Sooo...holy crap, this was a long wait between chapters and I am truly apologetic! Real life just has no respect for my fanfiction writing needs but things are a little more under control right now so it should go back to a week or two between updates! I hope you enjoy this chapter as obviously it gives us a peek at such an important moment in the lives of these two characters. I always wondered after reading the series how they each reacted to the initial news of finding out they were going to be parents. We know from the epilogue that Katniss had a lot of anxiety during the pregnancy which I will be exploring in the next chapter but I felt after all they went through, the moment they found out Katniss was pregnant was something they were both really happy about.
As always, reviews are appreciated! I love to hear from you guys! Come say hi on my painfully boring tumblr and enjoy the excitement of the countdown to the release of Catching Fire next month. It's always more fun to nerd with others than it is to nerd alone!
Cause I'm on top of the world, 'ay
I'm on top of the world, 'ay
Waiting on this for a while now
Paying my dues to the dirt
I've been waiting to smile, 'ay
Been holding it in for a while, 'ay
Take you with me if I can
Been dreaming of this since a child
"On Top of the World" –Imagine Dragons
Chapter 39
After years and years of life being difficult in so many ways, I made sure not to assume that conceiving a child would be easy for us since pretty much nothing had been up to that point. Some days might have been easier than others over time, but the emotional and physical scars of our past remained a daily reminder of all we had been through and all we would never be able to forget.
Imagine my surprise then when it took only three months of blood on the sheets indicating my monthly cycle was back to normal before it was surprisingly absent on the fourth. I didn't notice immediately because I hadn't really been thinking too much about getting pregnant just yet. My mother told me it could take some time after being on the contraceptive shot for so many years.
But by the fifth day after my cycle should have started, a sort of strange excitement began to swell deep inside of me as well as a new and powerful type of hope, the likes of which I had never experienced before except in a daydream on the beach in the Quarter Quell. A daydream where I imagined a place like the meadow in the song I sang for Rue where Peeta's child could be safe to live a long and happy life. Little did I know at the time, the child of Peeta's I was imagining as I settled in to sleep that night on the beach was to be my child, too.
I was standing at the edge of the bed on my side, staring down at the clean white sheets I was preparing to smooth back into place as that long forgotten feeling swelled inside my chest again. I had just woken up to find it had been several hours since Peeta left for the bakery and found myself unmoving as if frozen to the floor when I realized how many days late I was for my period.
The only thought consuming my mind and keeping me glued to that spot on the floor was that I could be carrying a new little life that was part me and part Peeta. It was something I had tried to mentally prepare myself for but there wasn't enough preparation in the world to make me ready in that moment to accept that it might be true. I had been responsible for myself and my mother and my sister in the past but this was an entirely new and inconceivably important type of responsibility. I could only hope that our child might inherit all of the best qualities we both had to offer…and none of our faults, of which I had plenty to offer the poor kid.
I took a deep breath and then another, repeating the familiar list of facts that helped me find my way out of the darkness so many times before. A word or two here and there had changed over the years along with both my name and my age, but the purpose behind the list, the way it grounded me to a good world and a better life I had once thought impossible, remained the same.
My name is Katniss Mellark. It used to be Katniss Everdeen. I was the Mockingjay. Peeta Mellark is my husband. I love him. We live in District 12 and own the local bakery just like his family has for as long as anyone can remember. Peeta bakes. I hunt. We have been trying to have a baby for nearly 4 months. I might be pregnant. I'm very happy that I might be pregnant. Peeta will be ecstatic.
From the 'incident' years before when I had a pregnancy scare, I knew that not letting Peeta in on the finding out would not only be a betrayal of his trust, but also could possibly cause him irreparable emotional and psychological damage. As I stood at the side of the bed, my hands went unconsciously to my neck when I remembered that 'incident' that followed that prengnacy scare.
It was the worst episode Peeta had in a long time and the first and last time he put his hands on me during a hijacking episode since the day he was rescued from the Capital and almost choked me to death.
There was still a part of me that wanted to surprise him in some way so I stood there going back and forth in my mind weighing the pros and cons. I was pulled out of my memories of that awful day by Buttercup Two winding his way back and forth around my ankles before he jumped onto the bed and arched his back looking for a scratch.
"Hey buddy." I whispered and sat down on the bed with a smile. I laughed when he climbed onto my lap and put his front paws up on my chest to reach up and nuzzle my nose lovingly. I missed the first Buttercup…sometimes…okay often, but I had to admit, it was nice having a pet who offered me affection even when I wasn't doling out food scraps.
The kitten had grown a good deal in the nearly seven months since Peeta first brought him home but he still seemed to think he was just as tiny as when I first met him. I leaned in to let him nuzzle me again, but then quickly caught him under the armpits and held him away from my chest with a gasp of pain. His paws had dug into the tops of my suddenly overly tender breasts and the pain was so bad it was as if Peeta had hung them from the ceiling of our porch like one of the punching bags he used for exercise and gone at them for at least 7 rounds of a fight.
He meowed at me and twisted out of my arms, dropping to the floor on all fours and looking up at me with a scowl that plainly said 'how rude!' in cat language. I tried to care for a moment about his tiny cat feelings being hurt, but the soreness of my chest trumped any sympathy I might have been experiencing and I crossed my arms over my breasts protectively.
"Sorry…" I mumbled and the cat tossed one more contemptuous meow over his shoulder as he pranced out the bedroom door and off down the hall. I stood from the bed, uncrossing my arms just enough to press my own fingertips gently into the soft tissue of my breasts and hissed again before dropping my arms to my sides with a frustrated groan.
My chest was usually sensitive during the week leading up to my period, but never that sensitive. How they felt that morning made me want to grab 2 steaks from the freezer downstairs and lay them over each breast for a couple of hours at least. I couldn't help chuckling softly at the image of Peeta coming home to find me lying in bed with his favorite meat thawing over two of his favorite parts of my body.
He'd probably have wondered if it was some sort of anniversary he'd forgotten and then apologized for not getting me something too.
I decided to give my mother a call, figuring that as a doctor, she'd be able to tell me whether I had enough pregnancy symptoms to warrant a trip to the midwife's office.
Okay, and maybe a little part of me wanted to share the excitement of a possible new family member with my own mother even if we were still on somewhat…awkward terms at the time.
I resolved to call her once I'd dressed for the day so I took my clothes with me into the bathroom to wash up a little. I quickly discovered that trying to put on a normal, breathable cotton bra felt like I was wrapping my chest in an entire thorn bush like the ones I often encountered while out hunting in the woods.
Tossing the bra aside, I put a tank top on under the soft sweater I'd chosen for the day and strode back into the bedroom to get the phone. When I picked it up the automatic dial for the bakery popped up first, asking me if I wanted to call Peeta and I cringed slightly. Even the electronics in our house seemed to be judging me for not thinking to call him first but I didn't think he'd mind if he learned after the fact that I'd turned to my mother before him.
