They're sending me to a head doctor. Not for my brain, but apparently for my "mental state".

I didn't think these types of doctors existed. We never had them in District 12. But here in 13, where there's little sunlight and even little more reason to live than the natural body's reaction, here they have a lot of them.

We're all crazy in this hole.

Since I was rescued from 75, I haven't really been my best self, I'll be honest. I think they're worried; the ones who want to control me. But I don't care.

I never wanted to be a martyr.

Haymitch has tried to tell me that this is the best doctor they have. All I've wanted to ask is why are they bothering? We all know what's wrong.

Peeta's gone. District 12 is gone. The baby...

I can't talk about it anymore. Every time I do I remember the last conversation I had with Peeta. I can't.

I feel my fingers begin to tap on my knees as I sit outside the doctor's office door. I don't want to be here. I wouldn't be if I could run from this chair but my legs don't seem to want to work and Haymitch had rolled me down here himself.

The door swings open before me and a balding little man steps out. Ours eyes meet as he appraises me, his dark gaze flitting over my bedraggled appearance.

It's uncomfortable.

"So this is what's become of the Mockingjay?" He wonders under his breath, but I can hear it.

I don't have any words, like always since my return, as he grabs the back of my chair and steers me into his office. It's dark and dank and instantly repulsive.

"So, Katniss..." I feel his breath on my face and I want to scream. This isn't right. This is wrong. "Tell me, how did it feel to lose your child on national television?"

I stop paying attention. His words are vicious. Predatory. This is not a head game I'm willing to play.

Every day since that first appointment it's the same routine. I'm wheeled down, I wait, he wheels me in and plays with my hair or breathes on my neck. He asks me about the baby. He asks me about Peeta.

One particularly bad appointment, after they forced gruel down my throat, I vomit in his lap. He slaps me. I want to kill him.

Why was this real? I wanted so badly to escape. To die.

I'm laying in my hospital bed, curled into the fetal position, when Haymitch comes in to take me to my appointment.

"Sweetheart, it's time." And his liquored breath wafts in my face as he bends over to look in my eyes.

"I don't even know his name." I mumble it so quietly, the first words I've spoken to him in weeks. I watch his eyes tighten as he examines me carefully - tentatively. "He asks me about it but I don't even know his name. He gets too close. He mocks me. He hit me. I can't go back."

I know my words have surprised him. The way he stands and walks away from me, pacing around the sparse space, concerns me. When he settles back down, he pulls up a chair and watches me. They've backed me into a corner and the only way out is grasping for these straws.

"You need help." He states, so calmly it's surprising from him.

"I know," I whisper in return, my head nodding in agreement.

"Talk to me. What do you need Katniss?" And the way he's almost desperate to help makes the panic rise in my chest. Haymitch never looks desperate.

"I just want Peeta." He nearly sighs with frustration but catches himself, putting his hands to his lips and sitting back.

"You know he's not well." He treats the words like it's the final nail in a coffin. I know he's sick - they did that to him - but I know that Peeta's still in there somewhere.

He promised me.

"Get down from there, it's lunch time." I hear him shout out in the backyard and my skin buzzes with excitement. Still.

"If they didn't have your genes, I'd be worried they would break their necks. But they're just like their beautiful Mum. Climbing trees, watching the forest." I feel him at my back now, pressing his body flush against mine as his arms wrap around my hips. My breath escapes in a tiny pant as he places a kiss below my ear.

"Ewww! Pops!" My hands stall on the bread I was buttering for sandwiches as the kids stumble into the room. He steps back and teases in return as they all settle around the table.

I can't take my eyes off of him during lunch. The memory of him not being around for so long is still fresh after awakening last night during one of his fits.

Sometimes he still gets sick. Sometimes I still get sick.

Today is an aftershock day. We send the kids to Haymitch and take the time to figure out how to be close to each other again.

Every time it's different. Every time it ends the same.

I tidy up while he delivers the kids. It's routine. When he walks back through the door it's like the atmosphere changes and sparks.

