"She's alive. You know that, right?" Haymitch's gruff voice sounded from the doorway.
Warm candlelight flickered on her face as Cato sat staring at Katniss. By the time they found her, she was barely conscious. She had managed her way to the spot by the fence where Cato had collapsed after the announcement. Her hair had been covered with frost, her feet and hands ice cold, her lips a pale blue, and Cato was wracked with fear once more. Her mother had spent hours wrapping her in blankets and placing her hands and feet in warm water. An hour before she finally woke up, 2 hours until her body temperature was back to normal, and 3 hours spent avoiding the topic of the quell.
It shouldn't be so hard to keep one person alive.
"I know that." He answered the man.
"Then you should get some sleep." Haymitch answered as he took the seat next to the bed.
Cato just shook his head.
"She's fine. I'll watch her. Go to bed." The man continued.
"I can't." Cato answered.
Haymitch, for once, didn't seem to know what to say. Cato understood the feeling. He had no idea what to say, what to feel, what to think. Trying to figure it out right now would be impossible. He knew he couldn't sleep without seeing the image of her collapsed in the snow. It was stuck in his head like a bad smell. Even more than that, all he could think about was the sound of a cannon.
"I haven't been able to sleep since the arena. Not really." The words came out of his mouth before he knew what he was doing. "It's better when Katniss is here… but it's like every time I close my eyes, I'm at the bottom of that tree looking up at her. I'm watching the poison spread through her body in that cave. I'm watching those mutts drag her away."
He flinched at the memory, the words still pouring from him; "I'm awake. I sit here awake, and I just watch her breathe. It's like if I look away for even a moment; she will stop. And now- now they want her back in an arena."
"She's stronger than you think she is, kid." Haymitch finally spoke.
"Of course, she's strong. I know that. She would have my head if I dared to think any differently." He scoffed, "I'm saying that I'm not."
Not strong enough to beat Snow.
Not strong enough to survive another arena.
Not strong enough to keep her safe.
Why didn't I just keep my mouth shut and play the part?
I knew the consequences. I knew what would happen.
I knew better.
Haymitch's voice cut through his thoughts, "That's bullshit, and you know it."
"It's not. I spent my entire life playing the part. Pretending to be this monster, every inch the typical career." He shook his head, "I don't know. Maybe it's her. The second I saw her, it was like I was incapable of pretending. I had to know her and look where it got us."
"There is no way you could have guessed that this was how it would turn out. You can't blame yourself," Haymitch argued.
"But it is my fault. If I had just stayed away, kept her safe from a distance, and sacrificed myself as I planned- none of this would be happening. I was selfish and weak. And then, when we both got out of there alive, I couldn't go back. I didn't have it in me to play the part anymore. Everyone would be safe if I had just done what he said." He felt his heart shatter as he finally admitted it out loud.
"Are you fucking blind?" Haymitch's voice was louder now, "Do you really not see all of the good that has come from this? For Katniss? Brutus? Your family? Fuck, even me?"
Something seemed to snap in the man as he continued, "Do you truly think we would all be better off if you were dead? You saved all of us time and time again. Not to mention, you woke the country up to the depravity going on around them. They're fighting back because of you. And you have the nerve to sit here and say that shit to me?"
"I'm sorry," Cato replied out of habit.
"You're damn right; you're sorry. You better fucking be sorry. You can sit here and wallow in self-pity until the sky falls, but you will never say some stupid shit like that to me ever again." The man spat.
His eyes drifted back to Katniss, the guilt now replaced with shame. She was still sleeping soundly, the covers tucked around her. He'd never be used to how love filled him as he stared at his wife.
I'll never know what I did to deserve this.
This family.
This love.
If I die in this arena, saving them will have been worth it.
"Brutus thinks there might be something the rebellion can do." He changed the subject.
"I thought the same thing. Don't worry about that for now; just let me handle it. Go to bed." Haymitch answered.
"I told you, I can't" Cato frowned.
