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I can hear it all so vividly, see it like it’s there in front of me, I can smell the morning air fresh with the early summer breeze. I’m at the reaping, Peeta at my side holding Willow on his hip, and I’m holding Rye. Snow is on stage, but not as I knew him my entire life, this one had a gaunt face and blood pouring out of his mouth like when he died.
He calls the names in succession, “Willow Everdeen-Mellark, Rye Everdeen-Mellark.”
Just like that, our babies are ripped out of our hands by peacekeepers, five month old Rye screaming his little lungs out, and Willow screaming and crying out to Peeta and I.
“Mommy, Daddy help!!!”
“DON’T TAKE THEM,” I scream, the peacekeepers hold Peeta and I back, we thrash like wild horses, but no matter how hard we try we can’t move. “THEY’RE JUST BABIES!”
“WE VOLUNTEER!” Peeta adds next to me, and I repeat what he says.
“PLEASE, WE VOLUNTEER!”
They ignore us, the entire crowd is silent, save for the toddler and infant screaming and me and Peeta crying in each other’s arms. We can’t move, it’s like our feet are glued to the ground.
Snow meanwhile laughs at us on stage, spitting out blood, tarnishing Willow’s lily white dress and Ryes tiny blond curls.
I thrash, and feel suffocated, all I can do is scream and cry. I cry, harder than I’ve ever cried before, “They’re just babies, please don’t take them!”
-
I wake up screaming, tears streaming down my cheeks, and Peeta next to me in bed all but waiting to catch me in case I whip myself off the bed.
“Katniss it’s ok, it’s just a dream.” He holds my shoulders, I can feel myself shaking underneath his grasp.
All I can do is lean forward and sob into his chest, soaking his soft cotton tee shirt. He strokes my back, and I squeeze him, my hands finding purchase clutching at his shoulder blades.
“They were reaped,” I sob, “they were reaped and we couldn’t do anything to stop them.”
“That one again?” He rocks me side to side, kissing the top of my head. I’ve had this dream so many times, the details change sometimes. At first it was just Willow being the lone tribute for 12, after Rye came along, he joined her. Peeta has the same dream sometimes, he knows exactly how I feel. “It’s ok, none of it’s real.”
“It felt so real, Peeta, they were screaming for us. And we just stood there, Snow was there, and he just took Willow and,” I can barely bear the thought, “and he coughed up blood on her nightgown.” Peeta doesn’t talk, not much, just listens to me ramble. Peeta knows how I need to get all of the—the ugliness out of my brain while it’s still fresh and horrifying to feel better. “He got blood in Rye’s hair too, it’s all just fucking awful.”
I sit, and cry for a bit while he continues to stroke my back, it does make it a bit better. “You wanna go check on them?” He asks, as if he can read my mind, which at this point in our relationship he definitely can. “So you can see they’re ok?”
I nod against Peeta’s chest, “Yeah, I’d like that.” I say in a small voice.
He leans back and kisses me soft on my cheek and then my lips, pushing a stray curl that fell out of my loose nighttime braid behind my ear. “Want me to come with?”
“No, no I’m fine. I love you.”
I kiss him this time, and he looks back with those deep melted chocolate eyes that I feel like I can swim in sometimes. “I love you too.”
-
The baby is across the hall from our room, in his nursery. He’s still fast asleep in his crib, a mobile of dragonflies and bees leftover from when Willow was born slowly turns above him.
I go over next to his crib, being so careful where I step to not wake him. “My sweet boy,” I pet through his hair, as sunny blond as Peeta’s and unblemished by blood. He smiles in his sleep at the sound of my whispered voice, I smile back, “I love you so much.”
My lips graze his forehead as I dip down into the crib. Rye doesn’t stir, he’s turned out to be quite a heavy sleeper, the one thing I envy about my son.
I leave him, cracking the door open a bit, a soft orange glow from his nightlight spills into the hallway. Willow’s room is just down the hall, she’d been so excited to move into her “big girl room” when I learned I was pregnant with Rye.
