The Mellark Children

Chapter 28: The One With The Possibly Pregnancy

"This isn't your fault," I interrupt him. "It's mine. I made you keep going. I should've let you stop, and we shouldn't have done it a second time unprotected. We took a risk, a-and... I don't know. I just feel really guilty. I feel like my body has betrayed me even though it did exactly what it's supposed to."

"First of all," Peeta says, getting out of his chair and coming over to crouch down in front of me. "You're not even one-hundred percent certain that you're pregnant. Secondly, there's no fault when it comes to creating life," he puts a hand on my lower abdomen. "Any child of ours you should bear is a gift. It's part of you and part of me... it took two of us to create our baby sleeping upstairs, it took two of us to make this one that may or may not be lying in your belly."

"I'm not ready for another baby."

"That's alright."

"I really need to take a test. I need to know. Tonight."

"Do you have any left?"

"I don't know," I look down at my lap. Peeta's hand hasn't left my stomach. "Peeta, I don't know what I'll do if it comes back positive."

"I hope that you'll be excited because I will be over the moon, and if you aren't I'll bring down my enthusiasm some and help you see the good that can come from having a second child."

"Willow won't even be two by the time the baby comes," I cry. "She's about to start walking... It's gonna be so hard to chase after her with a huge belly."

"I'll be here to help you."

I shake my head, "You have the bakery, I couldn't pull you away from that."

"You are getting yourself all worked up over nothing," Peeta says.

"It isn't nothing... I can feel the change occurring in my body."

"If you are pregnant, you'd have about six more months before you'd really start getting big and worn out. In your last two months I could spend a few days a week at home and take Wills with me to the bakery on the others."

"She'd just distract you."

"She's my daughter, of course she's going to distract me. You distract me," Peeta chuckles. "She'll be fine, you know why?"

"Why?"

"Because of a very secret project I haven't told you about. I was saving it for her birthday, but now is a perfect time to tell you," he says. "I'm having a special room built for Willow to play in when she does come spend the day at the bakery."

"You are?"

"Yeah, I want you guys to be able to get out of the house more and there really isn't a space for her there yet. You use my office most of the time, she needs to have her own spot as well."

"That's perfect, Peeta."

"We've got the room built, and there's plenty of space that I can add a crib for this new baby... if there is one that is."

"We could make this work?"

"We could make it work," Peeta assures me.

"I think I'm ready to take that test now," I tell him, shakily.

"I'll clean up down here if you want to go search for any that we might have left."

"You'll come up when I take the test?"

"If you want me there, I'll be there."

He stands, allowing me to do the same. He gives me a kiss for confidence, and I head up the stairs and into our bathroom. I crotch down and dig through the cabinets underneath the sink. My eyes are desperately searching for the pink and white box containing the pregnancy tests I remember Dr. Roman giving me. When I come up empty handed, I remember that I had ran out of them and had been using the faulty ones from the hob. I close the cabinets angrily because I know this means I have to go see Dr. Roman about this and I know I'm going to get a lecture about not giving my body the eighteen months it needs to fully recover from a pregnancy before conceiving again.