"You need to get up tomorrow and be ready to train. If you two are going in that arena, you will be prepared. You'll teach Katniss everything you know. She'll teach you everything she knows. I will have Evelyn make a diet for the two of you to put on as much muscle as possible; we'll be careers. Nobody is going to sit and wallow and accept their death. So, you need to go to bed." He answered.
"What about you?" Cato asked.
Haymitch ran a hand over his face, "You and I both know I am not going in. You'd never allow it, as much as I wish you would."
A lump formed in Cato's throat at the man's words, and he knew that nothing he could say would be enough. He would never have the eloquence to thank the man next to him for always knowing the exact right thing to say. For knowing him well enough not to argue about his plan to save Katniss, for the unspoken words that the man would take care of his mother and sister after he was gone. So, he said nothing and just slipped into bed next to Katniss. He expected the man to leave as soon as he did so, but Haymitch kept sitting in the chair; his eyes trained on Katniss's sleeping form.
"I'm okay. I'm going to sleep. I can feel her breathing." He reassured the man.
A wry smile lit up Haymitch's face, "You know, not everything is about you, kid. You and her are the closest I'll ever get to kids of my own, so why don't you just shut the hell up and go to bed while I sit here and think about my kids going back into an arena."
Cato opened his mouth to answer but thought better of it. Instead, he just pulled Katniss to his chest and closed his eyes.
Time seemed to go by faster than Katniss could keep up with it.
And they never talked about it.
Haymitch drug her and Cato out of bed the morning after the reading of the card with zero sympathies for the fact that she was recovering from hypothermia. He forced breakfast down her throat and immediately laid out a training schedule. She expected Cato to object, to say he didn't want to waste what could be their last few months alive constantly training, or to at least try to get Haymitch to lessen the schedule.
But he never did.
So, they trained. Day in and day out, they ran through the district. They did combat drills. Haymitch enlisted Gale to come over and train with Cato since she was too small to take the full force of his hits. They ate the special diet that her mother laid out for them. Mila ordered a weight set from the capitol, and they spent their mornings lifting barbells.
The fence shut off when the weather warmed, and the peacekeeper's presence lessened in the district. The minute she realized the woods were safe again, she dragged Cato out to practice his archery skills. He built a fake sword out of wood and taught her to swing it. They practiced with all sorts of makeshift weapons until their hands were covered in bloody blisters. Throwing knives, spears, axes, Cato knew how to wield them all effortlessly. It was like muscle memory for him. Still, he never came close to her level of archery prowess. His prosthetic eye made it more difficult to aim, and he lacked the fluid grace needed to use a bow in short-range fighting as well. Katniss spent much of her time teasing him about how much better she was than him.
They pretended nothing was wrong, as if they were training just for the sake of it. They teased each other like normal. They flirted as they ran together, laughed at Haymitch's constant serious tone, and ate dinner with their families and the Hawthorne's as if it was any other Sunday and they had all the time in the world. The black cloud returned over their heads only when they went home for the day. To escape it, they lost themselves in each other every night. They had learned every inch of each other's bodies, like a practiced symphony that went perfectly every night. And then, every night, Katniss lay awake and listened to his heart beating in his chest until exhaustion finally took over. She memorized the sound, each pitfall and moment of silence, and begged whatever higher power existed in the world that it would never stop.
But she knew better.
Pretending was easier than facing the stone-cold reality heading her way. She knew, with every inch of her body and soul, that soon, one or both of them would die. Laughing in the woods while Cato struggled to hit a sloppily painted bullseye was easier than confronting the fact that Cato was dead set on dying to keep her alive. Watching Gale struggle against Cato's quick movement in combat training was easier than accepting that she was about to go into an arena designed to kill her. Throwing a barbell over her head was easier than talking about the fact that she knew her competitors were other victors just like her.
But the pretending was over.
It had to be.
I never wanted this.
I never wanted this.
