Catching Fire: What If Katniss Had Really Gotten Pregnant?

Chapter 1

All credit goes to Suzanne Collins

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I stared out the window of the train blankly, as the outside scene of the world steadily changed. From the Capitol, with its looming towers of metal, to a seemingly endless flow of meadows, until eventually the ramshackled buildings and cobbled paths found me back in my grubby old home of district twelve. My eyes followed along, but I barely paid mind to the scenery, everything rolling together into one uninterrupted blur as the train moved without moving. My head felt empty, and maybe that was for the best — as though if I focused on any one thing for too long I might break down. I couldn't afford that, not yet. We were almost through. Almost home.

For whatever that was worth, now. 

Each neatly planned stop on the victor's tour had been nearly as agonizing as the last, but Haymitch had made it painfully clear after the debacle of district eleven that we could not show it, and I wondered if the spectacle of the games, the showmanship, the lies, would ever really end for us. It didn't feel like it.     

I suppose I should know by now that most horrible things don't need a reason. Or at least, not a good one.

As the train gradually rolled to a stop in district twelve's small station, I vaguely noticed Peeta moving to stand beside me, trying without words to pull me from my stupor. He didn't touch me, and if I were more involved in reality in that moment, I might have wondered if he wanted to. The line between our performance and our actual relationship wasn't really a line, but I didn't know what it was instead. In my head I could see something that maybe used to be a line — one that had been drawn in dirt, but rain and traffic had marred it to the point that it could no longer be seen upon the ground. That felt right. We could cross it whenever we wanted, but if you really paid attention, took the time to look just close enough, the mark was still there — now a very sad excuse of  something trying to keep two things apart. Two people.

From one side of my vision, as we grew nearer and nearer to the train station, to the masses of people, I could see the flashing of lights, could almost imagine all of their excited voices, though I couldn't really hear them yet. From the other, Peeta's upturned hand reached out towards me, carefully, offering. We couldn't pull up in front of all those people, sat in front of the window like we were: devoid of emotion, and still, like two very melancholy statues.

I had to smile, and act. It shouldn't be so hard anymore. I ought to be used to it. I didn't have to work quite so hard at it as I'd had to at first, what felt like ages ago now, but I had to try. I had to pull myself from this daydream state I found myself in so often, know who I was and what was happening, pay attention to each face I made, each movement of my body. Peeta would take my hand, and lead the way, he made things easier. He would tuck me nicely under my arm, like there were still things here he needed to keep me safe from. Which, of course, there were, but reporters didn't have a tendency to come at me with hatchets and spears — not directly, anyway. He would smile at me, at everyone, and do most of the talking, if not all of it. I knew I could count on him, and as much as I tried to avoid thinking too deeply about me and Peeta, I was glad he was the one by my side through all of this.

And as crotchety as Haymitch always was, and as infrequently as I would ever show it, I was grateful for his seriousness in keeping us both alive. I found myself forgetting how unprecedented all of this was, two victors. We were being played up as a single unit for a reason, I knew that. I imagined myself, briefly, as the lone victor. Giving speeches, putting on a show, everything I was already doing, but alone. I don't think I could bear it.

I felt like I ought to appreciate Peeta more than I did, for being with me through this, but thanking him would be weird, right? He didn't choose this, it's just how it happened. I looked back at him, over my shoulder, at his soft smile, and wondered if all of this was just as hard for him as it was for me, if he was just better at pretending.