I am so proud of you guys! Keep up the amazing support, because I am going to need it. :3 I am getting surgery next week and I might not be able to type for a while so help me get a whole bunch of ideas together so I can be typing enough chapters to make up for not updated for a while. Enjoy this chapter!

At dinner I had told everyone the news (everyone meaning Gale's family, Peeta's family, Finnick, Johanna, and the other Quell survivors) and their reaction was more or less what I expected. Gasping, hugging, congratulating, teasing, and, in Finnick's case, horrible innuendos.

Peeta and I were walking back to my room when Peeta stopped walking. "I painted a new picture yesterday. Do you want to see it?"

I smiled at him. Ever since the visit to the doctors' office, I have made an extra-good attempt to be nice to people. "Of course!"

Peeta took my hand and we turned away from my room and headed to his instead.

"Would you kill me if I asked you how you were?" he said teasingly.

I pretended to consider that. "… Maybe."

Peeta laughed. "No, really. How are you feeling?"

I was quiet for a second before answering, "I feel okay. It is a bit weirder knowing….. Well, it's weirder than it was yesterday."

"Yeah. I guess so…"

We rounded a corner and walked into Peeta's room. I hadn't been in it in a while, and once again I was astounded by how much he paints. Pictures of his lined walls and stood on tables. Normally, the last picture he painted stood on an easel before a new one replaced it.

This time, the painting was in black, white, and shades of gray. Of course, it was of me, but the contrast was breathtaking. I was standing in a field of white with my back turned towards the painter. There weren't many intricate details, just occasional shading with grays.

Peeta took a seat on his bed. "Do you like it?"

I sighed. "It's beautiful."

"I was thinking about painting another one tomorrow."

I walked over and sat next to Peeta. "That will work out because the doctor said I have to have another checkup."

Peeta frowned. "Do you want me to come with you?"

"No. It's just a… you know… checkup." I shook my head and waved my hand in the vague direction of my stomach.

"Oh."

We sat on his bed in silence for a while, just looking at Peeta's painting. It looked as if it was done in a short amount of time, but it didn't look sloppy. The major contrast of the black against white made it look as though a professional had done it.

"Why do you paint me a lot?" I asked Peeta, breaking the silence between us.

"…Because you live in my head a lot." Peeta smiled serenely. "You always have."

He was always so genuinely honest about everything. If it was someone else, I probably would have felt embarrassed about how casually Peeta says he loves me. How perfectly normal he is when he tells me I'm beautiful. I am nothing like that. Well, sometimes I am when I'm on drugs, but most of the time there is this little voice in the back of my head telling me that confessing my love to someone isn't normal and I shouldn't do it often.

I felt my eye twitching so I changed the subject away from my insensitivity. "So what do you think about the whole thing?"

Peeta frowned. "What whole thing?"

"…The whole thing that I had my nervous breakdown over." I said as if it was totally obvious (which it was), but I didn't exactly want to revisit the details.

"Oh, that whole thing…" Peeta folded his hands in his lap. "I am definitely taken aback, but it didn't sound as… horrible as you made it seem."

I felt myself blush angrily. What I didn't need right now was for Peeta to tell me I am overreacting.

He saw my distressed expression and shook his head. "I don't mean that you did that for nothing. Think about it: you still have a baby. It is still a human child and it is not very different from one that is totally normal and average."

I raised my eyebrows and gave him my "oh really" look.

Peeta sighed in annoyance. "The mutts in the arena were programmed to kill. The wolves were regular bloodthirsty wolves that had the intelligence of humans. And," he admitted "could stand up and walk like humans, but that is off the subject. They were just like regular wolves. They only had human brains—"

"-That were programmed to kill." I finished for him. "The capitol twinged their minds so where they were like murderers in a wolves body. How do you know my babies' brain isn't twinged like that to kill like the wolves?"

Peeta took a sharp intake of breath. "I don't."

A small choking noise came from my mouth and I was about to get up when Peeta grabbed my wrist and forced me to sit back down.

"It's a baby, Katniss. It has a human baby brain. The wolves and monkeys were designed to kill specifically for the Games. All mutations aren't necessarily horrible assassins."

I gave him my "oh really" look again, but I didn't think it looked as threatening through a layer of tears.

"Mockingjays." Peeta snapped his fingers and looked expectantly at me. "Mockingjays are muttations, but they aren't deadly. They don't want to kill you."

I sniffed. "Very comforting, Peeta."

Peeta put his arm around me sympathetically. "Look, nothing is going to be wrong with the baby."

Even though it was completely unnecessary and childish, I leaned into his arms and said, "Promise?"

"Promise."

I didn't end the chapter where I wanted to, but I couldn't figure out how to get it where I wanted it. That's okay though, I guess, because is a perfectly acceptable amount of words for a chapter. I am going to give a little sneaky-peaky of the next chapter. Not the exact words, but I am going to use one of my reviewers' idea and they (Katniss and Peeta) are going to go to the astronomy lab and after that Katniss has another scary doctor's appointment and you people are going to learn more. 8o Oohh

K bye!