Hello, all! I intended to update Good Again before updating Persuasion but this chapter, once decided, would not get out of my head. I will be updating Good Again next.

Thank you so much for your generous reviews! I got a lot of feedback about what should happen at the lightning tree and, after a bit of waffling and numerous emails to SolasVioletta, MADAME BETH and TiffOdair, I have finally settled on this version. The heavy editing was bravely undertaken by SolasVioletta who can polish the roughest stone. I also send a giant kiss to my beta, TiffOdair, who refuses to let me slack on my writing.

Don't forget to head over to MADAM BETH's story fanfic The Red X on the Door to vote on the scene that should be illustrated. The list of scenes is on her tumblr page, penname madambeth.

HG Fanfic Rec: The Wedding by MockingJayFlyingFree. An AU story that considers what would have happened if Katniss and Peeta were forced to marry after the Victory Tour. She follows it up with the sequel The Other Mockingjay which is an alternative ending to Catching Fire and Mockingjay. Great reads!

Italics are direct quotes from Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. None of the characters belong to me.

Chapter 3

At what Finnick and I judge to be about nine o'clock according to the moon, we begin our march up to the lightning tree from the 12 o'clock beach. The moon is bright and I again bring up the rear with Peeta just ahead of me. Our pace is made slower by our overstuffed bellies and I even feel nauseous as I try to hike briskly with what feels like ten pounds of oysters in my stomach. When we arrive, Finnick is already there busily attaching the wire to a branch and passing the spool back and forth to Beetee as they wind it around the tree trunk. The patterns of wire form a beautiful, intricate, criss-cross design across the base of the deadly tree and I am momentarily taken aback at just how little I know about so many things. Education in the districts is strictly controlled and relates only to what is needed to be able to work in whatever specialty for which the district is known. Therefore I am completely at a loss to understand Beetee's plan with any depth. Is the pattern intentional or not? At that moment, the woosh of the ten o'clock wave reaches us at the lightning tree, its deadly waters drenching the sand along the beach.

When the sky says ten-thirty, Beetee explains the rest of his plan to us. Johanna and I are tasked with unspooling the wire through the jungle down to the twelve o'clock beach where we will drop what is left in the water. We are then to escape as quickly as possible into the jungle to avoid being electrocuted. His words are barely out of his mouth when Peeta interjects. "I'm going with them to guard." I see Beetee shake his head at this and I feel myself becoming rigid with tension.

"You're too slow. Besides, I'll need you on this end. Katniss will guard," says Beetee. "There's no time to debate this. I'm sorry. If the girls are to get out of there alive, they need to move now." He hands the coil to Johanna.

"No!" I exclaim at once. "Let Finnick go with Johanna. I'm not leaving Peeta."

Johanna's face contorts into a sneer. "What the hell is wrong with you? You'll get a chance to be all up in each other's pants again as soon as we drop the spool in the water."

I clench my arrow, ready to snap into place when Peeta steps in front of me, his knife at the ready. This has the effect of pumping the air with a palpable tension. "We stay together. Or we both leave. Your call."

Finnick puts both of his hands up to pacify Peeta. "No need for all of that, Peeta. We just want things to work. Katniss and Johanna are the fastest runners." Peeta is unmoved by this. "Trust us. We're allies…"

"Yeah, but she's carrying my baby. We stay together. No discussion."

Finnick seems ready to say something else but thinks better of it, looking between us with utter confusion while Johanna lets out a string of expletives so colorful, I blush at her vulgarity. I'm tempted to just go with Johanna to ensure the trap is laid out in time. After all, it is in my best interests to get rid of as many opponents as possible. However, the mild-banner baker's son is unrelenting. I don't think any of has ever seen him so intractable and it is this obstinacy that wins the day.

Beetee is clearly frustrated with the entire exchange and speaks with authority. "Fine. Just go already, Finnick. We'll take care of everything here. If you both don't leave now, you won't make it back in time."

