She's never felt like this before.
It's strange, loving a child. It's vulnerable and terrifying and all consuming in a way that remains distinct from loving a friend or a husband. Loving a child, her child, is the scariest thing she's ever done.
She will always remember the first time she held her. Squirming and pink, fresh from the womb. She wanted to simultaneously clutch her to her chest and put her in a glass box, afraid that she'd break.
Now, her daughter is six months old. Only six months, but she's grown so very much. They're laying in bed together, lazing the morning away. The baby is tucked close to her breast, gurgling. Katniss grins, combing her fingers through her wisps of dark hair, mindful of her tender head.
"Ah!" the baby gurgles, reaching for her finger, and gripping her with that surprising strength. Katniss laughs gently, a soft almost vulnerable sound she used to reserve for her sister. The baby laughs in return, a lovely gummy laugh, always happy under her mother's watchful eye.
"I love you," Katniss whispers. She's always saying it now, those words that used to scare her. "I love you."
The baby drops her finger and flails her arms and legs about excitedly. She's seen other babies do that, actually, she's seen other babies do everything her daughter does, but there's something so wonderful about watching her own daughter grow, live, and learn. It's hard to explain how after you have a child the world is suddenly brand new, a fresh coat of paint, the arrival of spring.
But she's also terrified. Katniss thought she already knew fear and danger but having this baby just added another level of worry. She already had Peeta to be concerned about, walking about the world, a piece of her beating heart outside her body, just working with fire and staying out in the cold. But now she has her, this innocent perfect child who holds the rest of her heart in her little round hands.
Peeta said it was natural, he loves her too, worries about her too. And she supposes it is. This fear, it feels as old as life itself. But that doesn't make it any better. Any easier. It used to bring her to tears a lot, especially while she was nursing, but she tries to keep her tears to herself. It upsets the baby.
She brushes her fingers down the baby's small cheek and sings softly.
Roses are red, love, and violets are blue.
Birds in heaven know I love you.
Know I love you, oh, know I love you.
Birds in the heavens know I love you.
"I haven't heard that song in a long time," Peeta whispers from the doorway and she startles. "You never sang it again."
"Hm," she smiles. "You never asked."
He smiles back at her and comes back to the bed, laying on the baby's other side. The baby gurgles, hands flying up above her head as she stretches.
"Oh, there you go." Peeta chuckles. "Yup, stretch it all out."
She watches them, these two people she never thought she would ever have or deserve. She's thankful, so thankful to be here. To have somehow arrived at the other side of the hardest years of her life. She's scared, constantly, that something could happen, someone could snatch them up and she'd never see them again. But it's a different type of fear, not the same one that held her back for so many years, but one she's come to realize is part of love.
And she'd much rather love.