Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games franchise or any of its characters.

The explosion echoes around him, blowing him off his feet. He tumbles backwards as stray branches cut and scratch at him. He throws his arms out, trying to grab something to stop his fall. His fingers grabs something soft but it slips out of his grasp. Wet soil, leafs, stones and branches slip through his fingers as he continues to scrabble for firm ground.

It was like falling into a dark void that stretched to infinity. Stars sparkle and burst in his vision. His throat is dry and there is a ringing in his ears.

There is a stab in his arm and the pain immediately clears his head. His vision snaps into focus and he glares at Johanna who is bent over him with a knife. She hacks and slashes at his arm, digging the sharp end in over and over again. There is a fierce look of concentration on her face as she slices at his arm.

Why are you cutting me?

He kicks at her which draws a curse from her. His hand reaches for a stone, a branch, anything to use as a weapon against her. Johanna's lip curls back as she leaps back and tosses something at his feet. "You can thank me later", she sneers. "Come on, we have to find the rest."

The rest?

"What hap-why did you-where is Katniss?"

Johanna snorts. "Never seen you this coherent before", she says sarcastically. "They must have blown out the forcefield. Seeing as it came from the sky, your fiancé must have shot an arrow at it." She spits the word out as if it tasted bitter in her mouth. She repeats her earlier words and beckons at him to follow.

His eyes widen at the sound and Johanna hears it too. They both turn to see a hovercraft flying overhead of the lightning tree. Its metal arms drop to the ground and scoops up a body in its claws.

He stares open-mouthed, stunned by the sight. Has someone died? Was it one of the Careers? Beetee?

The claw drops again to pick up another body. Even from the distance, Peeta could see it was a girl's body. A girl with a long dark braid.

"Katniss!"

Johanna curses and gives chase to the frantic boy. He is deaf to her shouts, deaf to the forest around him, deaf to everything except to the hovercraft that bears Katniss' corpse.

No, not her corpse. Katniss is alive. She has to be alive.

There is a crashing in the distance and then something or someone shoves him down. He kicks and claws furiously but his arms are held down.

"Quiet. Don't let them hear us." Finnick whispers to him. He looks up at Johanna and she nods in return to him. Swiftly she swings her legs over and straddles Peeta to the ground, her right thigh crushing down on his throat. Finnick moves his feet to press down on Peeta's arms, rendering him effectively immobile. Peeta chokes at the leg crushing his windpipe, his feet kicking uselessly.

Finnick hisses in pain and there is a spurt of blood on Peeta's face. A swallowed shriek and more blood splatters on Peeta's face. Finnick stands to his feet, draws his arms back and flings something into the air. Peeta continues to choke on the ground as he tries to push Johanna off of him. The blood on her arm drips down her thigh and into his mouth.

"Shut up, Peeta or they'll hear you. Johanna, get off him!"

Johanna rolls her eyes and leaps aside. "What happened, Finnick?"

Finnick's eyes are wild. "They got her. Beetee too. The explosion blew me out of the area and I couldn't get back in. I ran before they saw me but I still had my tracker and I lost my trident in the blast."

Johanna nods, as if it was the most logical thing for him to do. "What do we do now?"

Finnick points in the direction of the Cornucopia. Peeta finally regains his breath and gasps out, "Who took Katniss? Is she dead?" He whispers the last word.

The older victors exchange a long glance before Finnick replies, "She's not dead. But things didn't go as planned."

They don't give Peeta any more time to ask questions. Finnick half-drags, half-carries him to the Cornucopia. Another hovercraft has arrived and they push him to the ladder. The electric current freezes him in place as the ladder pulls up into the hovercraft. In the aircraft, he sees Plutarch Heavensbee, Head Gamemaker.

Is this the end of the Games? They can't have so many victors. Why is Plutarch here? Why are Finnick and Johanna helping him? What did they mean by things not going as planned?

Plutarch reaches for Peeta's eyes and thumbs them down. There is a pinprick on his neck and Peeta falls again into oblivion.

Katniss.

When Peeta wakes up, his right arm is bandaged and the throbbing pain is gone. There are tubes above where Johanna had cut him with her knife. He stares at his arm, remembering the glint of light that had bounced off the things Finnick had thrown far away from them. Trackers. Johanna had cut out the trackers from his arm, all of their arms.

What is going on?

In the distance, he could hear voices. Very angry voices. A man and a woman are shouting at each other but he can't hear who they are. He reaches up and pulls the tubes out of his arm. He spots a syringe nearby and hesitates, his arm hovering over it. Pursing his lips, he pulls back his hand and leaves the room.

Carefully he tries to creep down the hallway towards the voices. His footsteps echo loudly on the floor and he winces at the sound. He was never any good at sneaking around, unlike Katniss who could slink like a cat in the shadows.

The voices stop abruptly and the door slides open. Haymitch stands at the doorway and eyes him with a mixture of amusement and exasperation.

"Don't try sneaking around, Peeta. Stick to baking and mooning over dark-haired girls."

"What's going on, Haymitch? Where is Katniss?" Peeta's voice is calmer than what he really feels inside.

Haymitch moves from the doorway and points Peeta to a chair. Looking inside, he sees the rest of the room's occupants. Johanna's arms are folded as she leans back against the wall. Her glare is smouldering and she radiates waves of anger. Finnick is seated at the table and his eyes are filled with despair. Plutarch is standing near the doorway too, nodding at the same chair. Peeta looks at Finnick, who is unable to meet his eyes.

