Chapter 109

Katniss

"Know they're cutting you deep, feel the scars in your sleep. What didn't kill us made us stronger. Stories left on our skin, wear them with everything. What didn't kill us made us stronger." -Tove Lo

Doctor Aurelius, a face I haven't seen in quite a while, comes in the room midway through a contraction. Peeta holds my hand the way he did when Willow was coming.

"Katniss!" He says, a smile coming across his face. "I am so glad to see that you've made it to the last part! While it's the hardest, it's the most rewarding!" I don't say anything. I just squeeze my eyes shut as blazing pain tears through me.

"Anyway, I'm here to monitor your psych vitals. If anything like what happened last time goes on, we'll be much much more prepared. Hopefully 5 years has changed some of the chemical imbalances in your brain, but we can never really be sure," he says. I just nod. I don't want to talk. I don't even want him in here.

"Doctor Wilson, did send me in here to speak to you about a few things, though!" He says more seriously, sitting down."Like what?" I ask, gritting my teeth."Well," he says. "You are a few weeks early for labor to really be ensuing." "I'm only 2 weeks early," I say. "That's not that bad, is it?"

"It's not the worst, there are definitely worse scenarios, but... We just want to be prepared. Especially given the possibility of complications from medications. Where you are in your last leg of your pregnancy is the very last week a baby is considered 'premature.' The longer the baby is inside, the better chances it has of survival," Aurelius says."So you want me to hold this baby in?" I ask in disbelief.

"No, no, Katniss! The baby is going to come out very soon. We just need you to be ready for the little one to be whisked away so we can check on him! The sooner we know what's going on, the sooner we can get him whatever treatments he needs," Doctor Aurelius says."Alright," Peeta speaks for me. "We'll be ready."

"Great!" He says. "Katniss, if you feel anything out of the ordinary, please let someone know immediately. We all know you here. You need to know yourself, too. If something happens that's anything like Willow's delivery, we want to be very prepared." I nod, hoping he'll just get out of my room. I don't want to hear him talk about all the bad stuff that could happen.

In an hour, it feels like the contractions are getting better. They're less frequent and I find that I'm able to breathe again.

"What do you think he'll look like?" I ask Peeta."A little alien," Peeta says. I laugh, a feeling that I welcome compared to the tearing contractions."Well they do look a little funny when they come out," I say."But I don't know," He says. "Do you think we got a little you again? Or a little me?"

"I hope he's a little you," I tell him. "Then we're even. I get Willow, you get Rye. I get the brown hair, you get the blond." "True," Peeta says. "But I'll be happy with anything, just healthy and happy. That's all I need," I say.

Suddenly, tears flood my eyes. I haven't cried yet in the entire labor process, but suddenly it all hits me."Peeta, what if he's not healthy?" I ask suddenly. Tears spill onto my cheeks."Katniss, it's okay. If the baby isn't healthy, they're going to make him healthy. That's what Aurelius said. He's a man of his word, remember?" Peeta replies, trying to calm me down.

"What if I failed? What if I failed as a mom? What if I didn't do enough for him while he's inside? What if I did it wrong?" I ask frantically."Katniss, stop. You didn't do anything wrong. You are a textbook example of a good mother. You did so well for him," Peeta says."But you said yourself that I didn't eat enough. What if he comes out wrong because I didn't eat right? What if it messes him up?"

Peeta takes both of my hands. I squeeze them for a few moments as I endure another contraction.

"Katniss, you didn't do anything wrong. You did everything you could to make sure the baby was growing and ready for the world. Now he is. It's not in your control anymore. I know how much it kills you to not be in control. You're a control-freak. But that's okay, it's good. Except now you don't have any control over the situation. It's out of your hands, and maybe we just have to accept it," Peeta says.

"I can't do this, Peeta," I say quietly.

"Yes you can. I promise you, you can. Do you remember, after Willow was born, the way it felt to hold her? She came from you. You did that yourself. Remember how wonderful that felt? You're going to experience that all over again. This little boy is going to come out, and he's going to be a beautiful little baby, and you're going to hold him, and everything will feel right again. I promise you that," he says.

"I'm not ready for it," I say. "I'm not ready to be a mom again." "You're already a mom, Katniss. You've done it before. You know how it all works now. You're practically a professional. And imagine the way Willow will react to the new baby," Peeta says.

"She's a sweetheart," I say, trying to wipe some of my tears. "It's all going to pay off, Katniss. It kills me to see you this way. I don't like watching you cry or hearing you yell in pain. I don't like having to feel your grip tighten because of the pain. It kills me inside that you're going through this. But I know that it's all going to pay off. Soon, you're going to have a son, Katniss. A son. A little boy," Peeta says quietly.

"Peeta, what if I'm not ready? What if I can't handle it all? I'm going to make so many mistakes. What happens now? Where do we go from here?" I ask."You're so ready, Katniss. You're beyond ready. There aren't many things I can promise you, but I promise you that you're ready for this. You won't be alone. You have me, and you have Annie... It's all going to be okay. It's okay to make mistakes, Katniss. After this, we're going to be happy. We'll have a new baby, we'll have a new person to add to the world. New ideas, a new smile, new inventions... That's where we go from here," Peeta says.

"Katniss, I need you to breathe for me. I need you to take deep breaths," Peeta says a minute or two later when I start to panic."I can't breathe!" I tell him.I gasp for air, and it's coming into my lungs, but it doesn't feel like it."You can breathe, Katniss. You're breathing right now. I promise you, you're okay," Peeta says.

