Chapter 33

You've carried on so long,

You couldn't stop if you tried it.

You've built your wall so high

That no one could climb it,

But I'm gonna try

"Beneath Your Beautiful" – Labrinth

When I woke up in the morning, the first thing I saw was Peeta standing in front of his dresser pulling on and buttoning the top button on a pair of the over washed blue jeans that he always wore to the bakery. His head turned toward me when he heard me move and he smiled softly in the gray pre-dawn light that I was so familiar with seeing the room bathed in whenever I woke to Peeta getting ready for work.

I yawned and stretched under the covers before holding out my arms to the side and beckoning Peeta over to me with a wiggle of my pointer finger.

"Morning, Mrs. Mellark." He whispered and grabbed his shoes from under the dresser as he came to sit on my side of the bed to put them on.

"Morning," I smiled as he leaned over to kiss me after he'd tied the first shoe.

He looked so breathtakingly handsome in the tight fitting shirt I recognized as one that would have matched the color of his eyes if everything in the room wasn't painted a uniform gray in the early morning light. His mess of curly blonde hair hung so long that it almost to covered his beautiful blue eyes and I briefly missed the near-crewcut he sported a year or so ago. But, the feeling passed quick enough. I couldn't help it; there was just something about his unruly curls that reminded me of the round-faced boy who had thrown me a loaf of bread and it served as a daily reminder of how lucky I was to have wound up with such a decent and loving man.

A warm tingling feeling that I associated with the kind of gooey, teen-aged love I had been much too busy in my actual teenage years to experience, unfurled deep in my belly, making me wish I hadn't sworn off sex until Zale left. It also surprised me since idealistic thoughts weren't my usual M.O. Certainly neither were overly sentimental 'girly' thoughts, but alas, there they were.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back deeply out of habit. It wasn't my fault, really. In the morning before Peeta went to work was, for one reason or another, usually the time of day we both felt most amorous toward each other.

I don't know if it was because spending the night cuddled up together reminded us of the first way we'd been openly affectionate with one another or that we knew we'd be spending most of the day apart once he left for the bakery, but whatever the reason, more often than not, we made love in the very early hours of the morning.

"Mmm…much as I'd love to stay in bed with you…" Peeta mumbled against my lips as he guided me back down so that my head was on my pillow. I reached up to stroke his stubbly cheek like I had the night before and traced his strong jaw line with the tip of the nail on my pointer finger. Peeta moaned and turned from where he was sitting on the edge of the bed just enough to press the erection stirring beneath his pants into my thigh so that I had no doubt as to how much he'd like to stay.

"…I have to wake Zale up to leave for work and I'm really, really looking forward to it." He whispered and stroked a hand down my side, leaving a trail of heat that certainly made me feel like the girl on fire even though I had just turned 30.

"Almost as much as I'm looking forward to this…" he said sliding his hand from my side to between my legs under my nightgown and stroked his fingertips gently over me through my underwear.

After so long together, I couldn't fight my body's reaction to his touch, especially since it'd been so long since we had been intimate. And though there was a part of me still didn't like the idea of doing so with Zale around, that part of me was becoming weaker by the moment as he continued to stroke me with a feather light touch and his erection continued to press into my thigh.

"Mmm…Peeta, please," I said grasping his wrist with both hands and releasing our kiss to bite my bottom lip.

"Go to work before I do something embarrassing and maybe I'll consider arranging for some very quiet alone time tonight after Zale's asleep…" I whispered huskily and Peeta dropped his forehead to my shoulder with a grunt.

"Woohoo!" He cheered quietly but not quietly enough so I slapped the back of his head lightly in warning and snorted a laugh.

"Shh!" I hissed and tried to keep from laughing too hard as he stood and straightened his clothes.

I pulled the covers up around my body more securely and turned over to my stomach to sleep for a few more hours. I had time before I would have to head out to the cabin again to pick our fruits and vegetables for the rest of the week and maybe do some hunting.

"I'll see you tonight…love you." I mumbled into my pillow and turned my head to watch him engage in a mental battle of wills. For once it wasn't between "Good Peeta" and "Bad Peeta", but between "Horny Peeta" and "Responsible-business-owning-adult-Peeta".

I rolled my eyes as he stood indecisively rocking from foot to foot before I tossed a small throw pillow at him and shooed him out the door.