In fact, I thought maybe he'd applaud it since he had been the go between for the two of us, making plans every few months or coming up with this occasion or that to celebrate and suggesting I invite my mother to visit for it. He thought he was being sly but both my mother and I knew what he was up to each time this happened. I started to wonder if maybe Peeta knew we'd figured him out but never said anything because he liked letting my mother and I share this 'secret' knowledge together in the hopes it might bring us closer together if we thought we had on over on him.
It was the things like that he did all the time which made me fall in love with him over and over and over again, strengthening our bond. A bond that was sometimes unbreakable and other times felt as fragile as a butterfly's wings when one or both of us were held prisoner by our 'bad thoughts'.
Deciding that Peeta would probably welcome my seeking out my mother at such a life-changing time, I skipped over the automatic dial to the bakery and pressed the button that would call my mother at her apartment in District 4. The phone rang twice before an automated voice announced that the person I was trying to reach was not present but that the call was being forwarded to the next most likely number she could be reached at.
I almost hung up when I realized the call would be ringing through to her office at the hospital because of old, deeply held suspicions I had about calls being monitored by the government. Telling myself I was just being paranoid, I swallowed my fear and gripped the receiver more tightly until I heard her voice on the other end.
"Katniss? What a nice surprise!" I could tell by her voice that she knew something must be up for me to be calling her without the usual "covert" pre-call from Peeta.
"Mom…uh, hi…" I said clearing my throat and trying to keep the anxiety out of my voice. "I'm sorry I called you at work, I…I can call back later or…or you can call me when you get home if you want…" I offered quickly and she clucked at me on the other end of the phone.
"No, no, it's fine. I'm just doing paperwork." She said and then laughed softly. "This was a much easier job when I didn't have to answer to anyone but myself and the only paperwork involved consisted of hand written instructions for when to apply salves, when to take medications…" I could hear the creak of her desk chair as she leaned back in it.
"What do you need? Is something the matter? Are you or Peeta sick?" she asked with the kind of concern that was a perfectly balanced fusion of mother and healer.
"No, no…well, nothing's wrong really, I just wondered if maybe you could run through that list of early pregnancy signs with me again." I rushed out in one breath. My mother said nothing at first so I let her stunned silence hang in the air for a long few moments and then continued. "I may have not been paying attention so well the last time you told me them and since it was like…6 months ago, I thought maybe I could use a refresher…" I cringed and wished I could just come out and tell her I thought I might be pregnant.
"Well…" She said after another beat where I didn't say anything more. "Why don't you tell me how you're feeling and we'll see if your symptoms match up with those of a newly pregnant woman? Hmm?" I could tell she was trying to keep her doctor hat on but the barely concealed excitement behind her words told me her mother hat was wrestling for control as well.
I rolled my eyes knowing full well she couldn't see me and explained about the heaviness and unusual tenderness of my breasts that I'd just noticed that morning.
"If I remember correctly, you've always complained about tenderness in your breasts just before your period. Have you noticed that it's more intense since you've been off of your birth control or about the same as when you were younger? Now think before you answer, Katniss because you might just not remember so well what it felt like. The birth control shot tends to mask the tenderness while you're on it." She asked and I told her it was definitely more intense and explained that it was bad enough that morning that I wasn't even able to put a bra on.
"How late is your cycle?" She asked next and I could hear paper shuffling and assumed she was jotting down a list of symptoms I was presenting.
"Five…" I said letting that hang in the air a moment and could have sworn I heard a quick intake of breath from the other end of the line.
"That's…quite a few days late." Mom admitted. "Two, three…even in some cases four wouldn't be that unusual but you're nearly a week late and you've always been very regular in that way." She said and I could hear the excitement creeping into her voice once more.
"Any nausea? Vomitting? Fatigue?" She asked and I thought back over the last month, shaking my head as I couldn't think of an incident of vomiting but nausea…
"No vomiting, but…well I thought maybe I'd finally overdosed on Peeta's cheese buns a week or two ago because I haven't been able to stand the smell of them much less eat a couple each morning like I usually do…" I confessed and then raised my free hand to my mouth as a laugh popped out unexpectedly.
"I think Peeta was really offended but he didn't say anything, just started making me loaves of pretty bland bread for toast recently. I guess as punishment for turning down my usual favorite breakfast item of his." I said and my mother laughed as well.
"Well, maybe his feelings won't be so hurt anymore when he learns it might not be you but his child that doesn't like his cheese buns." She said and I stopped laughing immediately.
"You really think so?" I asked quietly and chewed on my bottom lip nervously.
"Oh, Katniss…come now." She said with an impatient but amused sigh. "You're an intelligent, intuitive woman. Would you have called me if you hadn't already felt changes that led you to believe you might be pregnant?" She asked frankly and I sighed heavily and dropped back onto the bed, placing my free hand over my midsection.
Everything I'd been feeling in those past two weeks before I'd really given any notice to my missed period. The hightended sensitivity I'd been experiencing during sex, the shorter and shorter trips to the woods to hunt and the longer amount of time spent sleeping in on most mornings.
"No…" I grudgingly admitted and them took a deep, steadying breath and blew it out slowly. "So, what should I do? Should I go to the midwife and get a blood test?" I asked and shrugged slightly. "It's not like she isn't expecting it since I called and told her I wasn't getting my last shot when it was due…"
"We have home pregnancy tests here at the hospital. Obviously you could buy the same thing in town at the pharmacy but if you want to avoid the attention that would likely come with such a purchase, I would be happy to send a few in the mail to you." Mom offered and I frowned.
"A few? Wouldn't it take only one test to tell me if I'm pregnant or not?" I asked confused and found myself unconsciously rubbing my belly. I stopped when I realized what I was doing because I didn't want to get my hopes up. It was at that moment I realized I really did hope I was pregnant. I wanted to be carrying Peeta's baby more than I'd ever wanted anything in my adult life. I was so lost in that thought that I missed the beginning of my mother's explanation but luckily caught the most important part.
"You should take more than one test to be sure." She explained. "If I send them today you'll get them tomorrow afternoon and you can take one then. Morning urine is really the best for an accurate pregnancy test though so I want you to take one the next morning as well….and I'll put one extra in there just to be sure." She said and I could hear the smile in her voice.
"Thanks…I uh…I appreciate it." I said sitting up and touching my stomach again briefly because I just couldn't help it. "What do you think I should say to Peeta? Should I wait until I take the tests to tell him?" I asked feeling for a rare moment that I genuinely wanted her guidance.
There was a long silence where I could tell she was thinking over how to respond. Or sitting in wide-eyed shock because I'd asked her opinion on something for probably the first time in my life.