"I love you," he whispers. I know without looking that he's standing in the doorway, waiting for me.

Turning around, I place the dishes back in the cupboard and prepare to see his eyes. That's where you see if the fit still lingers - if he's vocally denying the hate that still rushes his blood.

Today his eyes are clear. Blue and bright.

"I love you too," I reply, my words catching in my throat.

I never really got over the fear of losing him. Back in 13 they'd tried desperately to get me to surface from my guilt, but it had only been compacted by Peeta's words while his hands had been wrapped around my throat.

The Capitol had convinced him I'd killed our child.

It had been the end of the fight for me. The quiet way I'd tried to give up and let his hands close out my windpipe.

But Haymitch had been there, pulled me free and focused on keeping me alive while Peeta got better.

As he stands before me now, his hands resting at his sides, he is better. But there are still shadows. Like last night when we'd laid in bed, tightly grasping to each other. I'd woken up to his arms crushing me close, his eyes wide and blazing. He'd screamed that I'd killed everything he loved.

Only hours earlier, in that same embrace, he had asked if we could try for another baby.

We'd never been able to truly deal with what happened in 75. We'd just moved forward. And that's why we needed these hours together. That's why when the dishes are done and the kids are gone, he comes to me and it's different.

There's no time wasted going upstairs. We don't bother with frivolities. It's skin to skin when he lifts me to the counter, his hands touching everywhere. Clothes aren't removed; they're pushed out of the way. In a rush to be closer, he presses in as his lips find mine. We thrust and we ride and it's fast and hard. When we come together, it's only each other's names that escape our mouths in riotous gasps.

In the aftermath, we find our way to our bed. To the scene of the crime.

"I'm sorry, Katniss. For everything last night." He speaks into my hair as we spread out on the mattress. I put my fingers to his lips and press lightly.

"Don't apologize. You did nothing wrong." I know he'll carry the guilt anyways, but I must still say it. We both need to hear it.

"I think I've loved you for a thousand years," And it's so quiet, his confession, that I barely hear it as my mind dips further into sleep.

I remember the day I discovered I was pregnant.

Not the day on the train. I don't think about that day.

No, the day where I'd put two and two together on my own. I'd gone to the woman in the village then, who offered services to handle these things. She'd looked at me, really looked, and had asked if this was what I'd wanted.

I'd answered that I wasn't sure. But I was sure. I couldn't risk it. I couldn't do it again. What if I failed? What if… Oh, Peeta.

She'd told me to come back the next day – that she had to purchase supplies.

I'd left feeling emptier than when I came in.

Peeta didn't come home that night. We'd been sharing our lives off and on for the past while, sharing a bed and meals. Sometimes he'd come over, sometimes we'd stay apart. Today he'd stayed away and I didn't know why. I convinced myself it was because he knew.

I didn't go back to the woman the next day. I didn't go for the rest of the week. I stayed in bed, tucking my head into the pillows and trying to suffocate myself in silence. It was warm and comfortable and was almost like a refuge.

When he came back at the end of the week I couldn't face him. I stayed facing the wall when he opened my bedroom door and stood at its threshold.

"I had an episode. That's why I didn't come back." His words ghost over me and I want to shiver.

"That's okay." I forgive, speaking to the wall. I hear his feet shuffle closer to the side of the bed and I curl up tighter into myself. He'll know for sure if he gets any closer.

"Can I come in?" The words are so quiet and broken that I know I can't refuse. He needs the comfort of me.

"Yes." And it's only a breath but that's all he needs to lift the sheets and slide his solid body against my shell. His arms wrap around my waist, squeezing in between my knees and stomach, to pull me close to him.

"Katniss?" He knows. Oh God he knows. I feel the panic rising in my chest. What have I done? I feel his nose brushing against my neck as his lips find my pulse. I stop holding my breath in that moment and gasp, my arms flailing as I struggle to sit up.