Peeta grinned and smiled over his shoulder as he headed for the door, wagging his eyebrows as he glanced next door at Zale's room. He whispered a quick 'I love you' back to me and shut the door behind him gently as he left the room.

I chuckled softly and shook my head, knowing that Peeta had neither the interest nor ability to be truly cruel to the child in waking him up so I wasn't too worried about what was about to go down next door. I grabbed Peeta's pillow and pulled it into my arms since I still needed him close in some way regardless of whether he was in the bed with me or not just as I heard his booming voice telling Zale to rise and shine.

"How can there be any shining? The sun isn't even up yet…" I heard the boy groan before I chuckled into Peeta's pillow and drifted back off to sleep with a smile on my face.

I didn't hear Peeta and Zale leave but I was sure Peeta had come back into the bedroom to kiss me good-bye before they left. It was, after all, the lingering scent of his aftershave on my cheek that helped me find my way out of the nightmares that seized hold of my mind at some point in those last few hours of sleep.

Even in the confusion and chaos of waking gripped by terror, I remember thinking how it was always Peeta that helped me find my way back during my own brand of what Dr. Aurelius called episodes of 'post-traumatic stress', even if it was just the familiar, comforting smell of him still clinging to the air in our bedroom.

I didn't know exactly how long it had lasted, but even a second of sleep spent trapped in the more horrific corridors of my mind was too much for me following year after year with very little long-term relief from them.

I sat up with a jolt, breathing and sweating heavily and pulled Peeta's pillow into my arms. I held it close as I rocked myself slowly back and forth pretending it was his arms and not just his pillow keeping me grounded in the real world.

I closed my eyes against the onslaught of images that were slowly coming back to me since the initial panic of waking up alone had worn off, but it was no use trying to erase images that were a part of me as much as if they had been tattooed or branded on my soul.

What I found particularly upsetting about the nightmares, though, was that a new host of horrors had joined the usual cast of those that plagued my mind in sleep. Typically, my nightmares rotated between a selection of particularly horrifying memories. watching Prim being blown up in front of me. The fear I felt as I was hunted by the career pack in my first Games. Cinna being brutally beaten to death as I watched on helplessly.

My father being blown up in the mines.

Gale being whipped over and over and over in the square.

Peeta strapped to a hospital bed screaming horrible things at me.

On this particular morning though, the usual suspects had showed up with reinforcements. Tears streamed down my face and I bit down on a corner of Peeta's pillow hard, trying my damnedest to cast out the new images.

The image of Gale being whipped in the square transformed into Zale, screaming and crying as he begged forgiveness for traveling into the once forbidden woods to swim in the lake. The unrelenting arm of Romulus Thread fell again and again as the child cried out in pain with each horrible crack of the whip. As much as I tried, I couldn't get to him as I had been paralyzed equal parts by sleep and terror.

I could only scream over and over that the Games were over, the government was different, and that anyone was allowed into the forest now. Thread sneered as he raised the whip for another strike, reminding me that nothing was ever different. That every civilization that had occupied the land Panem now sat on had found ways to misuse the power that came with being a part of the ruling class.

What had finally woken me though were the changes made to the image of Prim disappearing behind the blinding light of exploding parachutes. Just as with the image of Gale that morphed into Annie and Finnick's son who I had grown to love so fiercely, the image of Prim was stretched and distorted until what came into focus in her place was that elusive little blonde boy who represented the secret vision of what I believed a child of mine and Peeta's would look like.

I was so unbelievably stricken by the image of the little boy's death by the parachute bombs that the hopelessness and futility with which I'd (barely) lived my life after Prim's death, and had fought so hard against for over a decade as I rebuilt myself around the simple pleasures of a life with Peeta, took a sledgehammer to that wall I'd so painstakingly built around my psyche.

With the destruction of that carefully built fortress of my mind, I was left lost and trembling in the middle of the bed, unable to focus on anything but the pain and the fear for the rest of the day.

My name is Katniss Mellark. I'm 30 years old. My home is District 12. My husband is Peeta Mellark. I love him more than anything in the world. I can never give him the children that he wants because losing one more piece of myself, not matter how slim the possibility, would not leave me with enough pieces of the woman I was to go on living.