"I think…that if you're going to make that boy a father…" she began slowly and I had to fight a smile at her use of the word 'boy' when it had been quite some time since Peeta and I would have been referred to as a boy and a girl. "…then you should face this next great adventure the same way you've faced everything else since you were allies in the Hunger Games….together." She whispered the last word and I could hear the emotions she had to be experiencing at the idea of becoming the one thing she'd probably never expected to live long enough to be; a grandmother.
A quick replay of every challenge Peeta and I had met since shaking hands on the stage in front of the JusticeBuilding on reaping day passed through my mind and I knew she was right. We would face this challenge in the only way we knew how to do anything from that first trembling handshake on— as one.
I nodded slowly until I realized she couldn't see me doing so over the phone and then allowed myself a small smile before my reply. "Thanks, Mom." I said choking slightly on my own uncharacteristically strong emotions.
When my mother started to make her goodbyes I interrupted her with one last request for when she sent the tests to me.
"Certainly, Dear….what is it?" she asked when I told her there was just one more favor I had to ask her about the package she was going to send.
A smile stretched across my face and I shared my plan with her before hanging up with a promise to call her as soon as I knew the results.
Luckily Peeta was at the bakery straight through to dinner time and when he came home, he ate quickly and then asked if I minded if he went right up to bed. There had been a supply delivery from the Capitol scheduled for that day and he probably paid a few kids in town to help out like usual but it was still time consuming, physically tiring work so Peeta had a few kids from the town he kept on reserve. It gave the kids some spending money which they appreciated and taught them the value of hard work which their parents appreciated. But even with the extra help from the kids and from Peeta's apprentice at the time, it was hard work.
I never minded not seeing a lot of Peeta in a day when he had been working hard at the bakery and I minded it even less that day since I didn't want to accidentally give away my suspicions about being pregnant.
Besides, I was pretty damn tired myself despite not having done a whole lot more than cleaning up the living room, dining room and kitchen in the early part of the day and spending the rest of it curled up on the couch with the cat watching television before I made dinner.
"Mind if I turn in with you?" I asked at the bottom of the steps as Peeta stopped about halfway up and turned to look down at me when I reached the step he was on. I could tell just by his body language that he was dog tired and I hoped that meant he'd pass right out once he hit the mattress and I'd be able to conceal the mish mash of emotions I was trying very hard to keep at bay.
"Sure, I'm gonna get a shower first," he said and wrapped his arms around me when I leaned into him with my head on his chest and nuzzled him. I relaxed into the warmth of his body and inhaled the scent of various breads he made that day clinging to his shirt.
It was his own natural cologne and one of my favorite physical things about him. I had accidentally told him so once when Effie sent him a bottle of expensive cologne for his birthday one year and I had threated his life if he ever dreamed of using it since I felt it would overwhelm that scent I loved so much. Eau de Peeta…my favorite smell in the world.
"You wanna come in with me?" he asked and pecked a kiss on my lips. "I haven't seen you all day and I'm about to slip into zombie mode so if you want a few more minutes of coherency from me, you better get while the gettin's good…" he teased and rested his forehead against my neck just under my ear.
"That's okay." I said and chuckled when he pretended to snore against my shoulder before lifting his head and smiling sleepily down at me. "I'll wait for you in bed and we can catch up a little then." I promised and kissed him softly, patting his chest with both hands and then smoothing his white undershirt down over his firm chest.
I tried to look at him casually but I was sure, even as tired as he was, that Peeta could see the extra hint of 'gosh do I love you' in my eyes. He narrowed his own at me even as he smiled and I reached up and kissed him again, hoping to distract him.
"Kay," he murmured as he kissed me back and then turned, caught my hand warmly in his, and led me the rest of the way up the stairs and into our dark bedroom. I didn't bother turning on the main lights with the switch since we were just going to bed and instead squeezed Peeta's fingers once gently before he trudged off towards the bathroom.
"If I'm not out in 10 minutes, it's because I've fallen asleep in there." He called over his shoulder with a yawn and I rolled my eyes at the trail of clothes he left from the bedroom door into the bathroom once I turned on the small lamp on my side of the bed to change into my pajamas.
While I changed into a warm, long-sleeved flannel nightgown for the winter night I thought about how I was secretly relieved that he was so tired. Wide awake Peeta was pretty sharp when it came to subtle changes in my mood but over the years I learned that if he was exhausted, there could be a family of robins nesting on my head and he'd have trouble placing what was different about me. Unfortunately, exhaustion also sometimes led to nightmares and episode for both of us so I figured even if he did sense something and want to talk, I had a valid excuse for why we both should make sure we got at least 8 hours before any kind of discussion would take place.
I was pretty pleased with my plan until I heard the water turn off and my extremely good looking, extremely naked husband strolled back into the room.
As he emerged from the bathroom towel drying his hair into an adorable mess, I couldn't help the surge of attraction that coursed through me. It was like I noticed every little detail of his body like I was looking at him under a microscope.
The way his muscles rippled under his white skin that was streaked here and there with the scars from the explosion outside of Snow's mansion. Scars he'd received because he followed me into the mouth of hell determined to suffer whatever fate I'd suffer even though the last time he was in the Capitol before that he'd spent months being tortured because of me.
It also didn't help that he was naked and looked unlikely to remedy that when he tossed his towel into the hamper by the bathroom door and dropped heavily onto his side of the bed on his stomach with a grunt.
"Mmmm…my bed." He murmured huskily and climbed under the covers as he settled in to face me on his side.
I glanced over at him from where I lay on my back staring up at the ceiling and frowned because he looked even sexier laying beside me, the blankets covering just up to the place under his shoulder blade where smooth line of his defined latissimuss dorsi muscle bulged out. It looked like it was just begging me to reach out and stroke the curve of it.
The combination of his damp, touseled hair, the way the sheet fell across his back and the obvious comfort it brought him to be home in our bed together made it impossible for me to not at least reach out and rake his bangs back from his forehead with my fingertips.
"No sweats?" I asked clearing my throat around the girlish squeak and Peeta's eyes fluttered as I scratched his scalp.
"Mmm..nah," Peeta said and a slow grin spread across his face even as his eyes remained closed. "I figure you'll keep me warm enough in this…sexy getup, Grandma." He mumbled and reached out to lift the covers over me and opened his eyes a little to take in the full sight of my flowy throat to ankle flannel.
"Hey!" I laughed and slapped his shoulder before pulling the blankets back up over me. "It's cold and…and I like this nightgown, it's comfortable." I argued and scooted over onto my side of the mattress a little more.
Lucky for me, his ribbing about my choice of nightwear gave both my confidence and my libido a hit and I snuggled down into the covers to sleep with an annoyed huff. Peeta teasing me wasn't something I was usually too bothered by, but it seemed that my emotional sensitivity had increased along with the increased sensitivity of my body.
