Chapter 90

Katniss

"And at once, I knew I was not magnificent, hulled far from the highway aisle." -Bon Iver

"Well, you two never seem to disappoint!" Doctor Lucia says, smiling. She comes over to the exam table I sit on and gives me a hug and then proceeds over to Peeta. When she sits back down she sighs happily.

"This time everything was... Planned? You both wanted this?" She asks."Yes." Peeta says."Katniss?" She asks.I feel like I'm freezing up. What do I say now? I know I wanted this baby. Peeta knows I wanted this baby... But I can't put it into words. And even if I could, it wouldn't come out. It's like there's something blocking it. The connection isn't happening to get the thought from my head to my mouth.

"Katniss?" Doctor Lucia asks again when I don't answer.I nod as confirmation for her question."Katniss, are you alright?" Peeta asks quietly.I don't know why I can't talk all of a sudden. It makes no sense to me. I was just fine a minute ago.

"Does this have to do with anything regarding the baby?" Doctor Lucia asks Peeta.I answer for him by shaking my head no. "Katniss? Can you talk? Can you put something into words?" She asks.I shake my head no again. No. I can't. And I don't know why.

"Just try to talk. Can you do that for me?" She asks, standing up.I open and shut my mouth numbly, as if sheer will could make the words come out. I make a noise that I want so desperately to be a word or something coherent, but it just sounds like nothing."Is she alright?" Peeta asks Doctor Lucia. But Peeta doesn't need to ask. He would be the first to know if something was wrong.

And I think he knows there is. "What's happening to her?" He asks. I grab his hand gently to try to calm him down, showing him that other than the fact that I can't talk, I'm okay.  He and I make eye contact and I give him a look that tells him to calm down.

"I'm not sure." Says Doctor Lucia."What do we do?" Peeta asks."I want to keep her here just in case. At least until she gets back to normal... Have you noticed anything different in her behavior? Anything out of the ordinary?" Doctor Lucia asks. Peeta opens his mouth to speak and I grab his arm to stop him. I give him a look suggesting that if he says a thing, I'll kill him with my own bare hands.

He wrenches his arm free from my grasp and I know he's about to spill the truth. I can't deny a thing he says now. I can't defend or explain myself. I slap Peeta's arm, letting him know how pissed I'll be if he says anything. But Peeta cares too much for me. He's going to spill.

"Last night, well, early this morning..." Peeta says. "We had been fighting over some stuff and I left the house and she tried to... Uh..." He says, trying to avoid saying out loud that I tried to commit suicide."I walked in when I got home and found her bottle of pills spilled all over the floor. She tried to kill herself.

Lucia's eyes fall into me. I can see pity  in her eyes, but I don't want her pity. I want to be able to speak and go home."Katniss, you let me know if you feel anything off, okay? If you get dizzy or a headache or anything like that, you let me know." She says.I nod slowly.

"If you feel alright, Katniss, I think we'll do an ultrasound to determine your expected due date." Lucia says, smiling.I nod again, and once everything is in position and that cold gel is put on my stomach, she places the transducer on my stomach."Can you hear a heartbeat at 7 weeks?" Peeta asks.Doctor Lucia smiles and nods.

Peeta clutches my hand, seemingly more excited than I am. I know how much he loves kids. I know how excited he is to have another one."Are you two ready?" She asks. I make eye contact with Peeta and nod. "Yes." He answers for the both of us.

She turns up the volume on the ultrasound machine and, though it's soft and fragile, a steady heartbeat thumps inside my baby's chest. "Hear it?" Lucia asks."I've never been more in love with a sound in my whole life. Except maybe your laugh." He says to me.I shake my head in mock disapproval at Peeta's sappiness.

"So, you look to be around 7 weeks and 5 days. So, let me think... Your due date is June 13th. Everything looks fine and healthy so far!" She announces happily.I let out a small smile for Peeta's sake, though on the inside, I feel like I'm dying. A sharp, intense pain pierces the inside of my head. It resonates through the rest of my body in a way I've never quite felt before.

