Archive of Our Own

When I first feel her stir inside of me, I'm emerging from the woods. There's no fence to slide under anymore, hasn't been for years, but in that moment it feels like I just brushed the live wire.

We had considered it for a long time, Peeta and I. Well I did. Peeta came to that conclusion long before me. Managed to find hope that the world was safe enough for children, that we were safe enough to have children, long before I ever did. And he correctly guessed I'd need a bit more time. So he waited, ever patient, ever understanding before he finally voiced the thought to me.

Five years. He didn't explicitly broach the subject for five years. But one can only smile longingly at the little kids that come into the bakery for so long; can only politely brush off the question of when we were going to have one of our own for so long.

Peeta had done it in his perfectly Peeta way: over two steaming mugs of hot chocolate, curled together on a cold night in front of the fire. "Katniss." He had started. "Have you ever thought about us having children?"

He had said it so casually, so matter of fact, as if it was the most natural conclusion in the world. And I did not react well.

I yelled. I cried. I fled.

Fled for the safety of the woods. The isolation of the woods. Screw the January weather, my lack of boots, my light pajamas. I regretted it almost immediately, just as soon as the cold settled into my bones.

I didn't make it to the woods that night, only as far as the meadow. Curled myself up beneath the big willow tree and sunk into my shame.

Shame for the way I reacted to Peeta. Shame for my inability to have a normal conversation. Shame for running away, again.

It had been five years. Five years of rebuilding. Five years of strenuous, exhausting, phone calls with Dr. Aurelius; first once a week, then once a month, and then only ever once in a while. Five years of Peeta and I learning how to communicate, unlearning our bad habits, learning how to move beyond all the hurt and trauma we were raised with, learning how to move beyond all the hurt we laid into each other.

I don't do this anymore. I don't flee. When we're upset we talk. We speak openly, with clear language, "validating each other's emotions" as Aurelius would say. We work through these things, have these big conversations, together.

And Peeta, steady, reliable, patient Peeta was trying to do exactly that. Did exactly that. And when I rejected his perfectly acceptable request, he didn't get angry. He didn't yell. He didn't cry. He didn't flee.

No, Peeta followed me out into the freezing cold and found me, tucked away where I had hidden myself beneath the canopy of willow leaves.

He didn't say anything, just wrapped me in my warmest coat, shoved his knit cap onto my head and pulled me to my feet. I clung to him the whole way home. His warmth against the cold, yes, but also to his innate kindness, his innate good.

That goodness was only put further on display when we made it back to the house, where he ran me a hot bath and left me to myself. I knew he was upset. Knew he was disappointed. I've learned all the tells by now, he didn't have to say it.

So when I couldn't put it off any longer, couldn't hide from him any longer, I dragged myself from the quickly cooling water. And when I finally emerged into our dark bedroom to join him, I knew I had to be the one to speak first.

He didn't reject my touch, didn't flinch, or pull away, when I climbed into his arms, rested my head on his chest and curled myself around him. Just as sturdy as that willow tree, my safe place against the cold.

"Peeta." I whispered. "I'm sorry." I felt him pull me closer but still he didn't speak, waited for me to go on, to explain, gave me the space to try to make sense of what had happened.

"I…I don't know if I'll ever be ready to have children." I admitted the horrible truth. "After everything we've lost, after…after Prim." I buried my face further into his neck, felt my throat close in the way it always does when I try to voice her name aloud. "I…I lost her, and I don't think I can risk losing another child. It nearly destroyed me."

"It didn't." He pressed a kiss to my head. "It almost did, but you survived. Do you know why?" There was a surety in his tone, like it was never a question to him if I would. But it was to me, I still have gray days where its very much a question. But his faith in me has always been greater than my faith in myself.

"You. You're the reason I survived." I exclaimed.

"I helped. But it's not entirely on me, you had to believe in it too, believe you were worth saving." He brushed off the declaration. He's always doubted himself, the effect he can have, more than I have.

"But I needed to have any hope to cling to and I didn't until you came back." I explained.

