"It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so badly. When I first felt her stirring inside of me, I was consumed with a terror that felt as old as life itself..."
She's never been good at hiding her secrets from Peeta. Not when they had first entered the Hunger Games together seventeen years ago. Not now, all these years later, after spending fifteen of them so close together. They've shared the same house for years now. It's been so many, that it's hard to remember a time when she had been in District 12 alone. Normally, she's grateful. So utterly grateful for Peeta's time and patience and love. But in the past couple of days, that gratefulness has disappeared.
It's her own naivety that's kept the secret this long. Prim had always been the one to help their mother with anything remotely medical or pharmaceutical in nature. The most she ever contributed had been the plants she had encountered during her treks in the forest. The memories linger - all of her memories do - but they seem so far away. From a different lifetime. She's long made her peace with that. Older now (and maybe a little wiser), she understands the uprising had been necessary. For all she had sacrificed, life is different now. For her and for Peeta. For Haymitch, Effie, Gale, and everyone else who lived through the events of that time. Maybe even more so for all the new children born every year, children that will never face the threat of the Hunger Games. Ones that will never grow up confined to their District or status or wealth.
There's freedom now. Freedoms that make all the sacrifices worth it.
She had spent the last few weeks or so wondering if she had been coming down with something. The fatigue, the aches, the nausea, those mornings spent with her hunt delayed as she took a detour to find a place to empty her stomach of breakfast. With winter settling in to the fall, sickness still wasn't all that uncommon in 12. Winter colds, flues and other viruses. She had dismissed her symptoms just as that. Symptoms that she's caught this year's cold. Nothing that she wouldn't get over, wouldn't pass.
Though they've talked, discussed the possibility of a family of their own, she had always been so afraid. Only recently had she come to warm to the idea - and not just for Peeta's sake. She just never expected it to happen so soon.
Peeta will be home soon. He doesn't know that she's visited the doctor today, finally sought explanation for the symptoms she's done her best to hide from him. The diagnoses had confirmed what she already suspected, had expected since feeling the flutters within her stomach days ago. The fear she feels almost overhwelms her if she lets herself stop and think.
So she doesn't. She keeps pacing back and forth in their living room. Even though they've discussed this, she doesn't know how he'll react.
He'll be home soon.
Soon.