Always

Chapter 11

Katniss P.O.V.

The days have flown by. It's already the first day of fall. Peeta's still asleep, but I've been awake for about an hour. I swear, the bigger this baby gets, the more feisty it gets. When Peeta finally wakes up, he looks at me and smiles.

"Morning beautiful," Peeta says as he kisses me.

"Good morning," I say. He places one of his hands on my stomach.

"She's going to be a fighter," Peeta says smiling.

"You mean he?" I tease. We start laughing. Peeta pulls my shirt up a little bit to reveal my slowly growing baby bump.

"Look," Peeta says as he points to a spot where our baby has been kicking. I look down and see the outline of our baby's foot. Me and Peeta both start smiling from ear to ear. "Wait here," Peeta says as he gets up.

"Where are you going?" I ask.

"You'll see," he says as he leaves the room. When he comes back, he has a vial of paint in one hand, and a paintbrush in the other.

"What are you doing?" I ask as he sits down next to me. Peeta opens the vial, dips the paintbrush in the paint, and starts towards my stomach with it when our baby's foot reappears. "What are you doing?" I ask again.

"Shh," Peeta says. I laugh as the cold paint and the paintbrush bristles sweep across my stomach. When Peeta gets done, he leans back to examine his work.

I look down to see that Peeta has painted the outline of our baby's foot. "Peeta, it's beautiful," I say as tears spill over my eyelashes. He sets his paintbrush and vial of paint down on the nightstand. When he turns back around, he kisses me.

"It looks so small," Peeta says as he looks down at his artwork.

"Just think," I say, "this baby is our masterpiece that wasn't painted." Peeta looks at me and smiles. The phone starts ringing just a few minutes later.

"I'll get it," Peeta says as he gets back up. He comes back just a few minutes later and starts getting dressed.

"Where are you going?" I ask as I sit up.

"To the train station," Peeta replies. "I just remember that your mom told me some stuff for the baby would be coming in today."

"Who was on the phone?" I ask.

"One of President Paylor's advisors," Peeta says as he sits down next to me on the bed to put his shoes on.

"What did they say?" I ask after Peeta doesn't give me any further information. He takes a deep breath.

"They said that Snow and Paylor have decided to go ahead with turning twelve into a business district," Peeta turns to look at me with a stressed look on his face. "They gave us a two hours notice to get packed and leave."

"What did you tell them?" I ask as I lean towards him.

"That we're not leaving without a fight," Peeta replies. I smile as I lean even closer to him and kiss him. He looks at the clock. "I'd better go," he says. "The train will be here shortly." And with that, he leaves.