"Oh sit down, Loverboy." Johanna snaps at him. "We're not going to eat you."

He walks in and sits down carefully. Plutarch puts a bowl of broth and a roll before him. "Eat", he says in a kinder tone than Haymitch or Johanna.

Haymitch sits down directly in front of him. "Peeta, I'm going to explain what happened. I don't want you to ask any questions until I'm through. Do you understand?"

He nods numbly. Haymitch explained the plan to Peeta.

There was a plan to break them out of the arena from the moment the Quell was announced. The victor tributes from 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 11 had varying degrees of knowledge about it. Plutarch Heavensbee has been, for several years, part of an undercover group aiming to overthrow the Capitol. He made sure the wire was among the weapons. Beetee was in charge of blowing a hole in the force field. The bread they received in the arena was code for the time of the rescue. The district where the bread originated indicated the day. Three. The number of rolls the hour. Twenty-four. The hovercraft belongs to District 13. They are currently on a very roundabout journey to District 13. Meanwhile, most of the districts in Panem are in full-scale rebellion.

No one told Peeta or Katniss the plan. It was too dangerous, Snow had too many people watching them. The rest of the victors involved in the plan had agreed to protect them, even die if it meant they would live. They couldn't lose the Mockingjay who meant so much to the rebellion. They also couldn't lose Peeta because if he had died, Katniss would have never allied with them.

Haymitch pauses and watches Peeta's face.

"It's…a lot to take in." Peeta says, evenly. "I understand the why and what. But where is Katniss if you were supposed to protect her?" His voice drops to a whisper. His eyes find Finnick across the table.

"Katniss blew the force field out. Beetee tried but something went wrong. Katniss thought I – she aimed her arrow at the sky instead." Finnick is hiding something. What did Katniss thought he wanted to do? "When the force field blew up, I couldn't move. When I got up, the hovercraft was already there. I crawled to the bushes and watched them take Beetee and Katniss away. They couldn't see me but I knew I still had my tracker in me. So I ran and found you and Johanna." He swallows and shakily says, "I'm sorry, Peeta."

Johanna bursts into a screech again. "I thought you guys were supposed to rescue Katniss first? Wasn't that the whole plan? What the fuck happened in there?"

Haymitch grits his teeth and is about to retort when Plutarch interrupts. "They were already there before we arrived. We were trying to find Peeta first because you had already cut Katniss' tracker out."

"Wasn't the plan to save Katniss first? Didn't you just tell me that?" Peeta asks, the words grinding out between his teeth.

"It didn't…go as planned." Plutarch admits. His eyes are tired and he is reluctant to admit that his plan had failed. The Head Gamemaker must have hated that.

"So the Capitol has Katniss now?"

"Yes." Haymitch replies, when no one else looked like they were going to answer. His face is grey and he drops his gaze.

Peeta's eyes blazed in fury. "Turn this hovercraft around. We're going to the Capitol to save her."

"You and what army? Don't be stupid, kid." Haymitch spat.

"That's a great idea. Let's all waltz into Snow's home and ask him politely, 'Please President Snow, could we have our Mockingjay back?' I'm sure he'll give us tea and biscuits before sending us on our merry way with Katniss in hand.' Johanna's voice grates on everyone like a rusty file.

Peeta turns to Haymitch in fury. "You promised me you would keep her safe. You promised me, Haymitch."

"Well, she made me promise to keep you safe too." Haymitch snaps back. "There's only so much I can do, kid." There is fury in his eyes. And a hint of guilt.

"Turn this aircraft around." Peeta clenches his fists.

Plutarch tries to placate Peeta. "I'm afraid that's not possible. We're heading straight to District 13 right now. We've lost contact with some of the other Districts and we need to find out what's the latest situation." He cuts off Finnick before he can speak. "Yes, that means we're not going to District 4. I'm sorry, Finnick but there's no way we can go there now. But I've given special orders for her retrieval if possible. It's the best I can do now."

Finnick groans in pain and drops his head into his hands. Johanna lifts an eye at Plutarch, who shakes his head in return. Her lip curls in disgust and she aims a vicious kick at a nearby chair.

"Wait, you said you lost contact with some of the Districts? What about District 12?" Peeta asks suspiciously.

Haymitch's face turns greyer than humanly possible. When he finally speaks, Peeta's stomach is already churning.

"They sent planes in and dropped firebombs. We've lost contact with them. As far as we can tell, there's no more District 12."

Author's Note: I recently discovered the Hunger Games franchise (I know, I was living under a rock) and subsequently became obsessed with the books and movies. One day after reading an interesting what-if fanfic with a less than satisfactory plot, the idea sparked in my head.

The basis of the story is, What if Peeta was rescued and Katniss was taken to the Capitol instead? After walking around in a haze for two days, my brain managed to spit out most of the plot. While I haven't written for a long time, I knew I had to share this story. The story picks up from when Katniss blows up the force field and diverges from there.

I intend to stick with certain canon events that would not be affected by the switch but twist up the rest of the plot when needed. Peeta sees things so differently from Katniss and I wanted to show his strengths for once. I hope I can do the story justice so please do review and let me know how I'm doing.