She was sitting at the kitchen table two weeks before the reaping. Cato sat across from her, an indescribable look on his face. She had gone over to Haymitch's early this morning to tell him they couldn't train this morning. He was pissed until she told him what she had just told Cato. And then his face fell, and she would have sworn she saw a tear in his eye before the door shut in her face. The weather was warm and sunny, the beginnings of the summer heat creeping in through the open window. Breakfast sat still steaming on the stove, a cup of warm tea in her hand.
Between them was a positive pregnancy test.
She had to beg Prim to steal one from her mother's medicine cabinet after realizing she had missed her period for two months. She wrote it off the first month as the changes in her muscle mass and all the running. Then she started to throw up every morning after their runs. She choked that up to exhaustion but still hid it from him. Her boobs had nearly doubled in size, but she figured it was just the diet. She knew something was wrong when she missed the second period in a row. It was humiliating, asking this of her baby sister. Prim was sworn to secrecy, but not before Katniss simultaneously saw the excitement and heartbreak bloom in the girl's eyes.
She took the test in the dead of night. Sneaking out of Cato's arms and into the bathroom at three am. Her hands gripped the cold porcelain of the counter as she begged for it to be negative. She stuffed a towel in her mouth and screamed until her throat went raw when it was positive.
I never wanted this.
I never wanted this.
"I'm so sorry." Her voice cracked as she said it.
He didn't move. Still as a statue, his eyes were trained on the test before him. She didn't need to look at his hands to know they were clenched tight enough to draw blood. She thought she could read him like a book but couldn't make anything out right now. His face was blank.
"Cato?" She asked.
He took a deep breath, shutting his eyes briefly as he sat up straight. She waited for something to come out of his mouth, but his eyes flicked open, and nothing happened. He just stared at her. The silence stretching between them felt like a bullet to her chest.
"Say something." She begged.
His mouth twitched in a frown, "I don't know what to say."
I never wanted this.
Her heart twisted in her chest at the thought of it. A baby. Innocent and pure. Half of her and half of Cato. Maybe in a different world, one less cruel than this. Perhaps if she had some time to prepare herself. Maybe if she wasn't about to go into an arena.
I could have wanted this.
I could have been happy right now.
I could have watched his face light up instead of begging him to say something.
But not like this, not right now.
"Say anything." She answered.
He winced, his head falling into his hand as he sighed.
"We're about to die. We're going into an arena. Odds are we won't make it out, and I'm pregnant. "She finally broke their world of pretending.
"You're not going to die, Katniss." His eyes finally lifted to meet hers.
"You don't know that. You can't know that." She frowned at him.
"Do you honestly think I would ever allow my wife and child to die in an arena?" His jaw clenched, "Do you not know me at all, or do you just have no faith in me?"
"There are things that even you can't protect me from, Cato. And I don't want to be protected. I wanted you to be the one who lived!" Tears welled up in her eyes as she spoke.
"I was never going to be the one who lived, Katniss." He answered.
The tears started to fall.
"Cato-"She started to say.
"No. It was never going to be me. I couldn't live with myself if I let you die for me." His voice was shaking.
"And you think I can?" She spat.
"You can and you will. You don't have another choice. You have to, for the baby." His hands were shaking on the table.
"I never wanted this, Cato." She slammed her hands down on the table, "I never fucking wanted this. I can't lose you."
Like an overwhelmed dam, she broke. She was sure her heart shattered beyond repair the night the quell was announced, but now she knew it never had. It had only cracked.
This is what it feels like to have your heart shatter in your chest.
Cato was out of his chair and kneeling in front of her in a heartbeat. Before she knew it, she was wrapped in his arms. Soothing words were whispered in her ear, his hand running soft circles over her back, the pain melting away at his touch.
I fucking hate myself for becoming so reliant.
"I never wanted a kid." She cried into his shoulder.
She felt him scoff against her, "It's a little late for that now."
"Shut up." She said through her tears.
"We do have a lot of sex, Katniss. I don't know why neither of us thought about this." He shook his head.
"I did. My mom gave me some special tea to drink to prevent it months ago." She whined.
