Community: drabble123
Prompt: #4 - goodbye
Title is from 'What Sarah Said' by Death Cab for Cutie.
"One of us will die soon," she says, matter-of factly.
Peeta knows this is true, but his body and mind rebel against the inevitable, forcing him to swallow past the lump in his throat and breathe through the tiny, fear-constricted sacs of his lungs before he answers just as coolly, "it'll be me, Katniss, not you."
That is a truth he can easily – too easily – accept.
Katniss is frightened by the nonchalance behind Peeta's words as he talks of his own death.
She isn't easy to scare, not anymore. It's easy to see she is no longer a Seam girl, innocent in some ways. Katniss has matured in an effort to survive, training her brain and body in hopes of actually escaping the arena.
Then again, so has everyone else.
Peeta knows they're not going to make it, and this fact that has suddenly become a living entity seems to whisper in his ear, inspiring him to kiss Katniss there in the dark of the cave, out of view of the residents of Panem.
This kiss, at least, isn't motivated by cameras.
They're saying goodbye and I love you and why us without using words, because no one in the Capitol can know how emotionally invested they are in each other.
The odds are bad enough already.
When they drop the berries there's a moment of silence, and they wonder if maybe they've made it to heaven after all; the nightlock must have worked its way into their systems before the trumpet sounded, this can't be real –
Because they're together again, somehow.
Before they're sedated, the arena echoes with one sound nobody hears.
The four-note whistle plays on and on.
Above them, Rue smiles, knowing that the odds are in their favor once more. Good luck, District twelve, she whispers.