"Yeah but you're the one who had to cling to that hope. I couldn't make you do that. You survived because you decided you were going to survive." He offered. "And one thing I know about you Katniss, is that when you're determined there's very little that will stop you, even yourself."

Our voices fell into silence. The only sounds in the room our soft breathing and the occasional rustle of sheets as we laid together in the quiet.

It was Peeta who bridged the unspoken gulf between us, that second time. "Katniss, when I brought up children earlier, I didn't mean it has to be right now. It…it doesn't have to be ever. I just wanted to talk about it with you. To better understand your thoughts."

"I know." I choked out. "I'm sorry."

"I know you are. You haven't fled like that in a long time." He tried to laugh it off, but it was a stilted laugh. I hurt him, I know it. Knew it then and know it now. He was owed better than that. "But we still need to talk about it."

He let me think about it for a while. Silently there in the dark, his fingers played, absentmindedly, with the ends of my still wet waves. Gave me all the time I needed to find the exact words, the exact string that could unknot the gnarled ball of fear that lives in my stomach when I think about having children.

"You can't promise there won't be another war." I finally said. "You can't promise there won't be another games, or something worse." Something about voicing it loosened that heavy tangle of thread just the slightest. Now all that was left was to wait: for him to deny my fear, assure me its silly. For half a second, I thought, I might just believe him if he did.

"No I can't." He answered, instead. Shocking me with the honesty of that statement. The validation of that deep, instinctual, terror.

"Would you really be ok if we don't have children?" I asked, needing to know. Needing him to confirm that he would not be giving up anything more than he already had to be with me, to love me.

"Yes, Katniss, yes, I would." He declared, punctuating his promise with another kiss to my hair. "I would be happy to continue living exactly as we are, happy and safe and together."

"Always?"

"Always." He vowed. "But if we do eventually have children I would gladly accept them into that same happy, safe, life. And I'd do everything I could to keep them safe, to protect them like I protect you and you protect me, to keep us all together."

Of course he would. I've always known that, even all those years ago when we were just broken, terrified kids playing up love and fake engagements for the pleasure of the cameras. For the Games.

"Katniss, can I ask you to do one thing for me?" He spoke into the dark. "Just think about it. You don't need to make a decision now, but every once in a while can you consider what that life may look like if you let yourself have it? If you think about it and decide you truly don't want children. Then ok, we won't have them." He was so certain it knocked the wind from my lungs. "We'll grow old just us two. We'll continue to spoil Morgan rotten no matter what Annie says, and if he ever has children then we'll spoil them too. I think that sounds like a wonderful life, one I'd be happy to have with you. One I never thought would be possible five years ago." He took a deep breath, and I can still feel his chest rise and fall against my own as he steeled himself for the denouement of his speech. "But the last thing I'd ever want is for you to spend your life afraid."

He'd done it. He'd identified exactly what the root of the issue is, plucked it from the ground and brought it into the light. Because it was only my fear that was holding me back. He would be an incredible father. A man like Peeta: kind, caring, reliable, protective. What child would not wish for a father like that? That kind of man is meant to be a father. But I couldn't give him that, not then.

I know Prim wasn't my child, not really. But I cared for her like she was, after our father died and our mother disappeared, I was the only one left who could. A mother is supposed to protect their child, provide for them, keep them safe. And I didn't do that. I failed her.

He wasn't asking me to have a child, not then, maybe not ever. He was only asking me to consider it. To try to imagine it. But there was still a block somewhere in my mind. Something that stopped me from picturing it, from feeling it, that hope, that possibility, the opportunity to be a mother — not again. I thought, Not Yet.

I thought maybe with time, with practice, that imaginary wall, like so many others between me and the world would crumble and fall. Maybe one day I'd be able to let myself hope.

He was not asking me to have a baby. He was asking me to try to live a life unafraid, to sink further into the hope he's already helped bloom in me. All he was asking me to do was try. So I told him I would try — try to consider it and try to hope.