Doctor Lucia notices that something's wrong quickly, thanks to the machine monitoring both my heartbeat and the baby's heartbeat."Your heart is beating fast, Katniss. Are you alright?" She asks.I give a little thumbs up instead of nodding. Nodding is totally out of the question right now."Katniss, you can't lie about this. If something feels wrong, you have to tell us. If not for yourself, then for the baby." Lucia says.

Oh no. She played the baby card on me. If there's something that makes me angriest while being pregnant, it's the baby card. Peeta used to use it all the time when I was pregnant with Willow in order to get me to take care of myself on the bad days.Because if there's anything you could do to guilt me into something, it's reminding me of the baby inside me and what it needs from me.

I break out into a cold sweat as I force my eyes closed. Everything hurts. The noise of Lucia's voice, the feeling of the padded surface I'm laying on, the white light coming from the ceiling lights. I try to talk again, but it just sounds like strained groaning. "Something's wrong, Katniss. What's hurting?" Lucia says.It takes all of my willpower to move my hand and point to my head.

"Your head? Your head... She has a headache. Am I right, Katniss?" Peeta deciphers.I blink approvingly. "Rate your pain. 1 to 10, Katniss. How bad is it? Can you hold it up on your fingers?" Lucia asks.I hold up 8 shaky fingers.

She checks the ultrasound one more time to make sure the baby is still okay before paging Doctor Wilson, my normal doctor. Aurelius, who found a permanent home here in 12 thanks to Peeta and I's frequent need for help, is also paged."I'm going to have them take you to the ER, Katniss. Okay? You're totally safe." She explains.

Peeta holds my hand and I try to act normally, as if it doesn't feel like my skull is being crushed and I can speak right. I don't want him to freak out.

--

They admit me almost immediately, much to my dismay. They pump pain mess into my system as soon as they possibly can, which have a little effect on my head but not too much. Wilson arrives first to my bedside and checks my vitals. He asks Peeta some questions and listens to Peeta explain about how I can't talk.

Wilson calls out to another doctor, "Page Aurelius again and then page Neuro. Order a head CT stat!" He says urgently."Katniss, would you like us to put you out for the CT scan? It'll make you sleep and you won't feel your headache or know you're in that little machine. Would you like that?" Wilson asks.

I give a thumbs up, indicating yes. I grab Peeta's hand and write out the letters N O W on his palm with my finger."She wants to be put out now." Peeta suggests to the doctors that surround me. They discuss it quietly before agreeing. Thankfully, they do, and soon enough I feel the icy medicine in my veins and the world slips away. And so does the pain.

--

The world is fuzzy and tinged with the smell of hot smoke. I open my eyes and find myself in the meadow. But it's not the same meadow as I'm used to. The flowers are shriveled up and drying. I lift my head and cough a few times before my eyes focus on the orange glow in distance.

It takes a moment, but reality sets in. The orange glow in the distance... The shriveled up flowers, the hot and smoky air... My district is burning. I jump up off of the ground and sprint away from the meadow and into the district. I have to save them.I become winded easily because of the smoke. Wheezing and tripping every now and then, I run to my people.

As I dart through the town center, I see them. All of the dead bodies... I see men, women, children, elderly. Nobody is being spared by the flames that seem to consume the coal-coated district. "No!" I scream as I come across Gale's charred body. I fall to my knees, narrowly missing getting burnt by the flames nearby.

"Gale! No!" I cry out. He doesn't wake up, even as I shake him senseless. "Wake up!" I scream at him. Nothing.My voice cracks as I scream and cry. Something forces me up and all of a sudden I'm running again. I run to my house in the Victor's Village. Unlike the first time, these houses haven't been spared. Fire consumes the house that Annie and Finn lived in. They must be dead by now. Haymitch's looks the same.