"Out!" I scream until I'm hoarse, my voice disappearing. I know my hand is on my belly as he departs because he sees it – his eyes focus in and he looks bewildered and terrified and sad all at the same time. It's too much and I close the door in his face, collapsing like a fool at its side.

"Katniss, it's okay." His voice echoes through the door and I can feel his presence on the other side. I don't say anything in return – I don't have words. "I promised. Remember? I'm not going anywhere."

We spend an hour like that, separated by the thick wood door.

"Let me in Katniss. Please." I'm standing on my own, just off to the side when he re-enters the room. I feel like the prey in this game of hunting as his eyes find mine and lock on. They flit to my give-away position on my stomach and I hear him huff out a breath. "Real or not real?"

"Real." I don't even hesitate in my response. I'm standing far enough away that I can escape if I need to. I don't know how he'll react to this – every fit is triggered by something different.

"Do you know what you're going to do yet?" He doesn't look at me when he asks, his eyes carefully diverted to my bed. The same place where this had all started.

"No." I take a step back with my answer. I don't know why. He sees it and his face falls.

"I'm not going anywhere. If you… If you want to um… Have something arranged. I'll be there. For you. And uh," He struggles for words and I see his hands reach out and then snap back to his sides. His eyes are pleading silently with me, begging me with words he dare not speak. "If you want it. We can do it. We can."

I see him step towards me and I can't move, my fingers splaying across my abdomen.

"I don't want to fail," I whisper my biggest fear out loud, my knees collapsing as he quickly joins me at my side. He doesn't rush and overwhelm me; instead he chooses to sit an arm's length away, his hands conveying words that he cannot utter.

"It's alright to be scared. It'll be alright. It will." His fingers find my braid and release its plait. Carefully, methodically, he runs his fingers through my hair. The fear coursing through my veins takes a back seat to the relaxation he provides. This isn't District 13. He's not going to strangle me for this.

In another moment, I'm placed once more upon my bed, facing him as he lay next to me.

"I want you, Katniss. Hell or high water – it's you. Whatever you decide, whatever happens, it's you. It always has been, it always will be."

I don't have a response for him. I don't have any words at all.

When the silence seems like it's stretched on too long, he shifts closer and rests his head against my chest. It's innocent but feels so intimate that my breath jumps. I know he wants this. He always has.

"What if... What if it happens again?" I fight the words past my lips, determined to speak them and alleviate myself.

"Your heart beats so strongly here," Lifting his head slightly he pulls my hand to my own chest, covering his over mine. His eyes find mine from below, filled with uncertainty and a quiet sadness. "We're not in an Arena. You're safe here. We," And I feel him guide our hands down to my belly, his fingers interlacing with my own. "We're safe here. It will be alright."

With his hand over mine, resting on my stomach, I feel his head return to my breast, the weight of him like a warm blanket. I do feel safe, here next to him. Maybe it will be alright, if I dare think it.

He isn't there for the birth. He's in the next room, restrained by Haymitch who's tied him down.

Sometimes we still have to do things alone. Face our fears, our demons.

When my mother tells me to push, I feel like my insides are ripping. It's unreal, the way my body revolts.

At the end, I'm no longer screaming. He's no longer screaming. Our child is screaming. Born of two tormented souls.

It takes an hour before he's there, waiting in the doorway with a sad look on his face and his wrists bandaged and bloody from his battle. I can see it in his eyes; he's free and clear of his fit.

"I love you," He whispers from his place in the doorframe. We're alone in this moment, no longer watched. My arms protectively hold our child closer.

"I love you too." And I mean it because he gave me this. When he joins us at my bedside he doesn't hesitate before crawling in next to me. His lips find mine, a smile forming against me as his hands ghost over her brow.

"This is real." He states, his arm pulling me into his side.

"Real." I agree. And then the tension I've been harbouring for months, for years, has past. There's a smile on my lips, a child in my arms, and breath in my lungs.

The Capitol doesn't own us. We survived, we lived.

AN: And the one shot that expanded finally ends. Hope you enjoyed it!