"Thank you Katniss." He had said. His muscles loosened under me as he sunk further into the mattress, having finally allowed himself to settle, to relax into sleep. "That's all I'll ever ask you."

At five years I wasn't ready.

At ten years I wasn't ready.

Fifteen Years. It took fifteen years.

Fifteen years after we grew back together. Fifteen years after we rebuilt ourselves from the burned out, hijacked, shatter husks they left us as. Fifteen years after Snow's death, and Coin's death. Fifteen years after the rebellion. Fifteen years after Prim.

And fifteen years after Peeta and I grew back together, ten years after he first brought up the idea, five years after I first let myself truly imagine it, its real.

And now I find myself back in that same meadow, leaning against that same willow tree, as I did all those years ago.

I hardly believed it when the test came back. I still don't believe it most moments, even with all the clear physical symptoms. But to feel her move? To feel her flutter like that, as light and fragile as a hummingbird's wings? Well there's no denying that's real. That she's real.

Peeta thinks it's a girl. Has thought so from the very first moment, but I wasn't sure. And yet somehow, sitting here in the meadow, with just the soft fluttering and slowly rising sun for company, I know he's right. Peeta's always right.

Will she have dark hair and gray eyes like me? Or Peeta's blonde curls, and my favorite blue eyes? If she takes after him, she'd look like Prim.

Prim would be 29 Years Old this year. Would probably have been more excited than anyone at this new development, at this new life growing inside of me.

Would she'd be a doctor like she had hoped? Maybe she'd be one of those new specialists most of the districts have; mainly former midwives or healers who've gotten training and work with pregnant woman. Even if she wasn't, I'd have wanted her here with me.

The first Primrose of the year bloomed in our garden last week. And as always, Peeta plucked it by its stem to sit in a vase on the kitchen windowsill. There it will stay until May, until her birthday, when he'll craft a bright yellow cake of frosted and sugared Primroses modeled off the flower.

I don't know how he does it, he must watch it very closely, but the Primrose in our window never wilts. He replaces it before it does. Always another fresh, beautiful, seemingly eternal, yellow rose to keep her alive just a little longer.

But she's not alive. She's gone. I lost her. I failed her. Everything I did was for her: volunteering for the Games, winning them at Peeta's side, playing at the perfectly, humble, Victor, becoming the Mockingjay — all of it was for Prim. And I couldn't save her.

A small part of my mind reminds me that I did just as many things for Peeta too. To keep him alive, to keep him safe. I was planning to sacrifice myself in the Quarter Quell for him and for her. For the better world they could build in its wake. For a world where his child could play in a meadow just like this one, safe and at peace.

I never thought I'd see that world — never thought I'd see that child — and now I carry her in me.

But Prim will never see her. Prim will never know her.

I've worked on this, spent far too many hours talking with Aurelius about this. Thought I had, somehow, conquered just a bit of the insurmountable grief that burrowed its way into my bones, all those years ago. The grief that still surges forth when I think of her: her blonde braid, her duck tail, her love for every animal she comes across, her smell of lavender and medicinal herbs, her death.

The grief has a different twinge to it today, something ancient, more instinctual. It's not just loss, its fear. Terror. A terror that feels older than life itself, wild, untameable, burns its way into my soul. The fear I had spent ten years trying to overcome before I agreed to have children, before I felt safe enough to hope for them.

Peeta. I need Peeta. He always gives me hope, he always knows how to calm me down, how to make me feel safe. He'll know how to keep her safe.

The Dandelions. Suddenly I register just how many of the yellow bulbs reach up into the sunlight. And as if I summoned him like a benevolent spirit — my Dandelion appears.

Dressed in his light spring jacket, his usual paint-stained trousers and the sturdy hiking boots I bought him, he emerges through the early morning fog clearly hoping to catch me coming out of the woods. He's been more protective than normal, constantly hovering, refusing to let me carry anything heavier than my game bag, always stepping in to pull the hot things from the oven, it's been irking me to no end. But in this moment I'm grateful.

A warmth fills my chest at the sight of him and surely the smile that crosses my face would have shocked myself at sixteen.