"Okay, okay…don't be so defensive." He chuckled and wrapped me in his arms like I was the most precious thing in his world. I smiled despite his teasing about my nightgown because I knew what he didn't; that he might already be holding the next most precious thing in his world as well when he was holding me.
"So did you wanna hear how my absolutely exciting, not boring at all, day of stocking our supply room with the help of ten-year-olds went?" Peeta asked from behind me where his head rested on my pillow.
"Mmm…that's okay…" I whispered and snuggled deeper into his arms. "We're both tired, we can talk in the morning." I said letting the heat from his shower-warmed body and the smell of his shampoo envelop me like his arms and draw me closer to sleep.
I reached out to turn off the bedside light and then placed one hand gently over my abdomen on top of my womb. Without possibly knowing why, Peeta's hand slid down to rest over mine. I turned my head without a word and his lips found mine in the dark.
"Good night, Katniss. I love you." He whispered and his lips brushed my cheek beside my mouth. I felt my face flush with warmth like it was the first time he'd ever said those words to me and then whispered them right back to him.
"I love you too. Good night, Peeta." I said and felt my heartbeat speed up slightly and another rush of warmth course through me, heating my cheeks once more. I snuggled back deeper into Peeta's arms and felt as safe and loved as I ever had in his embrace.
That night I fell asleep with a beautiful thought in my mind and slept straight through without a single nightmare until the sun was already well above the trees in the sky.
The thought that gave me such a peaceful rest? That perhaps the butterflies in my stomach, the flush of new love in my cheeks, and the way I was looking upon Peeta as if with new eyes that night, was the little soul of our child safe in my womb, saying hello to her father for the first time.
The next day was a Sunday so I woke to late morning sun in my eyes. Peeta's warm body was still draped over mine making me too warm. Well, maybe I was partly warm because of Peeta and partly warm because of the damned flannel tent I chose to wear to bed in an attempt to de-sexualize myself to Peeta and leave very little of my skin open to touching his.
I remember thinking that if I was pregnant and these were some of the crazy thoughts I was going to be having for the next nine months, it was going to be quite an adventure indeed.
"No nightmares…" Peeta whispered in my ear with a gruff voice. A little tingle went up my spine at his words because he'd said the same thing to me in my bed in the training center before we'd spent the day on the roof leading up to the quarter quell. His voice may have deepened and roughened with age but the happiness it held at knowing he'd successfully guarded my sleep the night before was just the same as that morning in the training center.
"No nightmares…" I confirmed and rolled to my back so that my neck was resting on the arm Peeta had stretched out along the length of my pillow. I sighed happily when he bent his arm and began to scratch his fingernails over my scalp between playing with my hair gently.
I turned my head to look into his face and found a good night sleep had done little to suppress my desire for him. Especially considering I knew he was still naked beneath the covers and a golden peppering of whiskers had sprouted on his face and neck overnight. Noticing his stubble in that way caused an old memory to surface briefly but it was gone as quickly as it came and I found I had to shake myself out of the daze when he started talking again. I sighed, annoyed with myself for not being able to recall exactly where that memory of noticing his stubble and the butterflies it released into my stomach came from.
"Me either, we must have both really been wrecked to sleep all the way through with no nightmares." He groaned through a stretch and turned over onto me with one arm still beneath my neck so that he was straddling my right leg. The move effectively pinned my left as well since his knee between both my legs was also pinning my nightgown to the mattress.
"Good thing we're both well rested for Sunday though, huh?" he teased propping himself up with his elbows on either side of my shoulders and twisting a few strands of hair around one finger as he looked hungrily down into my eyes. I didn't need to feel the stirring of his erection against my hip to know what he was hinting at after so many years together.
Aside from the cuddly but quick 'good morning' sex we usually had a few times a week before Peeta went off to the bakery, Sunday was when we got to devote the most time to relaxing and reconnecting with each other. The bakery was closed, I didn't hunt and by that point, we had forced Haymitch to observe at least that one day of sobriety so that we didn't need to be checking in on and feeding him like we did all the rest of the week.
"Mmm…yeah, good thing." I murmured, trying to keep the nerves I was feeling out of my voice as I wondered for the tenth time since I woke up when the package from my mother might land on our front step. Would the mail carrier just leave it there or would Peeta have to sign for it? Would they ring the bell? Take it over to Haymitch's if they thought no one was home?
Peeta was just lowering his lips to mine for a kiss which I hoped might lead to the loss of both clothes and hours until that package with the pregnancy tests would arrive, when he pulled back so that he was propped on his palms looking down at me. This put him higher above me on the mattress so that he could see my whole face better and he smiled but narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously.
"Hey…" he whispered and dropped onto his side, pulling me over into his arms and nuzzling his nose straight into the crook of my neck. It was something he did often that reminded me of the first time we'd crossed the line from friends to something more way back when we'd first returned to 12. Just like that, I knew what the memory was that seeing his stubble had stirred up inside of me minutes before when I was awoke.
The red X on the doorknob had only recently become a part of our lives and I was still having trouble adjusting to Peeta sleeping in another room when he was feeling an episode coming on.
I had woken up in the middle of the night about a month into using the red X as a warning to a horrible nightmare. I'd reached around beside me in bed and was devastated to find Peeta not there, but in the room across the hall with the little wooden letter on the doorknob. When I spotted it hanging on the door I felt as though it was mocking me. The red color of the X screaming loudly and cruelly, telling me I couldn't have the one thing I desperately needed.
I had tried the door anyway in my desperation but of course, it was locked. Peeta, half-mad already with whatever private Hell he was trapped in behind it, screamed terrible things at me for hours before I finally passed out in the hallway from the sheer exhaustion of sobbing so hard for so long.
When I woke after he'd put me to bed later that morning, I'd been surprised by the rush of erotic thoughts and feelings being wrapped so close and tight in his arms had stirred up inside of me. Feelings I hadn't really been in the right frame of mind since my return home to even recognize much less act on. I'd been holding onto my last shred of control trying to ignore them when Peeta had moaned softly and unconsciously rubbed his nose up and down the length of my carotid artery. We'd enoyed a few minutes of tender exploration before Haymitch and his empty stomach had interrupted us, but at least we had learned one thing from the encounter; we both absolutely still had real feelings for each other beyond what was pretended in the Hunger Games to stay alive.
The memories of that morning and the first shy kisses and touches that were motivated by curiosity and a renewed blossoming of real love, came rushing back to me on that winter morning as our lives were about to possibly change again with the results of the pregnancy tests arriving later that day.