"That's what that is?" He looked at the jar of tea over her shoulder, "I can't remember a day where you didn't drink it. Except for yesterday."
"She should adjust her formula. Clearly, it doesn't work for shit." She pulled back from him, wiping her eyes.
Finally, a smile cracked his face. His eyes were watery, but she recognized this look on his face. It was the same one he wore at their toasting.
Joy.
"I'm going to be a father." He spoke.
Then, the pain was back.
Cato will never meet his child.
He won't hear their first word.
See their first steps.
Watch them grow up.
An image of a little girl with Seam dark hair and ice-blue eyes flashed in her mind. It felt like a knife in her chest.
"I don't want to lose you." Her lip trembled as she answered him, tears threatening to fall again.
"And you never will." His eyes met hers, "You'll always have a piece of me."
"I don't want a piece of you. I want all of you." She answered, "I don't want our child to grow up without a father."
She saw the pain flash in his eyes before his jaw steeled, and the determination took over once again.
"Then you'll just have to be both. You'll tell them all about me and raise them for the both of us." He answered.
"I don't know how to do this without you." The tears started to fall again.
"Katniss." He smiled, his own tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes, "You are so strong. I love you more than anything in this entire world, and I know you better than anyone. Believe me when I tell you that you can do this."
"You know that our child will be reaped the moment it's old enough, Cato. How am I supposed to prepare them for that?" She felt the panic start to creep back in.
"You raise them like careers, like I was. You teach them everything you know." He answered.
"That's no kind of life for a child. You know that better than anyone." Katniss argued.
"Sometimes we have to just take what we get, little flame." He kissed her forehead, "You'll be an amazing mother."
His hand came to rest on her stomach, right over where their child was growing inside.
Mother.
I'm going to be a mother.
They stopped training after that.
Cato had a strong desire to find Haymitch and shove the man against the wall and force him to tell him everything he knows about the rebellion's plan to get them out of this. He fought it almost every second of every day because he knew the man wouldn't tell him anything.
I guess the overprotective dad instincts are kicking in early.
Instead, they spent all their time soaking in every moment together. He held Katniss's hair while she puked every morning, went on long walks through the district, and took her hunting every chance he got. He loved the way her face lit up in the woods. She looked most like herself surrounded by trees with a bow in her hand, and he soaked in every second of that smile on her face.
Once he knew about the pregnancy, it became glaringly obvious. The physical symptoms were obvious. The morning sickness, the aversions to food, the weird cravings, and she had been crying a lot. But she just looked differently. Her skin was glowing; she had more meat on her bones, her hair seemed shinier, and she had the tiniest little bump.
They had decided not to tell either of their families about the pregnancy. Haymitch knew, and Prim suspected- but they wouldn't let it go beyond that. It would just cause them to worry more than they already were.
When the quell was announced, he gave up on ever having children or getting to see Katniss pregnant. This was like a gift, as inconvenient as it was.
Still, he was terrified.
The birds outside were chirping a morning song, the sun shining bright and beautiful. Warm air crept in from the breeze rustling through the curtains, the sunshine making Katniss's hair shine like gold. It reminded him of a winter morning that felt like a lifetime ago, before the photoshoot and the reading of the card. They had just gotten married, and everything in the world felt perfect.
If only he had known how that day would truly go.
He was here six months later, holding his pregnant wife on the morning of the reaping, knowing their names would be drawn from the reaping bowl today. He felt like throwing up.
He was being strong for Katniss; at least, that's what he told himself. But every day, his heart broke more and more at the fact that he would leave behind a family he would never be a part of. It made some deep part of his mind irrevocably angry, and every time he thought of their child, his heart broke a little more.
He thought back to a year ago, how he had imagined a little girl that looked just like Katniss with his eyes, dreamed of Katniss in a burning nursery from the tracker jacker venom. His reality felt like that dream, watching the nursery go up in flames. The love of his life and his child unaware of the dangers surrounding them, his helplessness to save them.
He closed his eyes and prayed he was strong enough to keep them alive this time.