"Well hello!" He greets me with a laugh, immediately dropping down to my side, pressing his hip against my own and planting a quick kiss to my temple.

"Hi." I answer, trying to hide the guilt and fear for just a moment, hoping to evade any additional concern from him.

"You alright?" He asks, eyes tracing over my face as if searching for some invisible injury.

"Yeah." I lie.

"Ok." He murmurs, seeing straight through my fib. "Did you have a good haul today?" He asks, reaching for my game bag, seemingly alright with us changing the subject, for now.

"Yeah, all the animals have come out of hibernation." I comment. "Spring is really here."

"You didn't notice all the dandelions, love?" He teases, gesturing his arm out to the bright green and yellow meadow before us.

"Of course but that's only one sign of this new season."

"Yes, this season of rebirth, of new life." He smiles proudly. A hand reaching out for my still relatively small stomach. "How'd baby do?"

"Baby was good." I confirm for him. "But…" I'm just about to attempt to explain that small fluttering I felt on the edge of the woods, when suddenly it happens again.

I jerk in surprise, shocking and scaring Peeta.

"What is it?! What's wrong?" He shouts, sending the morning birds flying. "Are you alright? Is baby alright?"

"Everything is fine." I assure him. Because it is, this is perfectly normal. Most mothers would be overjoyed by this new development. Unfortunately, my life has not been the life of most mothers. "I just…I felt her. I felt her move."

"You…you felt her move?" The grin that breaks across his face is as blinding as the sun.

"Yeah. When I was on the edge of the woods a few minutes ago, I felt her move." I repeat, still not quite believing it myself. "And…again. Just now, I felt it again."

"You felt her move?" He asks again, eyes wide in awe. "Can…can I try to feel?"

"Yeah."

His voice dips, quiet and cooing as his hand comes to rest on my stomach again. "Hi baby."

I don't know if its his voice or the warmth of his touch through my sweater, but the baby, his child, responds. That soft flutter bursts against my ribcage again. I twitch in response. "Did you feel that?" I ask him.

"I don't think so." He admits.

"I'm sorry."

"It's ok, it'll happen again. I'll feel it eventually." He sinks against the tree bark once more, resigned.

He's right. As she grows those flutters will be come clearer, sharper; he'll be able to feel them soon enough. But for now, they're just mine. This small secret thing that her and I share.

That dream from the Quarter Quell returns once more. That rare moment of purity and light amongst so much horror and bloodshed. We've done it. We survived long enough to build that world, the meadow in the song. A world with no Games, no oppressive Capitol. A world where Peeta's child, his daughter, can be safe. Should be safe. If only I can keep her safe.

I had woken from that dream with a brief, delicious feeling of happiness, and now, here in that very meadow it swells in my chest again. The vision in my minds eye is crisp, vivid, now. That little girl, Peeta's little girl.

She doesn't have blonde hair like her father, or the lost girl who deserved to be her aunt. No, this girl has dark locks, curling in waves over her shoulders. A crown of bright yellow dandelions rests on her brow as she runs, giggling and dancing through the tall grass. And just behind her, his own laugh bursting forth into the world, her father, Peeta, chasing her with the purest smile I've ever seen.

Both their faces flushed from the game. The light, easy, game. The only type of game she'll ever have to play.

The laughing becomes louder as they run straight towards me, where I lean once more against this willow tree. I can practically feel her weight as it slams into my chest. Hear her proud voice as she calls out "Safety! Mama is safety!" Wrapping small arms tightly around my neck. It seems she has won.

Yes, happiness. In this moment the entire future breeds only happiness.

That terror has not left me, is only held at bay for just this one singular moment. But for now, I have Peeta's arm around my shoulders, his steady presence to lean on, his warmth to burn away the dark. So with all my might I cling to that joy, that hope, that image of the dark haired girl with her bright blue eyes dancing across my mind. Playing, laughing, collecting dandelions of her own in this same meadow.

"So…did I hear you say 'She?'" Peeta turns to me with a proud smirk.