In The Blowing Ashes

Chapter 25

Peeta

Katniss keeps pacing the nursery, moving and cleaning everything, unfolding and refolding every piece of clothing she has tucked away for the baby. She's been doing this for a whole week now, in every room in our house. At first, it didn't really bother me. Now, it's driving me insane.

"Katniss, why don't you just sit down for a minute?" I ask her and she gives me a look a little like the one she gave me when I first suggested she needed to start wearing maternity clothes.

"No," she says as she goes back to dusting the already very clean changing table. I groan and leave the room, almost running straight into her mother.

"Sorry Delilah," I say and she just chuckles. "She just, she won't stop cleaning everything!"

"It's alright," she says. "This is all very stressful for both of you. But the reason she can't stop cleaning and the reason I'm here is the same thing."

"What do you mean?" I ask her and she smiles.

"She's nesting, Peeta," she says. "That little voice in the back of her head is telling her that everything needs to be clean. Everything needs to be absolutely in its place and perfect for when the baby comes."

"She isn't due for a few more weeks," I say.

"Sometimes babies don't care when their mothers are supposed to have them," she says. "They come on their own schedule. And if that baby is anything like her mother, no one is going to tell her what to do or when she's gonna be born."

"You think she's gonna have the baby early?" I ask her and she nods.

"I've seen enough expectant mothers to know she's close," she says. "The baby has already dropped into the birthing position. It could really happen any day now." She looks down. "She's so terrified, I don't have the heart to tell her. She doesn't need to get stressed out about this until it happens." I nod. "Why don't you go paint or something. I'll make sure she doesn't decide that the baby's room needs repainted."

"Thanks," I say and she nods.

"You need to relax right now," she says. "You can't fall apart when she goes into labor. She's gonna need you more than ever then."

"I know," I say and I start towards the study. "She'll be okay, won't she?"

"Of course she will," she says. "Maybe she'll chew your butt out for putting her there, but the minute she holds that little girl in her arms, she'll be far more than okay." I nod and go into the little room I've turned into a studio. The harsh paintings of my bad memories are all packed away. Most recently, they've been replaced with ones of my pregnant wife. The one I'm currently working on is of Katniss sitting in the window seat, a black dress fitting to her form and her face turned towards the summer sky outside. Where our daughter would be, I sketched the image of her latest ultrasound picture. It's about half done, and as I sit down to start painting her long braid over her shoulder, I smile at the thought that any day now, I could be holding my little girl. I continue to paint until all I have left is small details in the baby's face when I hear her uneven steps behind me.

"Did I do something to make you mad or something?" Katniss asks. I turn to her and see she's near tears. I get up and gently take her by the shoulders.

"Of course not," I say. "It's just, the constant cleaning is becoming a bit much." She glares at me.

"Don't you think I would stop if I could?" She says. "I keep trying, but I can't." She looks down at her feet. "I'm nesting aren't I? That's why my mother keeps acting like this is all normal. She knows I don't clean." I just laugh.

"Yeah," I say. "You really don't. I know this'll pass, but I don't think that her clothes keep needing to be refolded and moved to different drawers." She laughs a little at that.

"I know," she says. "But it just, it all has to be perfect for her."

"I know, sweetheart," I say. "And I know you're scared, but really, there isn't anything to be scared of."

"Nothing to be scared of?" She asks. "I'm going to give birth in three weeks or less. I think it's perfectly acceptable for me to be terrified. Especially when I've seen what I've seen." She looks down. "My mother lost a lot of women in childbirth and a lot of the time, the baby didn't make it. Or even worse, I could lose her. She could be born dead or worse. I have everything to be scared of." She starts crying and I pull her close.

"That won't happen," I promise. "She's gonna be perfect. There is absolutely no reason to be scared of anything like that happening. Dr. Montgomery said just last week you were fine. You and our daughter are going to be just fine." She keeps crying anyway, as though she didn't even hear me. I rub her back  and feel her lay her head on my shoulder.

"I keep getting false contractions," she says. I pull away from her and stare at her.

"Why didn't you tell me that?" I ask.

"Because they weren't real," she says. "I don't need you to drag me to the hospital every time I feel a little tiny false contraction."

"But there could be a time when they aren't," I say. "I don't want to hear second hand that your water broke or that your sitting in the hospital with contractions thirty seconds apart." She  rolls her eyes at me.

"Peeta, do you really think I'd let that happen," she says. "I'm gonna need someone's hand to break in the delivery room." I laugh a little until Katniss gets this weird look on her face. I feel something hit my shoes and take a step back to see a puddle around Katniss' feet and a slow trickle still runs down her leg. She looks down and starts muttering under her breath. "No, no, no, no, no. This can't be happening. I'm not ready."

"Katniss, is that?" I ask her and she nods.

"I think so," she says. "I think my water just broke." She looks at me and I expect her to panic or to scream at me to get her mother, but she totally takes me off guard as she starts laughing. "My water just broke and I'm gonna give birth to our baby three weeks early."

"Do you want me to go get your mom?" I ask her. She nods.

"Yeah," she says. "Think I'm just gonna go sit down and wait for my real contractions to start." I start heading towards the door but I turn to look back at her as she sits down slowly on my stool, holding her swollen stomach awkwardly.

"Hey," I say. "You weren't serious about breaking my hand, were you?"

"Peeta, the only thing keeping me from freaking out right now is probably the fact that I'm in shock right now," she says. "Which is why I'm going to tell you that if you don't go get my mother and figure out how to get me to the hospital right now, I will start pulling those blonde curls out of your head one by one." I fake a smile.

"Great," I say. "Just checking." I take a deep breath and go to find her mother, shaking my head and hoping what I said earlier was true. Hoping this all will turn out alright for Katniss and our daughter.