Katniss

I lay on the couch, patching one of Peeta's workshirts while Daphne squirms around on the blue knitted blanket on the floor. I can admit that I've become a little more attuned to having a daughter, even though it still devestates me that her future will be this bleak one I am living. Her father is the only light in my life and there are times I wish that he just didn't exhist. I wish I could be alone. I liked being alone. My space is something I valued in this little house. Now I'm never alone, with my baby constantly needing something from me, which isn't her fault, but still, its awful. Having to care about someone this much out of instinctual necessity. Its not saying I don't love my little girl. I just sometimes wish that she was never here.

I hear Daphne squealing happily on the floor and I look over at her. She gives me a toothless smile that I can't help but return as I pick up a toy from where she threw it and set it back down beside her. She takes it and sticks it in her mouth, squealing happily. I laugh quietly to myself and set down my work to pick her up.

"How about we go see what its like outside?" I say. "Go get some sunshine before it gets too warm out?" She doesn't answer, just sticks her fist in her mouth as I grab her a blanket and a basket of dirty clothes and go to the back of the house to wash laundry. I lay her down on the blanket in the shade and get to work scrubbing the dirt from our clothes before hanging them up on the clothes line.

The day is extremely quiet, not even birds in the uniform little oak tree in the corner of the little fenced in yard. It makes me worried, about the reason. Birds falling silent is one of the most foreboding things you learn in the forest. It means trouble.

"Hello Mrs. Mellark," Delly Cartwright from next door says looking over the fence, her son Daniel James who is right around my daughter's age sitting on her hip,"Its such a beautiful day for the children to be out for the first time." I nod as I stand to hang up one of my pale dresses.

"Yes, its not too cool and not too hot yet today," I say.

"Has Daphne Lynn been outside yet?" She asks and I nod.

"A few days," I say. "Mr. Mellark has bundled her up a couple nights that she's been restless to look at the moon and get some of this fresh air." It feels odd to call Peeta that. Mr. Mellark. Its his name, but it just feels so weird to talk about him so formally in the third person. Not to mention speaking about my daughter with her middle name attacted.

"Mr. Mellark is involved in the childrearing?" She asks and I nod. "I don't know that Mr. Cartwright has even changed a diaper for Daniel James. And now he wants us to have another." She looks down and I glance at Daphne as she wiggles around on the ground.

"Have you?" I start to ask and she nods.

"He makes me," she says. "I've been getting the shots again and he lays with me every night."

"Intimately?" I ask and she nods.

"I can't tell Mr. Cartwright I don't want to," she says. "Afterall, its our whole purpose to bare and raise children." Daphne knocks over my clothespins and I quickly sweep her up off the ground before she can stick one in her mouth.

"I feel like I can barely keep track of a three month old," I say. "I was so exhausted towards the end of my time, I couldn't imagine looking after a toddler at the same time as that."

"I'm sure Mr. Mellark will wish you'd bare another soon," Delly says and I shake my head.

"Peeta," I start and then stop myself and correct my words. "Mr. Mellark was there with me when Daphne Lynn was born. In that little room for 18 hours. He isn't in a rush to do that to me again. He knows how much intimacy frightens me too. So we are taking our time, enjoying these few months when she isn't too much of a handful and letting me heal."

"Did you get the baby blues?" She asks and I nod.

"And I tore," I say quietly. "But I'm better for both of those now. My husband has been like a rock for me. I don't know that I would have ever recovered if it weren't for him. Now, we are just trying to do our best to raise this little one as good as she can be." I adjust the way I am holding Daphne and she clutches onto my long braid. And starts trying to chew on my hair. Delly laughs and adjusts the hat on her son's head.

"Yes, I suppose Mr. Mellark is the one man who actually listens to his wife about anything that may deprive him of his manly right to sex?" She says and I look down, holding Daphne tighter to me and kissing her forehead.

"Mrs. Cartwright," I say quietly. "I think its about time I took my daughter inside and got her father's lunch ready." She nods and looks back at her baby.

"Of course," she says. "Mr. Cartwright, he prefers a packed lunch. But its almost time for Daniel James' feeding so I should be going too." She turns and walks back into her yard and into her little house, obviously having gotten the hint that I was not fond of her comments. I look at the washtub still half full of dirty laundry and set Daphne back on the ground to finish them up, sweeping the little wooden clips she had strewn accross the yard back into the basket and hang it up on the line.

Just as I'm hanging up the last shirt, I hear a low rumble and Daphne's babbles fall silent. I look up and see in the distance, the hoovercrafts coming. The annual fly over to check on the district. I lift Daphne up off the ground and take her inside, not wanting the loud sound to hurt her tiny ears.

I shut the door and the windows start to rattle. Daphne starts to cry and I hold her tight to my chest and try to calm her. She continues to cry and I shush her as I just pace around and wait for the hoover crafts to pass and leave. As long as the rumble goes on, there is no comfort I can give my baby.

Ten minutes later, the noise has stopped and over Daphne's cries, I hear birds chirping again. I carry her up the stairs to her little room accross the hall from mine and sit with her crying my arms in the rocking chair. I pull her from my chest and lay her in my lap and she continues to whine and I just support her head and run my hand over her fragile little body as I talk softly to her.

