Always

Too Soon

"The bleeding stopped." He whispers and I try to smile for him, to reassure him.

"Let's take it as a good sign." I tell him and he manages to smile as well. "Can I ask you something?"

He lies down beside me and moves my hair from my face. "Sure."

"Have you ever had a reoccurring dream, one that seems to stay with you? One that you think could come true?" I ask him.

He ponders the question for a moment before nodding his head. "I use to dream about our toasting when I was younger. I could practically smell the burnt bread, but I always woke up and realized it was just my imagination." He smiles at me and laughs. "My dream came true."

"I wish I had fallen in love with you when we were young. I have so many years of loving you to catch up on." I tell him.

He smiles and kisses my nose. "Why did you ask about the dream?"

I look at my stomach and back towards him. "Before we went into the games I had a dream that I was in the meadow back home. There were two kids, a boy and a girl, but I think you were there too."

"What do you mean you think I was there?"

"That's the thing, your face was glowing and when I moved closer to you, you vanished." He looks absently at my stomach and the sadness appears in his eyes.

"Were the kids ours?" He asks me.

"I think so, but I'm not sure." I pause and tilt his head upwards. "I had the same dream the night I told you about thirteen. Except this time, I could see your eyes and your hair, I knew it was you."

"Did I say anything?" He asks me and I shake my head.

"Every time I moved towards you, you disappeared. You turned into thin air."

"Why?"

"I have no idea." I tell him.

"Have you had it again?" He asks.

I nod my head and begin to braid my hair into two braids. "I had it last night." I stop briefly to glance towards him. "Peeta, every time the dream happens, you go missing. You turn to dust and there's nothing left of you. Your dream came true, what if mine does too? What if something happens to you?"

He stops my hands and shakes his head. "Katniss, you and the baby are everything to me. You're the sunshine in my life, so how could I disappear? I could never leave. Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere." He kisses my forehead and finishes my braids for me.

"Come on let's go eat." He tells me.

"How do you feel?" I hear Finnick ask me quietly and I nod my head.

"I'm okay, a little sore and extremely worried but I can only hope for the best."

We've just sat down when the anthem plays and the faces of the dead appear in the sky. Cashmere. Wiress. Mags. The woman from District 5. The other morphling from 6. Blight. The man from 10. Seven dead, plus the nine from yesterday. Two thirds of the tributes dead in only a day and a half. That has to be some sort of record.

"They're really burning through us," Johanna says, her thoughts obviously mimicking mine.

"Who's left? Besides us five and District 2?" Finnick asks.