My house is burning, the windows churning out black smoke as if they're vomiting. I kick the door in and am met with the same thick smoke. Instead of staying outside, I burst in and find Peeta in the living room. Dead. I run over to his body and the scream begins erupting from me before I can process anything.

A little child is clutched in his arms. "Willow!" I scream. She's dead. She's dead."No!" I scream over and over again, throwing myself onto their bodies, wishing I were dead too.

I breathe in, wanting so badly to catch one last scent of Peeta, but instead I smell only the toxic smoke that fills the house. I'm coughing and screaming and crying so hard, I begin to feel dizzy and lightheaded. "Let me die!" I scream."Let me die!" Over and over again.

I get up off of the ground and continue to yell at nothing in particular."Kill me! Please, just kill me! Take me too! I don't want to live!" I shout as loud as I can. I fall to my knees again.Kill me. Kill me. I want to die.

Suddenly, the fancy stones of the fireplace begin to topple. A couple land on me. Others shatter on the ground and small fragments find a home in my skin.When one falls directly onto my chest, I expect pain. But instead I feel empty. My dead husband and dead daughter lay on the ground only a few feet away. My mentor is dead. Annie and Finn are dead. Gale is dead. Everyone is dead. So why am I still alive.

"Kill me!" I choke out over and over again. It's a strained and guttural noise, wettended with blood I am sure is in my lungs from the falling rocks. Still, it doesn't cease. Even when I feel the smoky, ashen, burning world emptying, I can hear the noise. Even when I think everything's gone, I hear the noise.

--

Peeta

Willow sits on my lap, burying her little face into my chest."What's wrong with mommy? Make it stop, daddy! Please." She cries out."I'm sorry, Will. There's nothing I can do right now." I reply.

Katniss lays in the hospital bed across the room from where Willow and I sit together. She's sleeping, but not peacefully. She keeps talking in her sleep, muttering harsh things about wanting to die."Kill me!" She mutters again and again.

"Why does mommy want to die?" Willow asks. Tears stream down her face."Mommy doesn't mean it, Willow. She doesn't know what she's saying. She's asleep." I try to console her."When will she wake up?" Willow asks."The doctors said the medicine should wear off soon, sweetie. Soon." I say.

Her brain scan went well, as far as I know. I guess she can talk again, considering her sleep talking.They monitor the baby carefully and they say it's doing fine.

"Can I wake mommy up?" Willow asks."You won't wake her, Willow. The medicine is keeping her sleepy enough to stay like that for a while." I explain."But why?" She asks."They don't want mommy in any pain. See, Willow, your mommy is a little sick right now." I say. I don't know how else to say it so she'll understand.

"Mommy's sick?" "Not the throw-up sick, Willow. Her brain is sick. You know what your brain is, right? The thing in your head that controls your body and your thoughts and what you do. Mommy's is sick right now." I explain."How long will she be sick for?" She asks quietly."I don't know, baby. Your mommy has been sick for a long time. Since even before you were born. But she's okay, Willow. The doctors help keep mommy happy and healthy." I say.

"Was mommy sick when you met her?" Willow asks."No. Mommy was healthy then. But that was when we were very young. Nothing had happened to us yet. The only thing was when mommy's father died. But she wasn't sick then." I tell her."What made her sick?" "I can't tell you that right now, Willow." I say sadly.

"Is mommy going to die?" She asks after a period of silence from the both of us, listening to Katniss's cries."No, Willow. Mommy isn't going to die. In fact, I think her sleepy medicine is starting to go away now. Do you want to go lay with her so when she wakes up you can hug her?" I ask.

Willow nods and I wipe her tears away with my thumb."You're being so strong, Willow. You're just like your mommy." I say after she gets comfy next to her sleeping mother.Willow wraps a small arm around Katniss.

In a few minutes, her violent cries cease. "Is she waking up, daddy?" Willow asks."Yes she is, miss Willow." I reply.

"Daddy, I don't like when mommy is sick." She says sadly.My heart breaks."Me either, Willow," I say. "Me either."