how mockingjay shOULD HAVE BEEN

disclaimer: Suzanne Collins ain't me and I ain't her

"Peeta."

I look up, a little startled by the voice. It was sympathetic and urgent. This isn't the way people here usually talk to me. I try to focus on the man, but my vision blurs slightly. Should I recognize him? I don't think he's wearing the Capitol uniform, which confuses me.

I must look hopelessly lost because the man clears his throat to explain.

"My name is Boggs. We're here from District Thirteen, and we came to get you out of here. There isn't time to explain anything else. We need to move," he says quickly, gesturing for me to get up.

The only thought to go through my head right about now is uuuuum. District 13? I know it exists underground and I know that's where the rebels are, I took a beating after I warned them about the Capitol attack, but there's no way I'm escaping. Hope was gone a long time ago. I left it behind in that arena. Plus, Snow told me I'd never get out. I believed him.

Other people appear behind Boggs. I notice Gale among them. What is he doing here, on a rescue mission for me?

"Where is Katniss?" I ask. The memories are like bullets, they shoot their way back into my head as I say her name. The Quell, kissing her that last time, hearing her voice and not being able to find her, and then being lifted into a hovercraft without even a last look at her face. I didn't get one last sideways glance at her dark gray eyes to help me remember her. I've thought about her constantly, but I haven't said her name out loud in a while. When I was interrogated, I desperately tried not to say anything except that I didn't know a thing about what they were asking. I was under the impression I was going to die here.

The man, Boggs, huffs out an impatient breath. "Not here. You can see her when we get back to Thirteen. But right now we have to hurry. There is no time." Boggs answers. He grabs my arm roughly, and pulls me off the ground. We run down a long hallway full of windowless doors before reaching an elevator. I was blindfolded and only half-conscious when they dragged me here, and I have been whenever they bring me out of my room, so I don't know what buttons to push or anything.

Boggs' hand still grips my arm. Only now, when I focus on it, do I realize that it's throbbing with pain. Typical. My arms are burned and cut and bruised to the point where I can't even move them without screaming, let alone my whole damn body. I suck my lips in and try not to let it show on my face that I want to cry.

Boggs and Gale and other people with guns crowd around me as we enter the elevator and Boggs presses a button. Then something he said earlier makes its way into my muddy brain.

I can see Katniss.

She is alive.

I am alive.

It's all I can do to keep myself from smiling. It is a foreign feeling, being happy like this when I haven't smiled in so long. I've been trapped in this hellhole for so many weeks. Tortured. Drowned, beaten, electrocuted, burned, you name it.

The elevator opens again and we run through more hallways and doors. I mean, you would think they'd slow down for me. Being in a horrible condition and all. I was kidnapped and tortured, but, you know.

We collect Johanna and Annie along the way. It seems a little too easy, in my opinion. I (painfully) jog along until we reach a door with big red EXIT letters. I'm half expecting alarms to sound, someone to jump out and yell, Gotcha! Now back to your room. No one does.

I couldn't run very well before, what with my prosthetic leg and all, and in my condition I'm lucky I can even stand straight. My body screams in protest at my running, but I tell it to shut up. The promise of freedom and Katniss make me book it as fast as I can until we reach that door.

While running, I notice that all the guards and people walking through the hall are lying on the ground unconscious. I find it in me to wonder how they knocked everybody out. Maybe they used some kind of gas. Maybe they're dead.

We reach a hovercraft outside. This one doesn't have the Capitol seal anywhere on it, and I feel like dropping to my knees and singing Hallelujah. The sun beats down on us and I squint. I haven't seen the sun in so long, I want to stay outside and soak up as much sunlight as I can, but I know I can't.

As soon as we're inside the hovercraft, I pass out. Maybe it's lack of sleep, or the throbbing gash on my head from the torture session yesterday, or perhaps it's the fact that I can close my eyes without being scared shitless of what will be there when I open them. All I know is that my eyes close as soon as I take a seat on this hovercraft. I don't know how I trusted these people so immediately, but I guess with Gale among them I knew they'd lead me to Katniss.

I know I'm safe now. These people won't hurt me, and I have to remind myself of this constantly on the way to District 13.

I think about Katniss. I wonder what our reunion will be like. I hope she'll forgive me for calling for a cease-fire. I hope she'll understand that I wasn't myself, that wasn't me. God, I just don't want anyone getting hurt. So maybe it was me. But I don't care if she's angry with me. I just want to see her face, know that she's in front of me in the flesh.

Then I wonder a little too much. This whole time that I've been tortured, held hostage by the Capitol, has she cared? Why would they come for me now, why not sooner? Are she and Gale together now? She never even cared about me in the first place, and she's always cared about Gale.

No. That's not true. I know she cares about me. She may not love me like I thought she did in the first Games, but she does care. She was planning on dying in the Quarter Quell to save me. The devil on my shoulder keeps nagging that it took weeks for them to rescue me. If Katniss was the Mockingjay and I was her first priority, they would have come sooner. The angel on my shoulder reminds me of her face when Finnick saved my life in the Quell.

Well, who cares? I chide myself. She's alive and happy, that should be enough.

When I wake up, we're almost to District 13. I decide to ask Boggs for some answers to the questions bouncing around in my brain.

"Boggs?" My voice is thick with sleep.

He looks at me. "Yeah?"

"Why did you guys decide to come rescue me? Whose idea was it?" He opens his mouth but I'm not done. "Was it Katniss's? Why didn't you come sooner? Or later? Why now? And why didn't Katniss come? Why's Gale here?" Questions find their way out of my mouth before I have any clue what I'm even asking anymore.

"Slow down, Peeta," he says quickly. "Katniss had a panic attack, if you have to know so badly. She wouldn't do anything anymore, she was afraid of how Snow would take it out on you. She wanted to get you sooner, but it just wasn't a good idea." He hesitates for a moment before going on. "I know you think the whole star-crossed lovers thing was fake on her part, but she does care about you. " He probably isn't used to giving teenage boys relationship advice, but I'm thankful for the gesture.

She broke down? Because of me?

Nobody can function if the Mockingjay won't function. If she broke down, they were probably tripping over themselves to do what she wanted. I'll be with the Mockingjay soon, so I just nod and try to sleep the rest of the way. At least not everything's gone to shit.