I just cry. It's all I can do. Maybe it's because I feel like I can't breathe. Maybe it's because white-hot pain rips through every fiber of my being when a contraction hits. Maybe it's because I'm scared of being a mother again. Maybe it's because I don't think I can handle the way I've been going lately. I don't want to think, I don't want to feel, I don't want to be. I want to cease to exist, every trace of me reduced to dust and then blown away by the wind. I will have never been here. I will have been erased from memory and from history. It sounds wonderful.

"Katniss, here, just look at me," Peeta says, taking my hands.I don't look at him. I can't move my eyes to make eye contact with his. I don't want him to look into my eyes, because Peeta knows me too well. The pain he'd be able to see would be demolishing to him. I don't want to hurt him anymore than I have in the past. I want him to be okay, because I'm not.

"I don't know what to say to you, Katniss," Peeta says."Don't say anything," I tell him. "Just stay with me." Peeta wipes a tear from my cheek."You know the answer. Always," he says.

--

A few hours later, my labor is somehow even more excruciating. Every moment is pure agony, and I'm not sure how long I can continue.The doctors are happy to find out that I have been holding on tightly to reality.

"We are quite proud of the way you've been holding on," Aurelius says.I don't say anything."You're doing really, really well, Katniss," Doctor Lucia says. Still, I don't reply. Lucia and Aurelius  make eye contact and I watch worried expressions be exchanged between them.

My eyes focus and unfocus as I start to experience sensations similar to numbness. The epidural the doctors have given me has started to kick in finally, and the lower half of my body feels only half-existent. The exhaustion and the pain have made me nearly catatonic. The doctors haven't realized yet, which doesn't bother me in the slightest, but it will bother them when they find out.

Peeta holds my hand tightly as I stare straight ahead. He whispers things in my ears to try to get me to relax, to come to again. I am taken back to another set of whispers and a different couple: Finnick and Annie. His words used to bring her back to reality. Maybe that's what Peeta's been trying to do.

--

At 8:00, the summer sun finally begins its descent and dips below the horizon soon after. Doctor Lucia comes in, and I finally have to speak again. The feeling of words rolling off my tongue feels foreign. "I need to push," I tell her hoarsely."You're feeling the urge?" She asks.I nod.

"Okay, well, I'll give it a look, and we'll see if we can go for it," she smiles and starts her exam. It feels like it goes on for hours and hours, her cold hands touching me and turning me to ice.She sighs.

"Well, Katniss, I'll get my team together. If you're ready, I'm ready. The baby is ready. At least, as ready as he'll ever get," She says.Tears flood my eyes and I squeeze Peeta's hand. I'm so scared. Maybe I should have gotten a C-Section. Then I could be numb. Then I could have been asleep.

Doctor Lucia comes back in a half hour later. The contractions are so intense that the medication is becoming useless.By the time we're ready to start, the contractions themselves are enough to make me cry out in pain.

"Just squeeze my hand, Katniss," Peeta says."Peeta, I feel it," I say suddenly. "Feel what?" He asks."I'm going to slip out of this. I'm going to lose it. I'm going to slip," I say quietly, so the doctors don't hear.

"No, Katniss. You can't do that. You have to just stay with me. Don't let them take you. Don't you dare let Snow take you from the moment," Peeta says.My heart pounds in my chest and I feel whatever color is left in my face draining. The world gets a couple of shades darker, the sounds more muffled.

I hear laughing. It sounds like President Snow, the way he laughed when I shot Coin instead of him. I whip my head around quickly, trying to spot him, but he's not there. He doesn't exist.... But why can I hear him?

"Okay, Katniss, I need you to push on your next contraction," Lucia says.When it hits me, I push. The pain is enough to make me yell. Still, over my yelling, I hear Snow laughing. I hear the footsteps of marching peacekeepers. I hear the sounds of my loved ones screaming. I am slipping.

It happens over and over, it feels like it doesn't end. The pushing, the pain, the yelling and the way it's all drowned out.

"Very good, Katniss," Lucia says. "One more push and the head will be out." She counts to three, but my mind keeps going. Four, five, six....I hear her tell me to push, but I'm frozen. I can't do it."Come on, Katniss, one more. That's it. Then you're all done," Peeta says.

It sounds like I'm underwater, the words tremoring almost as much as I am. Everything feels drawn out, but I hear Peeta's confession."She's losing it. She's going into a relapse right now. She told me she was slipping, and she's about to let go of the reigns," Peeta says."Don't let her," Lucia says urgently. "You need to make her stay here with us."

And he tries. He tries as hard as he can, and his strength gives me just enough to give one more push. It's a weak attempt, some sorry excuse for a push, but it's enough. There's a climax of pressure and pain, and then a sudden release. Emptiness. I let out a small wail, and then I begin to cry. The world is darker, gauzy, watery... Everything begins to spin. Snow's laughter fills every crevice of sound in the world.

I'm totally gone. I'm beyond being brought back to reality until my brain decides it's over. I'm at the sole mercy of my brain, and it's not very merciful.

Snows laughter is loud. The marching footsteps of peacekeepers is consuming. The sound of screaming is deafening.

I don't know if my baby cries or not.

**Hey guys! Okay, I have NO idea why this took me so long. It literally took me almost a month and I don't know why. I just couldn't think of anything at all, and that's why this chapter is so much repeating and is really filler. And it shouldn't be filler. I just didn't have many new ideas. I'm so sorry you guys. :( hope this chapter wasn't a let-down. Enjoy the cliffhanger, because who knows what I'll have happen to their child.

Xoxo, Aly**