He was not sure why he decided that he would attempt to save her, but once the idea had popped into his head, it was impossible to get out. She lay on her side, her eyes wide and frantically looking around. Cato, her ally, had abandoned her in the search for Thresh, the reason she was dying in the first place.

Peeta had never liked her, and if the situation had been different, he probably would have turned and run away, but now, when she looked uncharacteristically frightened and her eyes were beginning to drop, he just didn´t have the heart. Peeta looked around the meadow on which the cornucopia was placed, searching it for anybody alive before making a decision and dashing to her side.

His hands searched her hair and found the huge chunk of stone that was embedded in her pale skin. On the count of three he tore it out which caused a more heavy flow of blood to stream down her neck and face. Looking at the stone in his hand, Peeta was happy for the first time that she was unconscious. The stone was warm in his hands and utterly disgusted by it he threw it as far away as he could, not bothering to look where it landed.

He frantically looked around for anything to wrap her head with, but when he didn´t find anything he braced himself and tore of a huge piece of fabric from the left leg of his pants. Peeta tried his best to lift her head up gently and then wrapped the fabric tightly around her head so that it covered her forehead before securing it with a knot. It looked terrible and the clothing was already growing damp from the blood.

"Please don´t die." He murmured before getting up on his feet and heading back in the search for more medicine. District 2´s bag lay on the ground a couple of meters away and it was filled with food and other objects. Peeta finally breathed a sigh of release when his fingers came in contact with a metal cylinder which had a label that said Wound Closer. Inside there was some sort of injection thing which was filled with a clear blue liquid.

He walked back to Clove and stuck it in her skin without a second thought. Hopefully it would have hit some kind of vein and not a muscle. With shaking fingers he pressed down the trigger and watched as the substance disappeared into her skin. Almost instantly some color reappeared in her cheeks, and the blood stopped flowing. Peeta just stared at her, feeling such a strong surge of relief that it bordering on odd.

Now that the immediate danger of Clove dying was out of the way and his frantic hands had stilled somewhat, he collected his thoughts. He was for the first time happy he and Katniss had decided to split before it came down to the final eight. She would have been furious if he had showed up with a bleeding Clove in his arms, saying something along the lines of "Can´t we keep her?"

She had left him alone yesterday when she had figured out that the gamekeepers probably would go back on their word and make them kill each other. It had only been a theory of hers to begin with but as they had spent more and more time together she had alone decided that it was better to be safe than sorry and had disappeared during the night with only a message scribbled in mud to assure him of her safety.

In her defense, she had left him with a knife and their small supply of food and her sleeping bag, but his food had disappeared quickly, forcing him to accept the invitation to the feast in order to get some provision. He was still quite bitter about it, but it was Katniss and he couldn´t really blame her.

She did whatever it took to survive.

He walked with Clove in his arms for what seemed like at least two hours, but what was only around half an hour. She was surprisingly heavy for her small and lithe form, but he knew from experience that muscles weighed more than fat, and so that seemed only right. He placed her in his sleeping bag, and with nothing else to do, crawled in as well.

From his District Twelve bag, he took out a piece of dried meat before falling into a restless sleep. He woke up five hours later when he felt the sharp edge of a knife pushing against his throat.

"Where am I?" Clove hissed, digging the knife in deeper. She looked positively mad, with messy raven hair and dark, blazing eyes. "Huh, Lover Boy?"

"I took you to a cave." Peeta choked out. His fingers worked nimbly with working their way out of the sleeping bag without Clove noticing.

"Why am I in a cave?"

"Because you needed some kind of shelter whilst you recovered. If it makes you feel any better I regret it terribly."

Clove´s hand faltered and after much consideration, she removed it completely and sat down, still looking as if she was an angry animal ready to pounce. She also looked more than a little confused.

"Why would you do that?"

"Because you were dying."

He was met with silence. Clove just stared at him as if he had suddenly grown a second head. If it had not been for the fact that she was a ferocious human being, with nails he suspected should have been claws, he would have felt bad for her. Was it really that confusing that someone had rescued her from dying?

"Cato doesn´t know you´re alive. He went hunting for Thresh, so I would head for the field on the other side of the arena if I were you. He´s probably there if you want to look him up." Peeta muttered. "You don´t owe me anything."

Clove just continued staring at him, deep in thought. Suddenly her gaze hardened and her lips formed a scowl.

"You saved me from dying. Of course I am in your debt." She said the words bitterly and it looked as if she had to force them out of her mouth. "From now on were allies. Just don´t expect me to be nice."

-Continue or not?-