I suspected that Peeta was purposefully reminding me of that day by rubbing his nose into the crook of my neck. His whispered 'Hey' hung in the air for a long time as he used the gentle caresses of his nose against my neck to try and lull me into spilling what was on my mind. This was a tactic he'd used many times in the past when he thought something was troubling me so I should have seen it coming, but I was distracted.
"Come on, Katniss…" he finally said when he pulled back slightly to look into my eyes again. The way he stared me down so casually but so confident in his ability to read me correctly made me shift my eyes guiltily away from his.
"I've known you for far too long to not know that you're distracted by something other than what I'd like you to be distracted by right now." He whispered and used the tip of the little chunk of my hair he was still playing with to tickle my nose. The action made me pop up onto my elbows with my chin lowered to my chest shyly and I sighed.
Peeta moved back so that he was sitting up straddling my hips and I dropped back onto the bed and rested my forearms along the length of the tops of his thighs through the sheets. I toyed with the edge of the sheet pooled at his bare hips and stared at his chest so that I didn't have to look in his face.
I really wanted the pregnancy tests to be a surprise. It was why I had asked my mother to send the package with Peeta's name on the front so that he would have to accept it when it was delivered.
Okay, so it was also because I thought it would be less conspicuous for the package to be shipped from the hospital to Peeta rather than to me. I was still leary of too much public exposure even though all the residents who'd returned to District 12 were very respectful, even protective of our privacy and the government mostly left us alone except for the yearly interviews we agreed to when the anniversary of the rebellion rolled around.
I kept staring at his chest, trying to avoid eye contact, when Peeta reached out with one hand and used the side of his pointer finger to gently tilt my chin up so that he could catch my eye again.
With him looking at me in such a way that he made me feel naked despite the full coverage nightgown I'd worn to bed, I was defenseless. Peeta was and always had been the type of person that even the simplest gaze from him penetrates every layer of emotional defense I've built up around my heart.
"I'm sorry, I am a little distracted," I admitted and bit my bottom lip, worrying it between my teeth as I tried to think of a cover story before the next question left my curious husband's mouth. It was times like that I really hated my lack of ability to think on my toes, especially when Peeta made doing so look so easy himself.
I felt lucky to have a few extra seconds to come up with something when he dropped back over onto his side of the bed and propped his head up on one arm so that he was looking over at me. I turned onto my side mirroring his position and let a slow, playful smile spread across my face.
"What? What is it?" Peeta asked as he smiled back at me. I was glad to see the hint of doubt I'd noticed in his eyes when he first recognized that something was going on disappear as he realized whatever I was keeping from him was a 'good secret'.
I smiled more widely and shook my head, laughing out loud when a sly smile took over his face and he reached across the mattress between us slowly with both hands. I didn't realize his goal until it was too late and he had gripped my hips, digging his thumbs into the sensitive flesh there and making me squeal with laughter. I grabbed him by his wrists to try and still his hands and he scoffed at my 'mortal weakness' but stopped to rib me some more.
"Come on, Kat! We don't keep secrets from each other, remember?" he asked widening his big blue eyes imploringly and tugging me over so that our foreheads were touching.
"It's a good secret," I whispered and released his wrists so that I could stroke the palm of one hand over his rough stubble. "and you'll know it by this afternoon so don't be such a baby." I teased and hoped he didn't catch the slight widening of my eyes when I realized I'd used the word 'baby'.
Idiot! I thought and leaned in to kiss him deeply, partly to cover for the snafu and partly to try and distract him again. I was feeling better than I had the day before and I wasn't nauseous just yet like I'd been lately when I began thinking about breakfast. I figured it was the best time to try and seduce him into forgetting what a secret even was until early afternoon.
Peeta melted into the kiss, his hands falling from where they still rested loosely at my waist to the backs of my knees where he gripped the bends in my legs hard with a low moan. He then pulled my lower body forward so that his erection slid between my legs to press insistently against the rapidly growing wetness we could both feel evel through the nightgown and my panties. I grabbed onto his biceps at the feeling and bit down hard on my bottom lip as I ran into a wall of sensations my body was having difficulty processing.
"Will I like this surprise?" he murmured even as his teeth nipped across my chin and up my jaw to my ear. Honestly, his persistence drove me crazy sometimes. When it was under the right circumstances, it was a major turn on but when it was to con information out of me, I found it kind of annoying.
I rolled my eyes when I'd finally puzzled out what he'd said through the fog of overwhelming sexual pleasure and raised one arm to wrap around his broad shoulders. The other slid down between us to hike up the front of my nightgown. His straining erection made contact with my soaked panties and Peeta gasped and slid one hand up the back of my leg to squeeze my ass. I hoped it was enough to shut him up for the time being.
"Yes…" I whispered impatiently and moved the hand between us to his back where I trailed my nails up and down the column of his spine sensually. I smiled when his hips bucked forward into mine and he roughly rubbed his shaft against the heat seeping through my underwear.
"Ahh…fuck, Katniss...You're so ready…" Peeta groaned and I chuckled as his hips began to move like he was already inside me. The chuckle turned to a moan when the rocking of his hips put the ridge on the underside of the head of his penis in direct contact with my clitoris. A jolt of pleasure rippled through me like the bolts of lightning Peeta and I watched on the back porch during summer thunder storms.
"So what is it?" he asked when my body bowed against his, probably thinking that he'd be able to get me to loosen my lips once he'd loosened…other things up. I laughed again as I threaded my fingers through his hair which was getting sweatier by the second and Peeta laughed too.
"It's just something I ordered for you, it'll be here today so stop bothering me about it and get me off!" I scolded through a cry of intense pleasure and gasped when both of his hands slid quickly up to my hips beneath the nightgown. He whispered 'okay' and then seemed happy enough to let the subject drop.
I figured he might have assumed it was something painting related since I was constantly buying the best and newest supplies for him as quickly as they could be made. Aside from when he was with me, painting was when Peeta was at his most relaxed and I could never pass up a chance to pick up a new type of brush or type of canvas if I was sure it was one he didn't have.
He hooked his pointer fingers into the top edge of my panties on either side of my hips and tugged them down, his hands shaking in excitement as he rushed to catch my level of undress up to his.
"Love you…" He sighed against my lips as he tossed my underwear aside and pushed the nightgown further up my body, smiling when he reached my armpits and I lifted my arms over my head for him to pull it the rest of the way off.
"I love you too, Peet." I said looking up at him with probably a little more emotion than usual since I was pretty sure even without a test telling me so that I was carrying his child. It wasn't until that moment that I realized what people meant by 'mother's intuition', but I somehow instinctively knew this is what I was experiencing.
I always thought Peeta was attractive, but he seemed incandescent at that moment. Like the sunset he loved so much was peeking over the horizon of his soul and shining out at me from behind those eyes. Those eyes that had seen me at my absolute worst each time I reached a point I'd thought was my lowest only to have it eclipsed by another deeper horror. He was there for them all and I figured that if I was extraordinarily lucky, he'd be there for all the highs and lows to come until I took my final breath.
