Peeta

I watch through the window as doctors move around Katniss. She's heavily sedated, as that's been the only way they can move around her. Haymitch stands beside me and he looks stone cold sober, and deeply regretting it. He looks at me, at the thick bandages around my neck from Katniss literally trying to tear my throat out and despite being this weak and frail, nearly succeeded, puncturing my windpipe with her sharp, unkempt nails. Her hair is ratty and there are bald spots on parts of her head. the muscles in her leg look thin and atrophic like far too many people unable to work who were injured in the mines back home. 

"How the hell did they do that to her in less than two months?" Haymitch asks. He bangs his hand against the glass and I look at him. I shake my head and  he sighs. "Yeah, figured you wouldn't want to talk about it." I point at my neck and he sighs. "Just cause it hurts don't mean you can't talk. She didn't touch your damn vocal cords." 

"Do you think I want to sit here and theorize how they turned my wife into a walking skeleton who wants me dead?" I ask, my voice strained and horse. He turns back to the glass and sighs. 

"I have a meeting to get to," he says, turning and leaving the room. I stay where I am, just watching her, not knowing at all how pour screwed up lives went and got this screwed up. Finnick walks in, Annie beside him. I look at both of them, before turning back to the window. 

"Peeta?" Finnick says and I don't look at him. "Annie, she told me what all happened and if you're ready, she's ready to tell you about it."

"Do I want to know?" I ask, "Or am I just going to feel worse about how long it took me to convince them to get you out of there?" 

"You should listen to what she has to say," he says. "If only to clear up what happened so you have the truth." I look looking at Katniss and Annie moves forward and takes my hand. 

"She fought," She says. "Kicking and screaming as loud and angry as Johanna. But she couldn't do much against them, with her leg gone. They took her once a day, usually right after Johanna got back. Some days, it would be to paint her up and sit her in front of the cameras to rant about you, beating her until she'd do it. Sometimes they took her to the medical torture rooms, which is where the track marks on her arms came from. She was told that it was  something to cause the baby to draw all of her resources away, to turn the baby into a parasite more so than it already was seeing as they barely fed us." I look down and she squeezes my hand. 

"What else?" I ask. "What did they do to make her this scared of me?" Annie turns away. "No, they can't be that fucked up." Finnick looks away from me. 

"You know they are, Peeta," He says. "They pimped Annie and me and countless other children out for years. They hate her because she is the symbol of all the hope the rebels have. You think they wouldn't let her be used like that?" 

"She's pregnant," I say. 

"They injected her with Tracker Jacker venom," I hear Johanna say and I look back at her. "Then they raped her and in the haze, were able to convince her that you raped her, that you never loved her, and only used her to full fill yourself, casting her aside when she got pregnant with a baby she didn't want. She pulled out her own damn hair and they whipped her repeatedly. Branded her too, which honestly is kinda bad ass looking. But she's better than she looks, considering it all." Annie looks at her angrily and lets go of my hand. 

"Johanna," she says. "He didn't need to hear that." I shake my head.

"It's fine," I say softly. "I, I needed the truth, not some watered down version." I look back at Katniss and see her arm s moving slightly. Her doctors are out of the room and walk around, over to me. 

"Mr. Mellark, my name is Dr. Olivia Jane. Mrs. Everdeen thought we should fill you in on how we will be moving forwards," One says quietly, her eyes very kind. Finnick pats me on the back. 

"We should go. I'll be in the dorm," I nod and they leave. 

"You should sit down," she says and I nod, going over to the table in the observation room. I sit down and she sits across from me, a chart in her hands.

"How bad is it?" I ask. "It's got to be bad, considering what all I've heard from the other girls who were with her." She purses her lips and opens the stack of papers.

"Well, its not good," she says. "How far along should she be?"

"Five months," I say. Dr. Jane shakes her head. 

"The baby is full term, full developed, and ready to come out so clearly, the chemicals that caused the track marks on her arms did something to speed of the process. Given Katniss' condition, I'd prefer to do a C-section-" 

"A what?" I ask. 

"A surgical birth, cutting into her womb to release the baby," she says and I cringe. "But given the stress the tracker jacker venom has put on her heart, we've had to put her on blood thinners, making a surgical procedure impossible. And with the stress her external injuries have caused for her so far, a natural delivery is also very dangerous for her." 

"Which means?" I ask. She closes the chart and looks at me.

"Her prognosis isn't good. The baby is healthy, but Katniss," She looks down.

"She's not gonna make it, is she?" I ask

"Her best chance is taking the delivery as it comes," she says. "We are planning for a natural delivery with an epidural when she does go into labor. Until she does, we are treating her with extensive antibiotics and treating the burns and wounds across her back. We've inserted a feeding tube and  fluids to try to get her into the best shape we can before she goes into labor."

"An epidural?" I ask 

"It's an anesthetic that we will inject into her back that will numb her from the waist down," Dr. Jane says. "She'll feel pressure and be able to push, but the less stress we can put on her body, the better chance we have. The human body can only take so much." I nod and I look over at Katniss. 

"Thank you, Dr. Jane," I say quietly. She stands up and starts to leave but stops.

"It's a girl by the way," she says. "Katniss knew, but I wasn't sure if you did. She's pretty delirious." I nod. 

"I didn't, thank you," I say. I look through the window again. 

"She's sedated yet," She says, "You could visit her if you want."

"It wouldn't upset her?" I ask an she shakes her head. 

"She's pretty lucid right now, after a good blood transfusion. and she's restrained, so she can't hurt you or herself," She says leaving quietly. I stand up and go over to the window. Her hand still kind of moves and her eyes look around a little listlessly. I sigh and walk slowly into the room. She looks at me and her eyes kind of blink sightlessly. 

"Hi, Katniss," I say and she waves a little.

"You look like shit," She says and I can't help but chuckle. 

"Yeah, I know," I say. "How you feeling?" she holds up her arm and shows off the large collection tubes leading down to an IV needle.

"I hate needles," She says. "And they took forever to get one in in the first first place. They almost put it in my neck, they got so desperate." I look at the ugly purple track marks in both her arms and cringe.

"Is it okay if I sit down?" I ask. "I don't want-"

"I'm okay right now," she says. "But if I tell you to get out, I mean it." I sit down and look over at her. Her hand reaches up, a jingling as the chains on her wrist move. "I did a real number on you, eh?"

"It's not as bad as it looks," I say. 

"Even in those fake fucking memories, your voice wasn't that scratchy," she says. 

"You know, that  all that wasn't real?" I ask and she shrugs. 

"I get confused," She says. "Episodes where I don't know what's going on. But right now, you're just an indifferent person. I know who you are. What we went through. That this is your baby and you care about her." she looks down. "But right now, I, I can't." I grab her hand and squeeze it gently. "You won't hurt me, will you? Because I know I can't fight you now off if I couldn't fight those doctors hard enough when I wasn't made of skin and bones." I shake my head. 

"No, Katniss," I say. "I won't hurt you. Nobody is gonna hurt you. You're safe here." She shakes her head, pulling her hand away from me. 

"I can't believe that if you don't," she says turning away from me to lay on her side. "We'll never be safe, Peeta. None of us will. You should go. I'm tired of being poked and prodded and your questions are giving me a headache." I sigh, getting up. 

"i'll see you tomorrow if you're feeling up to it<" She doesn't respond and I turn, leaving, my heart left with her, feeling as broken and tattered as she looks.

But still beating for her. Always beating for her.