A/N: This is my first Hunger Games fic so I hope you guys will be gentle with me. I mapped out this chapter on holiday so hopefully you enjoy it. Let me know what you think.

Pairing: Peeta x Katniss.

Rating: M

Disclaimer: After fifteen years of marriage Katniss is counting the minutes for a pregnancy test to show results. She'd always been so careful. She had no idea what the rebellious actions she takes would cause to her marriage. Fighting to survive the hurdles of love and life and a needy little puppy thrown into the mix, Katniss is living in her own brand of hell. Can she manage to fix the damage and fall in love with Peeta again before they both seriously contemplate divorce?

Prologue

Katniss

Sitting on the edge of the bathtub with my arms wrapped tightly around my stomach, I squeezed my eyes shut against the dull ache building up at the base of my skull. I hadn't washed my hair in the last day and a half and already my scalp was hurting. I checked my watch before sighing and massaging my temples, the tips of my fingers doing little to quell my headache and feeling like needle heads rubbing against my skin.

Peeta would be home soon.

As soon as he'd see me secluded away in the bathroom, he would start to get concerned and over-bearing and I didn't need that. I hated when he did that because although his intentions were good, it made me feel weak and useless and just plain crap in comparison to his 'good-boy' nature. I couldn't stand to have those beautiful blue eyes gleaming up at me. A shiver ran through me as I swirled my tongue around my mouth, wishing the extra minty toothpaste had done something in the way of ridding the taste of vomit from my mouth. I was cold and shaky and my skin felt clammy to the touch. I couldn't keep anything down over the last two days, not even dry toast and crackers. I'd managed to sip at a glass of water for most of last night at Peeta's request. He'd been so gentle and attentive –something I envied him for. I hadn't told him that I was staying home today. I hadn't decided until my alarm had blared out first thing this morning and the room around me had swum about and warped and punched my stomach with a fresh, hot wave of nausea. If Peeta knew he would only worry and insist on staying home tomorrow to take care of me.

I rubbed at my tired eyes and glanced up through the bathroom door and my eyes fell upon the picture in the silver frame propped up on Peeta's side of the bed; it was a photo of us from our wedding day –or our toasting as it was commonly known in Twelve.

It was on a beautiful spring afternoon in the town hall gardens; bright flowers dotted the background with bright colours that had made me smile at their sharp contrast with the lush green grass underfoot. I loved the vivid bursts of reds, pinks, oranges and yellows all blending together and exploding with fresh fragrances that surfed on the spring breeze. Peeta had worn one of the few beautiful suits he owned from our time in the Capitol. Despite many offers over the years from designers offering us both a lot of money to show off their wares on the catwalk, we had both adamantly refused, only really accepting a couple when Effie wouldn't relent in the first couple of years after the revolution. It was a handsome suit, tinted charcoal grey and tailored so beautifully that it fit his figure perfectly. The delicate platinum and emerald cufflinks winked at his cuffs; they had surprised me along with the dark emerald green tie fastened at his throat.

A variation of my favourite colour –the colour of freedom.

I'd blushed lightly when I saw, feeling over-whelmed as I followed Johanna up the aisle –it had taken months of persuading to finally get her to agree to be my maid of honour. Really I didn't want anyone else if I couldn't have Prim. My mother had been at my side as I'd walked towards my soon-to-be-husband. I watched an amused gleam dance in Peeta's eyes as I drew nearer. He'd seen them; the delicate, orange-hued blossoms intricately woven into my hair that hung over my shoulder in a stylish coil of dark hair.

Our dinner after the ceremony had been beautiful, with hundreds of candles dotted delicately around the gardens. We'd danced and drank a lot of alcohol throughout the night. Many people murmured about how happy I'd looked –we'd looked. How could I not be happy? I had literally just married the man I could physically not live without. Happy couldn't even begin to describe how my heart felt in that moment –and we had it all captured in a large photo album tucked underneath the bed, a few of the better photos framed and mounted about our home.

That night we had returned to Peeta's house in the Victors Village –we'd spent more time over there that at my own house anyway so it seemed like the obvious choice –and had lunged at one another as soon as the front door had 'clunked' shut in its frame. It was 2AM; we'd hoped to have been home at 11PM the latest but we had been delayed by more well-wishers and by the time we escaped both of our bodies were feverish with a hungry desire that needed to be sated.

The memory still makes me feel hot and hungry for him every time I think about it.

I'd bitten down on my lip, feeling drunk on his taste as he'd tugged at the corset lacing that was keeping my dress together. I'd unwound the tie from his neck and ripped his shirt open, the sound of buttons clinking on the cool tiled floors, his hot muscles heaving and gleaming under my splayed fingers. I'd listened to the hush of my dress as it was pushed past my hips and pooled on the floor between us. He'd lowered his mouth to my neck and I'd moaned as he'd pinched at my hard nipples, cupped and fondled my breasts before his hand had slipped into my knickers and pressed his palm against my damp virginity before pushing a finger inside my heat.