I took a moment as Peeta tossed the gown aside from where he was sitting up straddling me once more to look him over and appreciate the journey from where we'd come to where we were. I looked into his eyes that were older than the rest of his face gave away after all we'd been through. That they could hold any happiness at all after the loss and pain they'd seen was something I'd always be amazed by. The fact that this happiness was, at that moment, focused on me was something I could hardly comprehend sometimes.
I smiled up at him adoringly and reached out a hand to stroke from his cheek down his neck over the burn scars that had faded but which he would never fully be rid of. We'd both been offered and had turned down full body polishes a year or so after our return to 12. The Capitol doctors were baffled by our refusal to have the many scars we'd collected from the Quarter Quell arena on, but Dr. Aurelius had been kind enough to explain to them that we saw those scars as badges of honor. We'd earned each one in blood, sweat and tears. We would never forget how and why we'd gotten them so why remove them from our skin when they could never be removed from our souls?
My hand slid next to the muscular curve of his shoulder and follwed the slope down to the inner part of his elbow which I pressed my fingertips to over the pulse point there. I reveled in the heavy thrumming of his heartbeat I felt there that not only assured me his heart was beating, but that the excitement he felt when we made love was just as strong nearly 15 years into our relationship as it was that first year.
"Come'ere…" I whispered reverently and reached up to thread my fingers through the back of Peeta's shaggy hair, tugging on it just hard enough to make him let him know where I wanted his lips. Peeta shifted back a little so that his tip was poised at my opening and I spread my legs a bit to let him settle his hips more comfortably in the place they'd always fit so perfectly.
He smiled playfully and raised an eyebrow at me as he bent down to capture my lips while pushing into me in one hard thrust. I tried to smother the little cry of pain that left my mouth by thrusting my tongue into Peeta's, but either I wasn't quick enough or Peeta felt the resistence of my body as he entered me because he pulled his face back from our kiss and looked down at me wide-eyed.
"Shit!" he gasped and stilled his hips at the end of the thrust as my legs tightened instinctively around the backs of his thighs at the unusually painful feeling. "I'm sorry! Shit!" He said as I gripped his upper arms and shook my head while trying to catch my breath. "Do you want me to pull out?" he said holding my head in his hands and tilted his chin down to try desperately to catch my eye.
"No, no…just…give me a second…" I hissed and tried to tell my body to relax. It certainly wasn't the hardest Peeta had ever thrust into me. In our younger years we had some pretty intense, almost rough sexual encounters which we'd found mutually enjoyable and truth be told, pretty damn hot. There were times we'd fallen off the side of the bed and just kept going because we were so in the moment, but I'd never complained or felt such over stimulation before during our love making.
I knew I was testing the limits of Peeta's control as I watched his face contort with the effort to remain still while I took deep, steadying breaths.
"Katniss…" he started to say and I gripped his sides hard when I felt him trying to pull out of me cautiously.
"I'm really okay, I just needed a second but I'm…I'm fine now, go head." I tried to sound convincing but sensed I fell a little short of that goal when Peeta started moving very slowly and shallowly as if he was afraid I might break in half.
I tried to move my hips against his to force him deeper, but all I did was manage to move the wrong way again, causing another sharp stab of pain inside of me and another yelp to cement Peeta's resolve not to go on with it any longer.
Peeta huffed impatiently and held my arms to the mattress so that I couldn't grab onto him again and then sat back on his heels and pulled out of me completely. "Kat, this is ridiculous, obviously something is wrong…" He insisted and scratched the back of his head shyly as his cheeks reddened.
"Did…could you have left a tampon in accidentally?" he mumbled and glanced off to the side. "It's not like we haven't made that mistake a time or…three before…" he said and tried to laugh a little as I sat up against the pillows and shook my head.
"No, no…that's…that's definitely not it…" I mumbled back and took his hands where they were resting on his thighs as he straddled mine cautiously.
"Maybe if we change positions and I'm on top?" I offered and Peeta didn't need to be told twice. He quickly moved to his side of the bed leaning back against the headboard and took himself in hand as I climbed over to straddle his hips.
"Just take it slow…" Peeta said and smiled sweetly at me. "I've got nowhere to be today except right here with you, sweetheart." He whispered and I reached out with both hands to run my fingers through his hair as I bit my bottom lip and smiled at him shyly.
I scratched my short nails over his scalp gently and leaned in to kiss him as I glanced down to line my hips up with his. Peeta stroked his length a few times and I assumed it was to relive a little bit of the pressure building deep in his belly like he told me it did whenever we were about to make love.
I waited until his hand fell away and he dropped his head back against the headboard of our bed before I slowly lowered myself onto him. I was pleased to find that controlling how much of him I took in at a time felt a lot better and with the angle of penetration changed, the sensitive spot Peeta had been hitting before was no longer an issue.
"You alright?" Peeta asked once he was fully inside of me and I had dropped my face into the crook of his neck breathing heavily. I brought my arms up under his to rest on flat on his back against the pillows.
"Uh huh…much better…" I sighed and chuckled softly as Peeta's arms came up slowly and he gripped my waist in both hands. Just from the way he was loosely gripping my waist I knew he was doing it to have some part of me to hold on to and not because he wamted to try and take over. It was just another way that Peeta showed he respected my needs while still letting me know how much he wanted to be close to me and I felt my heart (and other parts of my body) swell for him.
"Uhn…Katniss!" He cried out and I realized my internal muscles had clamped down on him as I was thinking about how much I loved him for the tenderness he always showed me when I needed it. His cry was one of pleasure and not pain like my earlier cries had been and I smiled, pleased with myself for how quickly I was causing him to unravel.
I started to move slowly but steadily on top of him, at some moments rolling my hips over his so that he made only shallow little movements inside of me and I felt his penis swell with the building pressure. At other times I put my knees into the mattress around his hips and bounced slowly, letting more and more of him slide out of me with each time I reared up on my knees and finally reached behind me to fondle his scrotum just the way he liked between thrusts.
I was so caught up in watching the waves of pleasure course through him that I forgot when we usually did this and I reached for his sac that was his cue to pay attention to my breasts. I threw my head back and closed my eyes when I felt my orgasm starting to build in the pit of my stomach, the little ripples of warmth going through me slowly turning into waves. I was so lost in my own building pleasure that I forgot about this usual trend in our love making until Peeta's hands came up to lightly grab each breast in the V of his hands and it felt like they'd been clamped between the two sides of a vice.