(Peeta's POV)

The way Zale nearly jumped out of his skin when I woke him up to leave for work almost made up for the fact that I left my roused and ready wife in the room next door.

Things had been busy at the bakery as the warm weather brought customers in looking for pastries and pies that would compliment a picnics and cookouts nicely so we had both been too tired for anything more than holding each other at night as we slept.

The multi-day episode I had just before Zale's arrival had put a bit of a damper on our love life as well and with Katniss instituting a new abstinence policy until Zale was safely on his way back to District 4, I was half tempted to gift myself with a towel stuffed under the mattress just like the one Katniss had discovered in the room of our young visitor the night before.

I smiled, thinking of her horrified reaction to Zale's blossoming sexual maturity as I climbed in the driver's side of the car and Zale climbed in back to lie down on the bench seat for the ride to the bakery.

"You do this every morning except for Sunday?" Zale mumbled sleepily as he curled up on the back seat and threw an arm over his face to block the rays of the rising sun.

I had told him to dress, set a cup of hot cocoa and a large buttered croissant at his place at the table and Zale had silently chewed the roll and sipped the cocoa while I drank a large cup of coffee and went over an inventory list for the bakery.

I didn't usually eat until I got to the bakery and made the first batch of morning pastries, but I had a feeling Zale needed the fuel in his tank before we left or he would be a cranky, whiny mess for the rest of the day.

Moodiness was one of the few things about children I could have really done without.

"Sure do." I said lifting my head to look in the rearview mirror at his prone figure in back as I drove. "Bakery opens at 6:00 and nearly everything is made fresh daily so I have to get an early start on that before the first customers come in." I explained and Zale grunted to indicate he had heard what I said.

"Doesn't Katniss own the bakery too? Why the hell doesn't she have to get up ass early like you?" He asked and I smiled because I knew he couldn't see me.

"Hey, watch the language." I warned good-naturedly so that I wouldn't upset him like I had the day before.

"Just because you've grown some hair on your sack doesn't mean you and I are equals now." I said looking at him in the rearview mirror.

"You're 11, I'm about to turn 30. Understood?" I asked and Zale sat up suddenly, probably surprised by my candor, and nodded quickly.

"Yes, sir." He mumbled and I almost laughed at the 'sir' because it sounded like an automatic response he would give an 'adult' which I wasn't entirely sure he saw me as up until that moment.

Katniss and I had been like the fun aunt and uncle who let him do whatever he pleased when he and Annie came to visit. We always respected her personal rules for proper behavior when they were at our home, but in general, we answered his requests with a yes more often than with a no.

It was during that drive to the bakery that I remembered the first time my father had expected a greater degree of respect from me. I was about Zale's age and had answered him with something smart mouthed and more typical of my older brothers just to see what he would do. What he did was shoot me a withering look that plainly told me talking like that to him again would be a terrible waste of my final breath on this earth.

I felt Zale's attempt at seeing what profanity he could get away with in front of me was his first 'test' of how far I would let him go being as that this was his first visit since he had stopped seeing himself as a 'little boy'. By the way he was sitting up straight, more awake than he'd been since he dragged himself out of bed earlier, I assumed he got the hint and would watch himself for the rest of the week.

"Good." I said with a short nod and pulled around to the back of the bakery where I parked the car. Zale slid out of the back and I asked him to grab the box of new cookie sheets that were on the floor in the back with him while I grabbed my binder from the seat beside me and climbed out.

"You still hungry?" I asked as we climbed the back stairs and I punched in a code to open the door by pressing some numbers on the plate beside the window.

Zale smiled up at me and I rolled my eyes playfully.

"Sorry, dumb question." I chuckled and held the door for him so that he could carry the heavy box inside. I flipped on the light just inside the door and Zale carried the box straight back to the storeroom where he knew it belonged.

I smiled after him as I headed into the kitchen to start taking out the ingredients I would need for putting together all of the morning wares and thought about how proud Finnick would be of the young man his son was becoming. It was still painful at times to look at Zale and not think of his father, especially since he was looking more and more like him as he grew, but overall, I think everyone that knew Zale personally was just so pleased to see him growing and thriving in this new Panem.

It was as if seeing the child of two Hunger Games victors thriving physically, socially, and emotionally gave us all hope that perhaps we could get things right this time and take the path of good when so many generations before us had taken the path that led to the wars and famines that had cost so many so much.

