Catching Fire: What If Katniss Had Really Gotten Pregnant?

Chapter 2

All credit goes to Suzanne Collins! <3

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I found myself standing in the woods. I saw Peeta, bound to a tree, his mouth gagged. He struggled to speak through the ropes deep in his throat, his voice muffled and words unintelligible. I knew what he was trying to tell me nonetheless. No, Katniss. Run away. Run, now. But I would never do that. I couldn't.

Someone was hiding behind the tree. The one who'd taken him. And as the awful mixture of roses and blood hit my nose, I knew. Even though I couldn't see him, suddenly I felt frozen in my tracks. Fear was a feeling I knew well, but my inability to move or breathe was sincerely terrifying. When President Snow stepped out and his knife lingered on Peeta's throat, my need to protect him overcame my panic and my feet began to listen to me. I started to run forward to help him, to protect him, even jump in front of him if it came down to it. But he just drifted further and further away from me.

He laughed maniacally. "You know you can't save him. You know you can't protect anyone you love or care about, yet you keep trying. Why?" he grinned as the knife cut across Peeta's exposed neck, his hand guiding it.

"No!" I screamed, but as I did my footsteps suddenly began plodding, my voice low, drawn out, and everything going in slow motion.

The ropes and gag holding Peeta unexpectedly disintigrated into a flowing ash, soaring away in a breeze. He crumpled to the ground, and a cannon rung loudly in my ears. Then suddenly President Snow was gone, melted into the background, and I found myself atop the golden horn of the cornucopia from the seventy fourth hunger games.

I heard the mutts yelping around me, on the ground, as the cornucopia slowly began to shrink, the place of my standing point sinking closer and closer to the ground. My head whipped around, and on both sides of me there was someone frozen in place. To my left, Gale. To my right, Peeta. A hovercraft appeared overhead, a ladder laid in front of me.

My options were simple. Save Gale, save Peeta, or neither. There was clearly no time to save them both. My head snapped back and forth repeatedly. What was I going to do? Nothing. I just stood there, my eyes closed, and awaited the mutts to overtake me. But they never did.

As I opened my eyes once more, the scene had changed yet again. And there lay Peeta's pale, motionless, lifeless body, sprawled out upon the flat metal surface. But this time, there was no wall seperating us. I felt my feet trudging over slowly, so slowly, as if I were walking through quicksand.

And there I saw him. His blue eyes wide open, his mouth slightly ajar, and his entire face and jaw puffed and purple from the poison. The poison of the berries. Then suddenly I felt mine begin to do the same, my vision becoming blurry so quickly, and everything went black.

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I woke up screaming. Yet I wasn't quite awake yet. I was crying, sobbing, and shaking. "Peeta no! No!" I shook, my eyes closed tightly from the world, and I pulled away furiously as someone grabbed onto me, sure in my mind that it was President Snow, and clawed furiously at him. "You killed him! You beast! You... You..." I screamed, my voice trailing off in sobs, then slowly stopped fighting, still shaking slightly, my face drenched in tears. "Peeta..." Surely he knew that I'd dreamt of him from my mutterings.

When he coaxed my eyes open I saw him hovering over me, his face holding a large note of concern. "Peeta!" I suddenly jumped up on the bed and wrapped my arms around him as tightly as I could, which I suppose was rather tight. "Oh Peeta.." I cried into his shoulder, not loosening my grip on him one bit. Not yet.