"Ow! Ow! Ow!" I whimpered and both of my hands snapped to his wrists, gripping them tighthly as we both froze our positions again. Peeta's was so surprised by my crying out in pain again that his head snapped back from where his chin had been pressed into his chest as he moaned in pleasure while I was touching him and he cracked his head on the sturdy pine headboard. Hard.
"OW!" He yelped at a similar octave to the cries of pain I was making a few seconds before and then seemed unsure of whether he wanted to laugh or cry when I placed both of my hands on the back of his head and rubbed where he'd hit it.
He pressed his forehead into my neck and I shushed him between making apologies for ruining the moment yet again. "For fuck's sake, Katniss…what's going on?" He said and I couldn't help laughing softly at the muffled anger in his voice as he spoke into my collar bone beneath the layers of my tangled hair.
"Shit, Peeta! I'm so sorry…" I said trying to keep from laughing and finding it almost impossible. "I'm just….you see the problem is…my body is really…" I stammered slightly, looking for the right words without giving too much away. "…sensitive right now…" I rocked him in my arms gently until the discomfort of his rapidly deflating erection got to be too much and I climbed off of his lap. I moved to lie back against my pillows, tugged him over to rest with his head on my abdomen and continued stroking my fingers through his hair soothingly, hoping to help calm him down.
"Wh…what do you mean? Like…sensitive like it is before your…period?" he asked lifting his head to look into my face with eyes that begged for an explanation as to why he was going to spend the rest of the day with blue balls.
I tried again not to laugh at his usual discomfort with talking about my menstrual cycle and nodded slowly. "Um…kind of…kind of like that, yes." I said and Peeta adjusted his position, moving to lie on his stomach and resettling his head on my abdomen so that he was looking at me.
Neither of us bothered with pulling covers over ourselves as the heating system paired with the bright late-morning sunlight streaming in the windows was keeping us warm despite the cold outside.
"Ughhh!" Peeta groaned and turned to press his forehead against my flat belly gently before lifting his head all the way up and turning his gaze back to me. "Well when is it due? I…I thought you usually get it the beginning of the week like…Tuesday, is it due this coming Tuesday? This seems kinda later than usual for y…" he trailed off when I bit my lip again and his eyes widened when he noticed the twinkle in my eye and the way I couldn't keep from smiling for a second longer.
"Wait…wha…did you not get your period? Are you late? You're late aren't you?" He asked rapid fire and popped up onto his hands and knees and scrambled over to straddle my thighs again. I almost started laughing at the shocked look on his face as he leaned in towards me, naked as the day he was born and begging me with his eyes to confirm what he seemed to already have guessed at.
"I'm late…" I whispered in the stillness of the room and shrugged my shoulders slightly as I felt my eyes filling up with happy tears. "Six days now…" I whispered hoarsely and Peeta's jaw almost dropped to my body beneath him. His right hand went into his hair and he combed it through his bangs a few times like he's always done when he was nervous.
"Six days?! Th…th…that's a lot for you isn't it?" he asked and I nodded and sat up a little better against my propped pillows.
"It is…which is why I called my mom yesterday and why she felt it was suspicious enough that she sent me…or you, I should say, a couple of home pregnancy tests in the mail…" I smiled and took his hands in mine beside me on the mattress and squeezed them gently.
A range of emotions, all pleasant thankfully, passed over Peeta's face as he took in the implications of what I was saying and I saw the real, honest to goodness hope I'd been waiting to see in my husband's eyes since I first agreed to have his children. I decided right that moment that if I had to deal with mood swings, an over sensitive body, and a general feeling of nausea for the better part of the next year, it was all going to be worth it just to see another little piece of the happiness we'd been denied for so much of our lives restored to him.
And to me. Seeing Peeta's reaction to the possibility of a baby at a time when we had planned it and were both equally excited about it made me more excited than I thought I had the capacity for after all the loss I'd experienced.
"My surprise?" He asked looking down at his right hand entwined with my left and ran his thumb over my wedding ring gently. When he raised his eyes back to mine I saw the same happy tears that were now streaming down my cheeks preparing to do the same to his as they welled up in his eyes.
"Surprise!" I laughed tearily and brought our joined hands to my lips and kissed his knuckles. Peeta laughed as well, the tears spilling over his lower lids finally as the laugh raised his cheekbones and sent them racing down his cheeks where they got caught in that stubble I had been admiring prior to our sexual debacle.
"So..so when is the package coming? When can we find out?" He asked tugging me forward into his arms and hugging me close. "And why the hell didn't you tell me before we…" he cringed before continuing through a hearty laugh, "….almost completely ruined this perfect day with some of the worst sex of our lives?" he asked smoothing my hair back and we both laughed together.
"I'm sorry…" I groaned and tucked my head under his chin as we held each other comfortably. "…I just wanted it to be a surprise…and well, we don't really know for sure that I even am pregnant yet so I didn't want to make a big deal of it if I wasn't…" I sighed and relaxed into Peeta's arms more when he started lightly scratching my back in circles.
"Katniss…you stopped eating cheese buns like, two weeks ago…" he said after we'd been quiet almost a full minute. "If that isn't a sure sign that you're pregnant, then I don't know what is…" he laughed and kissed the top of my head gently.
"I know, I'm sorry….that hurt your feelings didn't it?" I asked pulling back from his arms to look into his eyes and stroked his cheek with the back of one hand.
Peeta smiled and shook his head, placing his hand over top of mine on his face and guiding it to his lips where he kissed my knuckles as gently as I had his.
"So…what do we do now?" He asked dropping his eyes to my middle and reaching out a cautious hand to place his palm flat over the place where our baby could be. I almost didn't hear his question because I was enjoying watching him stare lovingly at my abdomen, but I did hear it and I settled back down into the bed and patted the space beside me.
Peeta took the hint and reached down for the covers which he pulled back over us as we snuggled up together in bed.
I took the opportunity to think over what our next move would be as Peeta fixed the blankets around us and his hand fell to rest over my belly where he began to stroke the strip of skin between my navel and where my pubic hair began. I dropped the hand with my rings over top of his and let him move both of our hands as he continued to idly caress my abdomen.
"Well…" I said and settled my head on his shoulder with a sigh. "We see what the home tests say and then we go to the midwife to have the pregnancy confirmed if the tests all come up positive." I explained and Peeta chuckled.
"How many tests do you have to take to tell you if you're pregnant or not?" He asked, amused. "Isn't it a 'yes' or 'no' and that's it kind of a situation or is there like a... 'maybe' option on those things?" he joked and I chuckled too.
"It's a 'yes' or a 'no' but my mom said I should take the tests at different times of the day because of…hormone fluxuations or something..." I explained and felt Peeta nod.
"So how far along do you think you might be?" He asked softly and I shrugged.
"If I am pregnant, we won't know the date I conceived until we see the midwife." I said before we lapsed into comfortable silence for a short time.