"There should be some pastries from yesterday wrapped up in plastic in the small fridge back in the storeroom, you can bring those out and we'll snack on them while we start baking for today." I said to Zale and he hurried back in the direction he'd just come from while I took out a mixing bowl for each of us to get started.

Thinking about Zale being the child of two Hunger Games victors led inevitably to thoughts of another child of two Hunger Games victors; my own. I wanted so badly to have children but I could tell that Katniss still wasn't quite ready to let go of all the insecurities she held about herself as a potential parent.

I knew that I could be parent enough for both of us but that wouldn't be fair to a child or to Katniss and I knew it would only make her feel worse. I had noticed a subtle change in her since Zale arrived and I knew that having him around for just two days so far by that point had only intensified my feelings, especially watching Zale wash up and put on an apron to help me bake.

"Don't you have a boy that works here?" He asked pulling me away from my daydream about a little dark-haired girl with a braid down either side of her head and blue eyes that looked like they'd been plucked right out of my head and dropped into her own.

I shook my head to clear it of the little beauty I often dreamed of and nodded to Zale as I tied an apron around my waist. I moved over to stand behind him and straightened out his hastily pulled on apron and tied it for him.

"Yeah, his name's Calen." I said with a slight growl and went back to the bowl where I was starting in on the bread for a batch of blueberry bagels and Zale started checking over the list of ingredients and measurements I had placed beside his bowl so that he could start a batch of cinnamon rolls.

"You don't like him?" Zale asked looking up from the flour he was scooping into a large measuring cup. I watched him for a moment to make sure he had it right.

"Good, now make sure you keep the rolls and the cinnamon mixture that goes between the folds in separate bowls for now." I said and Zale nodded but looked to still be waiting for me to answer his question about Calen.

I liked Calen a lot. He was young, only 19, but was a great employee, always on time, and he had a real love for baking that made it easy to teach him the trade. The reason for the touch of venom in my voice when I said his name was that it had become evident that he also had a bit of a school boy crush on Katniss.

She, of course, thought I was being ridiculous but the kid had straight out told me two days after our wedding that if he was married to Katniss, he would never leave the house. I thought that was a pretty bold statement to make but Katniss had seen it as completely harmless puppy love. He'd never made a move on her or anything because he was, by all accounts, a very respectful guy whom, even I had to admit, didn't have a dishonest bone in his body. I still wasn't quite sure how I felt about it though, especially when I caught him casting furtive glances at her out of the corner of his eyes from time to time.

"He's alright." I shrugged, trying to keep my tone casual.

"Just has a little bit of a crush on Katniss which I'll admit, I'm not too excited about." I said raising my eyebrows and glancing over at Zale who was doing well mixing the butter, sugar and cinnamon to go in the buns.

I groaned when he refused to meet my eyes and his ears and cheeks flamed red with embarrassment.

"Well…I can't say I blame him there…" he mumbled and I shook my head and thought for the millionth time since I'd known Katniss how she truly had no idea the effect she had on people.

I tossed a small piece of dough his way and Zale's cheeks grew redder yet as he finally turned to look at me when the marble-sized ball bounced off the side of his head.

"W—well…she is really pretty…" he said rubbing the back of his neck nervously. Honestly, I couldn't blame either of the love-struck young men for their feelings for Katniss when my own unrequited love for her had begun before I could walk across a street without holding an adult's hand.

"Yeah, thanks, I've noticed." I laughed softly as I laid out bagel-sized clumps of dough on a large tray and started to work them into the right shape.

I watched Zale silently go back to his work for a few minutes, trying to decide if he was giving me the opportunity to delve into the promised discussion about girls and anything else he might not have wanted to talk to his mother about. When he cut his eyes at me for the fifth time in 5 minutes, I decided that was exactly what he was waiting for.

"So…" I began and focused on the second tray of bagels I had started while Zale rolled the strips of dough with the cinnamon mixture inside of it like Katniss had showed him last time he was in District 12 for our wedding reception. "…have your eye on any girls closer to your age and geographic location than my wife?"

The boy knew I was joking and Zale placed his second well-rolled cinnamon bun on his own tray with a puff of his cheeks.