"Its okay," I say quietly, "they're gone. They won't come back for a long time. There's nothing to be afraid of anymore, Butterfly." She continues to whimper and I just rock us, humming a lullaby as she slowly, progressively quiets. I smile as she looks at me sleepily and I lift her up and set her down into her crib, covering her with the scrap quilt my sister gifted me for Christmas. Her heavy eyes close and I kiss her forehead before leaving her room and shutting the door to a little crack. I turn around to see Peeta standing there with a bandage cruely wrapped around his hand.

"What happened to you?" I ask and he just looks at the injured hand and shrugs.

"I smashed my hand in the oven door after those damn things started flying over," he says. "Not to mention it was on." I carefully grab his wrist and remove the soiled bandage to reveal the burned, bruised skin on his hand and he winces.

"Peeta, did you even clean this?" I say and he pulls his hand back from me.

"I ran it under some cold water," he says and I shake my head.

"Cold water isn't going to prevent whatever was caked on the inside of that dirty oven from giving you a nasty infection," I say leading him towards the bathroom. I rifle through the cupboard and pull out cotton bandages and the alcohol to start cleaning the open burns on his hand.

"This is gonna sting a little," I say as I pour it in the wounds and Peeta lets out a groan and I chuckle.

"So Daphne takes after both of us with fear of the the hoovercrafts," I say and he shrugs.

"I don't like them," he says as I start to wrap his hand neatly in the fresh bandages. "They already have us under their thumbs. They just want to scare us into submission."

"Considering how long they've worked on this breeding system and how well it worked," I say quietly. "I think they've succeeded in scaring us enough." Peeta watches as I tape the bandage shut and he reaches forward to brush my hair from my face.

"Today's your birthday," he says and I look up at him.

"It can't be," I say. "My birthday is May-"

"May 8th," Peeta says. "I saw so when I got to work this morning." I look down and shake my head.

"Well thats just fantastic," I say. "First Christmas, now this. I'm just caught in this place where the time stands still."

"Sweetheart," Peeta starts and I shake my head.

"No," I say. "You don't get to use the fact that I had a baby and am taking care of an infant 24 hours a day to excuse the fact that I'm becoming a delusional mess. I don't know what day it is, and I actually believe that you are never going to make me go through all this again."

"Katniss, what are you talking about?" He asks.

"Maybe you're happy now, with the way things are, but one day, you are going to want another baby," I say. "Or at least want to try to make one. You will want me to actually serve you as a wife." Peeta shakes his head.

"If you don't want that, then it will not happen, Katniss," he says. "I would never force you into that. I care about you too much to worry about fufilling myself at the cost of you being that terrified woman in the corner all over again." I feel his hand on my shoulder and he pulls me to him carefully and hugs me. I lay my hand on his arm and he kisses the top of my head.

"I'm sorry," I say. "But when I hear the others talk about their lives, it is so hard for me to believe that you wouldn't be like their husbands. That you will never hurt me like that."

"You do not listen to them," he whispers. "We stick with the plan. We raise Daphne together and when we get our chance, we take her and the necessities we can carry, and we escape to that stone house in the woods that you used to talk about your father taking you to." I nod and Peeta pulls away from me. He places his fingers beneath my chin so I look up at him.

"You actually remembered my birthday?" I ask and he nods, chuckling.

"Theres a cake for dinner," Peeta says. "And ingredients for your favorite meal in the fridge. But I got you a little something from the market and don't worry about the cost. A few loaves of bread is worth getting you something to cheer you up a little." He hands me a golden pin, a broach of sorts of a bird, a mockingjay, in a small circle. I run my finger across the detail in the wings and smile. "I know is just a little trinket, but I know you like birds and -" I nod and smile.

"No its perfect, Peeta," I say. "Its exactly the kind of thing I would expect you to get me because you understand that its the thought thats put into something that gives it value. You thought about it as something I would like, that you wanted to give me. I love it." I kiss his cheekand he smiles at me.

"You are so much better than you were two months ago," Peeta says. "I'm so proud of you, for being so stong and getting through it." I look back at the pin between my fingers and nod.

"Well, I think the fact that I am no longer in withdrawl of the pregnancy horomones has a lot to do with that but, yes, I do feel a lot better than I did right after she was born. I actually enjoy Daphne's company now and again," I say.

"I saw you with her," Peeta says smiling. "You aren't just going through the motions anymore. You do love her."

"Yes," I say. "I love our daughter. But I am exhausted. I'm so, so tired Peeta. I can barely keep my head up. That child is wearing me down and she can't even crawl yet. I don't even want to think about when she can move around on her own." My husband chuckles and lightly touches my shoulder.

"Then go sleep a little while," he says. "Daphne and I can fend for ourselves a while seeing as I can't go back to work with a busted hand. You get some rest." I nod and he kisses my cheek and walks past me. I watch him go and I glance at the little broach in my hand again, smiling.

I'm one of the lucky ones. With any luck, Daphne will be the luckiest of all.

Or we'll all be dead. Either way, a release from this life of simplicity is something I welcome with open arms.

I lay down in the sheets that smell like my sweet baker, watching the golden flicker of my gift in the daylight as I fall asleep.