It’s bittersweet to me though, she’s only five years old and had been living in that room for so long, the crib was turned into a toddler bed for her and everything. But she’s getting older, and can make her own decisions, and I can’t do anything to stop that. That’s why I keep having these dreams.
I crack Willow’s door open a tad wider than it already is and slink in, she’s fast asleep, but a light sleeper. As I pad across the floor closer to her, I watch for if she stirs. Her jaw is slack, and she’s all starfished on the bed, she’s just like Peeta.
She’s wearing the same nightgown from my dream, loose white linen that Effie brought back after a trip her and Haymitch took to district 8, it’s still the same pure white it’s always been. No red blood stains to be seen.
I kneel down next to her and swipe back a bit of her rat’s nest of hair, all sleep mussed and tangled, and kiss her on her forehead, “I love you Willow baby.”
This seems to wake her, if only for a moment, I see a flash of those big brown eyes she practically stole from Peeta. “Mommy?” She slurs in a hoarse sleepy voice.
“Mommy had a bad dream, I just wanted to make sure you and your brother are ok.”
It’s not the first time I’ve checked in on her like this, she knows I have nightmares and panic attacks and sometimes I just need to spend most of the day in bed, but she’s always at my side. When I’m depressed or scared in bed, she’ll sit next to me and we’ll read together to help me calm down. It’s that unconditional love and understanding that only her and Peeta have seemed to give me, time will tell with Rye, but I have a good feeling my son will do the same.
Willow throws her tiny arms around me, I hug her back and kiss her on the cheek. “I love you mommy.”
“I love you too Bug,” I kiss her one last time, “now go back to bed, I’m sorry for waking you.”
“Can I sleep with you and daddy?” She says in the tiniest voice.
“You want to?”
She nods, “Yes please.”
She’s so sweet, she likes sleeping with us in our bed more than anything. Willow will curl up underneath My neck and throw an arm over my chest and the other curled close to her face. I never have nightmares when she’s with me.
The baby cries down the hall, and I can hear Peeta get up to get him. “Let’s get back to bed huh?”
She wraps her arms tight around my neck, I carry her back to our room, stopping by the nursery to see what’s up with the baby. He’s stopped crying, now pathetically whimpering in Peeta’s arms.
“Hungry or diaper?”
“Neither,” Peeta answers, “I think he just wants to be held.”
“I know that feeling,” I say, Peeta laughs, he knows that feeling too. “Sleepover in mommy and daddy’s room then.”
We get back to bed, Peeta makes sure to make a safe little nest for Rye who’s now passing out again in his arms. Willow finds her place under my chin, I kiss her on her forehead, “Goodnight Willow,” reaching over I kiss my fingers and place them on Rye’s cheek, “night baby.”
My hand rests on his chest, softly rising up and down with each tiny breath, my other hand it wrapped around Willow’s waist and I can feel Peeta’s hand there too.
“What was your dream mommy?” Willow asks.
I manage to speak without crying, though my voice does falter, “Bad people took you and Rye away from me and daddy.”
“But you both are here,” Peeta says, petting through her hair, “we won’t let anyone take you.”
She starts nodding off, I can tell from her struggling to keep her eyes open, she says as she falls asleep, “I’m safe.”
After years of torment and anguish coming from all sides, her being able to say she feels safe is enough to nearly break me. We fought so hard for this, we lost everything, and came out of it with more than we could ever ask for. I don’t think I ever thought I was safe, to this day I’m still unsure, I know Peeta feels the same. I feel an immense sense of gratification that what I did—what we all did—was worth it in the end.
“Yeah, you are baby.” I say.
My hand on Willow’s waist moves over to Peeta’s hand, I clutch it, squeeze it three times to tell him I love him. He squeezes back three times as well. We fall asleep like that, the four of us in bed together, being serenaded by the crickets and frogs outside the open window. We’re safe here, we always will be.