"Sure...yeah…you know, just…all of them." He sighed and I placed the two trays of bagels in one level of the large oven and took Zale's first tray of buns and placed them on another before turning back to him.

I chuckled as I vaguely remembered saying something similar to Katniss during our time in the cave in the first Games and nodded.

"Yeah, I remember that feeling. It went from about the age of nine until…well, it still hasn't really worn off just yet…" I winked and Zale rolled his eyes and ducked his head as he went back to rolling dough.

I leaned against the counter next to him and nudged him with my elbow.

"Seriously, kid." I said bending forward a little to catch his eye and Zale placed the last bun on the tray so that I could place it in the oven with the others.

"Did you wanna ask me anything?" I said and placed the tray in the oven and checked the others quickly before I turned my full attention back to Zale.

He was looking at me with big eyes as he leaned back against the counter beside me and we both found a point on the opposite wall to stare at. My focus object was a large whisk but I couldn't quite tell what Zale's was since I was only looking at him out of the corner of my eye as we spoke.

"Like what?" Zale asked clearing his throat and I could hear the nervous lilt to his voice so I turned to him, giving him my full attention. I had made promises to Annie personally and Finnick in my heart that I would be there for their son when he needed me; that I would do anything for him.

"Like about girls, or how you're feeling…or just anything that you might not feel comfortable talking to your mom about because she's a girl." I explained and Zale turned his head to look at me for a beat and then went to sit on one of the stools by the decorating table. He picked up a piping bag and turned it over in his hands a few times until I came to sit beside him and folded my hands on the table in front of me.

"So…is it…weird how much I think about girls? Cause I think about them all the time…like…all the time." He said widening his eyes as he rolled the piping bag nervously with one hand.

I smiled and reached over to still his hand and the nervous fiddling with the bag ended as he finally looked up at me for a straight answer.

"No way, it's completely normal to be thinking about girls at your age. Hell, I was a little younger than you when I started to have…different feelings for them than I ever had before." I admitted and Zale narrowed his eyes and shifted in his seat a little.

"Different how?" he asked and I could tell his curiosity had been piqued so I continued.

I wasn't sure exactly how much to say so I let Zale's questions guide my answers, only giving as much information as he asked for, no more, no less.

"You know, like thinking about…how it would feel to touch them…what kissing them would be like…what they look like under their clothes…" I said searching my memory for the things I had wondered about the opposite sex at Zale's age.

His head turned up toward me and he looked me in the eye, nodding excitedly and smiling now that he'd discovered a link between himself, a boy, and me, who had once been a boy and had the same thoughts as him.

I tried not to smile too much since whatever information I was about to give him was likely to form the basis for his emerging sexuality, but I just couldn't contain my happiness at seeing Zale so relieved that he wasn't odd or different than any other boy his age.

We both laughed softly and I reached out to muss his hair playfully, once again unable to keep my thoughts from straying to another time, in the future, having a similar discussion with my own son as he teetered on the delicate boundary between boy and man.

"So what do they look like under their clothes?" Zale asked leaning forward eagerly and I chuckled and shook my head.

Calen wasn't due in for another 45 minutes so Zale and I passed that time talking together as we baked. True to the promise I made to myself at the beginning of the conversation, I told Zale only what he asked and no more.

He asked why his body responded the way it did when he had those thoughts about girls and why it was impossible to make it stop responding that way without touching himself. This of course meant I had to explain the biology of sex and how both men and women have similar reactions to those thoughts in order to make their bodies ready for sex so that they can make a baby.

Once our second batches of baked goods were finished in the oven we found ourselves back on stools as we shared a plate of large, flaky Danishes. Calmed by my steady eye contact and easy way of explaining all of this to him, Zale finally asked me to explain just exactly what sex was. When I had finished explaining the mechanics, Zale sat for a long time just staring at me like I'd completely lost my mind.

"Yeah, I know…pretty crazy right?" I asked with a shrug and Zale nodded slowly as if he still wasn't sure I was being entirely truthful about this strange process of lying close together with no clothing on so that the proper parts lined up and joined together. In fact, he told me he wasn't so sure about all that yet and that part still sounded kind of gross to him.

"That's good…good…it should still sound kind of gross to you right now. And I guess, when it doesn't sound gross anymore…that means you're ready to share it with someone you really love." I said with a smile and Zale nodded slightly but still looked skeptical.