I'd felt my knees buckle at his touch.

I'd clung to him as he made my desire burn inside me. I ached in a way I hadn't known possible. Lifting me from the pool of my dress, he'd carried me into the living room of our house, his feet pattering on the tiled floor, and placed me down on the floor on my back in front of the low burning fire in the grate. I'd gasped as my skin touched the tiles and I arched my back in the light of the glowing flames. A hot weight pressed down between my legs and I'd looked up into Peeta's firm blue eyes, so serious and yet so tender and filled with love. He'd pressed kisses against my mouth, my neck and then down my breasts and navel before easing himself lower between my legs. I'd shuddered and clenched my thighs together, embarrassment flooding through me. Why would he want to kiss there?

It took him a little while before I'd eventually relented, clenched my eyes shut, sweating with embarrassment. My insides had quivered when his tongue ran over me and I'd no choice but to gasp out loud, my heart stuttering in my chest. I felt my inhibitions evaporate as he worked his tongue and fingers inside me, easing me for what was to come. I quivered and ached to have him claim me, making me his own forever.

I'd taken my time running my fingers through his hair and tugged at it, a pleading noise escaped my throat that I'd not intended to make. I felt him smirk down knowingly at me. He tugged my knickers off of my ankle and shifted awkwardly out of his own trousers, his underwear catching on his prosthetic leg. I'd glanced down the length of my own naked body and finally looked up at him, highlighted by the fire in all of his glory. A tremor had gone through me as I drank in his physique fully for the first time. He really was a beautiful man. The fine silvery scars that hadn't completely healed yet only added to his beauty. I didn't dare imagine he thought the same about me, but the look on his face had said everything his words could not. Lowering on his arms he'd promised me that he would be as gentle as possible. When he guided himself inside me, and united our souls as 'one', I'd been lost.

We made love for three days straight. We'd done it in every room of his –our –house. The morning after our first time in the living room I'd woken up on the cold floor with a fur blanket draped over me and Peeta humming in the kitchen, the smells of baking bread warm on the early morning air. I'd cuddled the blankets tighter around me, trying to trap the warmth around me, before eventually getting up and gone in to him. I'd crossed the kitchen where he stood in front of the ovens. I'd walked up to him, covered only in the blanket and pressed my naked breasts against his bare back as he fiddled with the timer dial on the oven. I'd rested my chin in the crook of his neck and wound my arm around his waist, slipping my fingers to curl around his soft length.

"Kat?" he'd breathed gently, his voice rumbling in amusement, "What are you doing?" His voice had been husky from sleep and the desire I felt grow in my hand. A thrill had run through me as he'd turned and eased me onto his scrubbed clean countertop.

We'd made passionate love that morning, barely breaking for the burning cheese rolls he'd made for our first breakfast as husband and wife.

We'd only really taken a break on the third day because we'd both needed a break and because Peeta had told me, as tenderly as possible, that if I was so set on not having children then I would need to take the proper precautions against such a thing from happening. It had certainly put a dampener on our lazy morning snuggled up together in bed. I'd swallowed thickly at his words, a cold hand coming up to squeeze at my heart. It had chipped away at his humanity, to say those words. They hung in the air over our heads as a tired seed of hope broke in his chest. I know he'd wanted me to stay that morning, deep down inside him he had wanted me to stay. I had felt it in his grasp as I'd unwound myself from his tender embrace. He'd wanted me to reconsider, hoping against hope that our love-making had dulled my fears, because I had him now and neither of us would be alone again.

I'd almost done just that and slipped back into bed with him, but something had stopped me. If I'd loved him enough it would have been a no-brainer really. Maybe that had been the problem. Maybe I didn't feel like I loved him enough.

Maybe.

That was the moment that an invisible barrier had arisen between us. The light and hope dulled in his eyes as my silence spoke out for me. He'd shuffled out of bed and had come over to gently stroke a knot-free strand of hair from my face as he'd passed me into the bathroom. I hadn't the heart to look up into his eyes and see the pain swimming in them. The pain that I'd put there. However, when I did look up into his eyes I saw nothing but tenderness and love burning forth softly from his soul. At that moment, Haymitch's words had rung out in my head.

"You could live a hundred lifetimes and still not deserve that boy."

He was right, I'd decided, I didn't deserve Peeta and I don't think I ever will.

Since that day I had been protected from pregnancy and hadn't had another painful moment with Peeta –not of that magnitude anyway. Of course we fought, what couple didn't? I am a selfish person and sometimes it got the better of me. For fifteen years we'd lived our lives with one another and travelled around Panem, helping with the plans to rebuild the other districts' and map out plans for future development.

