me this is my fault, Peeta. This is your shit to deal with, not mine."

"Don't you think I know that?"

"Clearly not, because if you could just manage to keep your dick under control for ten seconds you wouldn't be in this mess," Mitch had stood there with curled fists and blazing eyes. I was stunned.

"Is that how you feel?"

"Yes, Peeta. That's how everyone feels."

"You can all fuck off, then. Does that suit you?"

"You've changed, Mellark," Mitch had yelled down the empty street as I turned and walked away. "For the worst!"

As much as I wanted to turn around and shout at him until my throat was raw and my lungs screamed, I forced myself to keep going, one foot after another. Shouting would only make it worse, and I was afraid that if I let all my emotions out, drop the burden that seems to permanently weigh me down, I would be left empty and bare for all to see.

So, instead, I bottled it up inside. I walked away, back to the girl of my dreams. I should've been happy- I'd gained Katniss Everdeen out of all of this. But I was sad. Because it felt like I had cheated fate. Katniss wasn't meant to drunkenly have sex with me, only to get pregnant with my child. Katniss was meant to live her days out in the Seam, surviving like she always did, until she was old and grey and wrinkled. Maybe she'd marry Gale, and they'd have children together. But I stepped in and messed everything up.

I may have gained the girl I wanted, but I took so much away from her at the same time. The least I can do is do everything in my power to give her a happy, safe life, no matter what it will cost me.