"Okay…well, for now I think I'll just keep using the yank rag…" he said so seriously that I chuckled.

"Sounds like a plan…" I said and then leaned toward him while still sitting on my stool. "Just don't tell Katniss or your mom that I called it that in front of you and we'll be cool."

I winked and Zale chuckled as he brought another bite of his Danish to his mouth and nodded.

"And….maybe cut down on doing that 3 or 4 times a day to like…once or twice…" I said and put him in a headlock when he grimaced shyly.

"Maybe find a hobby or something…" I teased and Zale used both hands to push me roughly away from him with a laugh, almost knocking me off balance on my stool.

I stood and went to the sink to wash my hands before we would start adding the pastries to the display case out on the main floor of the bakery. After a few moments Zale came up alongside of me to wash his own hands at the large double sink and looked like he wanted to say something more.

"What's up?" I asked casually as I worked loose the little bits of ingredients caked under my fingernails and Zale shrugged just as casually.

"Well…I was just thinking that well…you and Katniss probably do that kinda stuff, right?" He asked and I nodded and tried not to smile as his ears reddened at the thought of Katniss and I doing the things I had just described to him.

"Right…" I said not sure if I wanted to know where this particular conversation was going but not wanting to turn Zale down after he'd opened up so much to me that morning already. I was actually pleasantly surprised by how easy the discussion had flowed and hoped that this wouldn't be the moment everything went south.

"So…then how come you don't have any kids?" He asked looking up at me with such unguarded innocence that I had to look away from him even as I smiled sadly and reached for a towel to dry my hands.

I don't know why I didn't think that would be his next logical question except to say that I was coming at the discussion from an adult perspective where Zale was coming from the perspective of a child who, before our little talk, had probably only been informed to the point that he knew babies somehow came from this sex thing.

"That's a little bit more complicated…" I said with a small smirk and Zale's eyes widened as he dried his own hands and looked up at me open mouthed.

"More complicated than sex?" He asked in awe and I laughed at the way what he said sounded to my adult ears.

I wasn't sure how to explain Katniss' fears about having children to Zale without scaring him with tales from a past he had very little connection to.

"Way more complicated than sex." I said as we carried trays out to the front of the store just as Calen was walking in to begin his work day.

"Morning, Boss." He said with a careful smile and then grinned when he saw Zale just behind me carrying an almost overflowing tray.

Ever since his statement about never leaving the house if he was married to Katniss, I had been keeping a closer eye on Calen and he definitely sensed the change in my demeanor. He'd been very careful around me ever since and tried his best not to interact much with Katniss. This far out from the incident, I didn't really care so much anymore but it was still fun to make Calen squirm so I kept up with the stern act to some degree in order to keep him in line and a little bit because it was a hell of a lot of fun for me.

"Calen." I said nodding to him as he entered the back from the other end of the counter from the one I was standing in front of and took the tray Zale was holding when he noticed the little guy was having some trouble maneuvering it.

"Hey! How ya doing, kid? You like waking up early for bakery work?" He asked and Zale shook his head no which made Calen laugh.

We spent the morning baking and when we stopped for lunch, I made sure I fed Zale something healthy so that Katniss wouldn't give me crap when we got home for dinner. I'd already let him eat too much junk in the morning so I balanced it out by feeding him a big leafy salad with grilled chicken on top for lunch.

I noticed by early afternoon that Zale was exhausted so I put him at the register for the rest of the day. We left Calen to close up for the day and were back in the car by 3:30. I wondered if Zale would bring up the question of why Katniss and I had no children again but when I looked in the rearview mirror when we were halfway home, the image reflected back to me was that of a copper-headed kid with his eyes closed and his mouth wide open in slumber.

When we reached the house, I gently roused Zale in the backseat and he dragged himself out of the back with the same groan I heard when I woke him up this morning.

"Come on, Dough Boy, you can head right up to your room and sleep until dinner if you'd like." I said brushing a dusting of flour off of his cheek and guiding him toward the front steps.

"Mmm-hmm," Zale mumbled, barely opening his eyes as we went in the front door.

I laughed as I guided him up the steps to the second floor. I called out to Katniss who didn't respond so I assumed she was still out at the cabin or in the woods hunting.