"I hope it wasn't when we had sex on the island at the bakery a few weeks ago…we did some weird stuff to each other that night…" Peeta said breaking the silence in the way only he can. I pulled free one of my pillows that we were both resting on to thump him over the head with it playfully, but he deflected it at the last second and rubbed his nose up and down my neck with a soft laugh.
I was instantly powerless to his charms and had to settle for sighing, exasperated and taking his hand to place it on my belly again. "You are so gross..." I groaned and Peeta caught my lips in a slow, deep kiss to make up for the offense.
"Sorry, sorry…" he laughed when we separated and smiled as he looked adoringly at me. "I'll stop, I promise…" he said clearing his throat and slid his hand up my body, between my breasts and grabbed onto the little pearl hanging from my necklace and toyed with it. "And even if that does turn out to be the night you conceived…our baby…" he paused momentarily and I felt a chill run up my spine at the awe in his voice as he said those words. Our baby.
"Then it will be known forever more, just between the two of us, as the greatest thing I ever made in that bakery…" he grinned and leaned in to press a soft kiss to the pearl before setting it back in the space between my collar bones.
As weird of a statement as that was, it was also one of the sweetest, most wonderful things he'd ever said. I took the pearl in my fingers next and pressed my own soft kiss to it, this time not pretending that it was Peeta's lips, but imagining it was the tiny, wrinkly lips of a newborn.
We were only cuddling for a little while when there was a knock at the door downstairs and Peeta almost broke his neck trying to attach his leg while simultaneously trying to pull on and tie his robe.
"I'll get it." He said trying to play it cool as he ran a hand through his hair a few times and hurried off out the door and down the steps as fast as his prosthetic leg would allow. I laughed and shook my head as I climbed out of bed and pulled my own warm winter robe on and headed into the bathroom to brush my hair.
I stood in front of the mirror teasing out the snarls here and there and listening for Peeta to come rushing back in with the tests in hand. I looked at the woman staring back at me in the mirror and almost didn't recognize her. She had the same mouth and eyes and ears as me, but she seemed to have more color in her cheeks and the perfectly balanced mixture of extreme happiness and tremendous fear in her eyes was something altogether new.
For lack of a better word, she looked…grown up. I turned to the side and looked at the profile of my body. I was still fairly slender but if I took in a deep breath and forced my stomach muscles out just right…I could almost see what it would look like a few months along and…
"Hey…feel like taking a test?" Peeta asked, startling me out of my little guess-timation of what my pregnant self would look like. When I frowned at his 'gotcha' grin at having found me simulating a pregnant belly, he held up three little sticks in a fan shape and wagged his eyebrows as he strode over to me at the sink. "There's only one question so it's pretty easy…" he teased and placed two of the tests on the sink and handed me the third.
I looked at the little stick, so simple looking but capable of changing mine and Peeta's life together with whatever appeared on the tiny screen on the wider end of it. "Mom said that my morning urine is the best and I haven't peed yet since we slept in so…this should do it I guess." I said and moved over to the toilet, reaching under my robe with the test as I squatted and Peeta hopped up to sit on the edge of the sink to wait.
I wrapped it in toilet paper and handed it to Peeta while I finished up and then moved over to lean against the counter beside him with the test resting on the sink between us.
It only took a minute or two for the results but even in that short amount of time a thousand memories flashed through my mind. Teaching Peeta to swim; throwing grapes into each other's mouthes from lounge chairs at opposite ends of the porch as we relaxed on a summer night after dinner; losing our virginity to each other; losing our hearts to each other anew each time Peeta emerged from a door with the red x hanging on it; dancing together in the kitchen on Sunday mornings with the smell of bacon and cheese buns hanging in the air.
My happy daydreaming lasted as far as the cheese buns before my stomach turned and I closed my eyes to fight off the wave of nausea just as the timer on the test beeped.
I opened my eyes and glanced sideways at Peeta only to find him giving me the same excited slash terrified look I saw in my own eyes in the mirror while he was getting the tests downstairs.
We held each other's gaze steadily and I got the sense that Peeta needed me to be the one to break and look first. It was as if it would somehow reassure him that I wanted this as badly as he did and so I dropped my eyes first and looked down at the test still covered with the piece of toilet paper to do just that.
I heard Peeta's shaky sigh as I reached out to flip back the paper and his eyes fell on the digital read out at the same time as mine.
We stared at it together, each knowing that the other was learning our fate at the same time and trying to decide what was going on in the mind of our spouse. Barely a minute had passed when I sensed Peeta leaning over the test towards me and I lifted my chin just as his lips came down on mine as gently as our first tender cave kiss in our first Games.
I kissed him back and brought my arms up to loop them around his neck, deepening the kiss and laughing softly when I felt him smile against my lips.
"Hey, Peeta?" I whispered and rested my forehead to his but kept my arms draped over his shoulders behind his head.
"Yeah?" he asked in a voice so choked with emotion that I felt control of my own emotions slipping quickly from the grasp I barely had on them.
"We're going to have a baby. Real or not real?" I whispered in the tiny space between our faces and Peeta picked up the test and held it out towards the door so that the bathroom light was illuminating the word 'pregnant' spelled out across the screen for us both to see clearly.
"Real, Katniss…if this little thing is right…real." He said and hopped off of the counter even as he turned and scooped me up easily in his arms since I still had mine around his neck.
I laughed as he spun us both in a circle hooting and hollering excitedly and until that wave of nausea swept over me again and I placed one hand flat on his chest and the other over my mouth. Peeta screeched to a halt in the middle of a spin.
"Oh jeez, sorry! Sorry!" Peeta said placing me on the counter gingerly and stepping between my knees. He placed his hands on my back over my robe and gently rubbed to try and soothe me.
"Shit…" he said and laughed heartily as I took deep, cleasing breaths to settle my stomach and tried to smile at his doting on me already. "I'm sorry…there's going to be a..uh..a learning curve here for me." He said and I raised my eyebrows when I felt the nausea pass finally.
"Just for you?" I asked and rubbed my stomach in small circles. "How many times do you think I've been pregnant before, dummy?" I laughed and Peeta grinned and dropped to his knees in front of me, putting his face right in line with my belly that held our future.
"So…" He said sternly, trying out his 'Dad' voice for the first time. "Don't like cheese buns huh?" He asked eyeing my belly skeptically and placing his cheek to the soft flannel of the robe there just above the knot in the tie around my waist. I stroked both hands down the back of his head, marveling at how ready he obviously was to be a father only minutes after he'd learned he was to be one.
"We'll have to talk about that…" he grumbled and held onto my hips as he eyed my belly with a playfully suspicious smile.
I laughed, jostling Peeta's head even as I continued stroking my fingers through his hair and he nuzzled me again as close to our child as he could get.