The housing in the seam of District twelve was bigger, brighter and easier to maintain for stay-at-home mothers. They had running water and basic heating appliances. I loathed those frosty winters where I'd cuddled up with Prim and even my mother on some nights in front of the low burning stove and trying to rub some warmth into our limbs. Food was no longer in short supply for those that had struggled years beforehand. Members from each district had flocked to District Seven where they had learned about farming in a 'school' erected in memory of those who had fallen for Seven. Skills were learned and soon Twelve had large fields growing our own food. We only ate grain when we WANTED to. Many people, especially in the seam, had small vegetable patches growing, so even if they didn't have much meat they could still have things like fruit cakes and zucchini breads and things like that. Many couldn't bake them themselves, so in exchange for giving their some of their produce to Mellark's bakery, Peeta's dad and brother –sometimes Peeta himself –would create pastry and breaded treats for them.

Suffice to say, no one at the seam starved as they had done before the revolution.

It had surprised me to discover just how frail the Capitol's old system had been in the first place.

As the result of a unanimous vote across Panem it was decided that a small hospital with capitol-engineered equipment and medicines would be positioned in each district, mostly for work related injuries. For major injuries like trauma or severed limbs they were taken straight to the capitol for treatment, something that never would have happened beforehand. My mother even worked in the District Twelve Hospital. She mainly tries to combine her healing remedies with the new-age capitol medicines. So far her attempts have worked well. She even gets orders from other Districts. She lives quite comfortably now. I have her modified sleeping solution that's tinted with lavender to help me sleep at night. It didn't have the same bitter taste I remembered from the Capitol's medicine, thankfully. I only used it when I had the tingling at the back of my neck that often indicated a night wrought with nightmares that drowned me in my own sweat and self-loathing.

Peeta liked to use the one tinted with either honey or cinnamon.

Johanna was often sent mint tinted ones in our weekly letters to one another. I say letters; I usually sent her little food parcels with a few of Peeta's chocolate chip breakfast buns along with a few phials. I often got worried that she never used them, and merely stored them up for when she got the urge to never wake up again. I knew she had those thoughts. I'd had them myself sometimes, and I don't doubt that Peeta has had them too, though he'd never admit it to me for fear of scaring me. There was a pattern. Whenever we did get that specific urge we would try to go a prolonged amount of time before getting a refill of our dosage from my mother. However, whenever I would go and visit her with Peeta, she always seemed as well rested and content as anyone with Johanna's background could be.

For fifteen years I watched as Panem had grown stronger and moved forward away from the heavy shadow of the revolution and all that had been before it. It was interesting to watch as we gradually began to thrive once again. For every one of those fifteen years Peeta and I had been careful and adapted to this new, threat-free way of life.

A shiver ran through me at that thought.

I glanced up at the white porcelain sink where, not ten minutes ago, I had placed the white stick I kept just in case of emergencies, although really they were for my own peace of mind and self-assurance that we would be alright, that it would be just the two of us. I'd been so careful. I knew I was being paranoid as I raked a hand through my hair and blew out a sigh. It was the middle of winter, after all. I had all the symptoms of the flu, a runny nose included. I just wanted to be sure.

Drawing in a deep breath I forced myself back to the present and the matter at hand. I stood up and braced myself over the sink, my eyes clenched shut. Why couldn't I look? The answer was simple.

I was afraid.

Every time I afraid even though I knew it would be negative. Even though I wanted it to be negative. I often questioned my fear of seeing the result. Was it because, deep down, I may have wanted to be a mother on some level? I shook my head in disgust at myself. Not a chance. How could I risk what happened to me, happen to someone smaller and twice as innocent? How was I meant to hush away their nightmares when I couldn't even control mine, or even help Peeta with his own?

But then … Didn't Peeta deserve a chance to be happy as a father?

Gasping, I looked up into my reflections' eyes, alone tear dripping from my eyelashes and running down the curve of my clammy cheek. How many more years would Peeta secretly resent me for not giving him children before the love between us died and he left me forever? He would go off to Delly or someone else who could give him children without a second thought for her own well-being or what it might do to her … down there. Or the general risks of being a parent.

I breathed in and then looked down.

The result stared up at me. I felt a blow to my heart and my stomach clenched tightly inside me. I felt both relief and disgust flood through me in equal measures. I raked my hair fiercely from my face and forced myself to smile, a tight-lipped ugly expression marring my features into a mask I had once perfected for thousands of cameras, the black hole in my soul expanding. I would need to get more protection. I was running very low.

'It's okay,' I told myself, 'Peeta will be home soon and you can go to the hospital together.'

I accidentally allowed my gaze to shift back to the test sitting on the edge of the sink. Rookie mistake. My knees buckled beneath me and I threw myself over the bowl of the toilet as I emptied the bile bubbling up at the back of my throat.

Negative. It was always negative.

A/N: Please read and and review! Updates are on Tuesdays so keep at eye out and add the story to your alerts.