I needed a shower so I pushed Zale through the door to his room, drew the curtains so that it was dark enough for him to sleep for a while, and laughed softly when he dropped to the mattress on top of the sheets and rolled to his side.

"Hey, Peeta…" He whispered sleepily and I turned at the door to see what he needed. Zale was smiling shyly at me as he pulled one of the pillows under his head and yawned loudly.

"Yeah, buddy what is it?" I asked quietly and Zale shrugged slightly and pushed his bangs out of his eyes before he responded.

"Thanks…for talking to me this morning, I mean." He said with a nod and lifted his head from the pillow when I said you're welcome and started to shut the door.

"Peeta?" He said again and I smiled softly as I opened the door wider and looked in at him again.

"Yeah buddy?" I said patiently and Zale stared at me for a long time as if he was trying to decide whether to say what was on his mind or not.

"I don't know why you and Katniss don't have kids…but I just wanted to tell you that I think you'd make a really cool dad." He said quietly and I had to fight the sudden tidal wave of emotions his words stirred up in me.

I ran my tongue along both my top and bottom teeth as I looked at the floor and tried to force some words past my tightening throat.

"Thanks, Zale. That means a lot to me to hear you say that." I whispered.

Hearing him say such a wonderful thing that had obviously come from his heart truly did mean a great deal to me. It gave me the motivation to not give up on my hope of one day having a family of my own with Katniss.

"You're welcome." Zale said smiling at me proudly before he dropped his head to the pillow and turned on his side facing the windows to try and sleep.

I closed his door gently and stood in the hallway for a minute or two to try and settle my emotions before I could go to my room to shower. It was while standing in the hall outside of mine and Katniss' bedroom door that I sensed movement on the other side and froze. I thought at first that it might be the kitten but when I heard the bed creak softly, I knew it had to be Katniss.

"Kat?" I whispered knocking softly on the door and waiting a moment to see if she responded. When she didn't, I reached for the knob and gently turned it, happy to find that it hadn't been locked from the other side.

When I stuck just my head in first, my mood changed quickly from being blissfully happy about what Zale had just said to me, to grief stricken when I found Katniss in the fetal position in the middle of our bed. Her eyes were wide and vacant as she stared at the empty space between the bed and the wall blankly.

"Oh, sweetie…" I said feeling tears beginning to choke me and a sense of panic settled into the pit of my stomach as I hurried to the bed and scooped Katniss up in my arms.

She was trembling slightly and every muscle in her body felt tight and rigid like she'd been in the same position for quite some time.

I hissed a few choice curse words under my breath when it occurred to me that she may have been in that position since the morning, perhaps even since Zale and I left for the bakery.

"Come on, Katniss. Come back to me, Baby. Come back to me…stay with me." I murmured right beside her ear as I continued to rock her in my arms.

The tears began coursing down my cheeks when there was no 'Always' whispered back in response to my begging her to stay with me. I pulled her closer into my arms and rocked her back and forth, determined not to leave her side until she was released from whatever nightmare had obviously caused this breakdown.

"Peeta…" She finally whispered hoarsely after I'd been holding her for more than an hour.

It'd been quite some time since I had seen her in this bad of shape and I hoped it was only because she was left alone most of the day without anyone to pull her out of it. I was silently cursing Haymitch and whatever hangover had kept him from stopping in for lunch where he may have found her sooner when her weak voice said my name and cut my quiet rage for our mentor's vice short before I could have a full blown mental tantrum.

"Yeah baby, I'm right here…Peeta's right here. Are you okay?" I asked trying to stay calm as I pulled back a little to look down into her eyes.

"We can't…" She said quietly and her voice broke on the 't' as I watched tears welling in her own eyes.

"We can't." she said again and I stroked her hair back from her face and looked into her eyes more intensely.

"Can't what, Katniss? What can't we do?" I asked desperately wanting to help her.

"We can't have kids….we can't….we just can't….can't do it…." She stammered and I didn't respond.

How could I after the day I'd spent with Zale? After hearing him tell me what a good dad he thought I would make? A large cloud must have passed overhead because the room suddenly became darker, casting a shadow on the room that made the emotional shadow that had fallen over our room seem even darker still.

"Can't…can't do it…" She continued to mumble more to herself than to me and I just held her and rocked her still as I waited for the cloud of horrors in her mind to pass and allow the sun through again.