With a shared look of intense irritation, Johanna and Finnick relent and are off, unspooling the wire as quickly as they can. They disappear into the jungle while Beetee turns away to tend to the tree. Peeta visibly relaxes and puts his knife down. With his free arm, he pulls me to him and buries his face in my neck. All of his words of warning in the water come rushing back to me and I shiver at how close I came to ignoring our pact to stay together.

"I told you. I'm not letting you go," he whispers into my hair. "Never."

I nod my head, his breath on my ear sending goose bumps over the surface of my skin despite the heavy air of danger surrounding us. I pull back to look at him. "Peeta…" I begin but the words get lost against his mouth. His fervid kiss is filled with so much need, I forget where I am and instead lean into him, savoring the feel of his heat against my skin. I've never wanted to be somewhere else so badly and the desire to lay next him in a soft, safe place, to not be plagued with a thousand discomforts and dangers makes a sob rise up in me that is suppressed by his lips.

Beetee works vigorously to wrap the wire around the tree. Peeta releases me and turns to offer his assistance but Beetee instructs him to stand guard instead and hands the wire to me as he ties knots around a branch that lies on the ground. He works quietly, the complete opposite of the normally talkative, almost professorial air that he has taken with us in the past. Peeta is alert, the sounds of the jungle eerily suppressed as if they, too, were in expectation of Beetee's plan. Before long, there is nothing to do but wait for the return of Finnick and Johanna.

Just as Beetee is winding down his own preparations, the wire that extends into the jungle suddenly goes slack. Beetee swears as he touches the now limp metal, testing it for any sign of tautness but his efforts are futile. He pulls at the cut wire, the end of it soon appearing in his hand.

"Someone cut the wire very close by," he says in a hushed voice, staring at it as if it would talk to him and tell him its secrets.

I ready my bow and arrow and ask, even though I know the answer, "What does it mean?"

Beetee looks up from his meditation and says only "Ambush."

Peeta is by my side in a moment. "The Careers?" he whispers.

Beetee nods. "Most likely." He begins muttering to himself, searching through his few things. "I have to think of something else."

At this, Peeta turns to me. "Finnick and Johanna…?"

"We can't think of them right now," I hiss ferociously, though my heart sinks at the same time. There is no way to help them. I have only one person I need to keep safe. Everyone else will have to fend for themselves.

After several minutes of strained silence, I suddenly hear the hushed sound of moist jungle debris crunching underfoot. A less refined ear would not have heard the slight shifting of the dead leaves or the deep breathing. But I am a hunter before all other things and my well-trained senses are on alert. Peeta instinctively crouches, holding his long knife before him in readiness. I slowly back my way towards him, looking over my shoulder as I jerk my head slightly in the direction of the sound. My heart is threatening to burst out of my chest and I make a valiant effort to force myself to breathe deeply. Before he can acknowledge the direction of my head, a body hurtles out of the brush in the opposite direction and tackles Peeta to the ground, taking him down with a heavy crash.

"Peeta!" I scream, aiming an arrow at the wrestling bodies on the ground. I release it into Brutus' back as another figure bursts at heart stopping speed from the trees to my right. I load another arrow as I swing around and let it fly without a thought. So quick is the swish of the feather against my cheek that the tip is buried in Enobaria's throat before I hear the sound of it penetrating the skin of her neck. The vision of her blood spurting out of her artery sickens me but she is relentless, the arrow doing little to stop her body from continuing it's trajectory towards me. Soon, the weight of her petite yet remarkably heavy body barrels into me and I am plummeting, the back of my head hitting the ground so hard, the pain lances all the way to my forehead.

In the eerie light of the moon, I realize her struggles are no longer with me, but with her own convulsions as her blood gushes all over me, soaking my hair and my face. The taste of her blood in my mouth threatens to bring up vomit but a sickening crack near me brings me back to the moment. I push her now limp body off of me. My head is pounding and a dark fog is encroaching on the edge of my vision. The sound of the cannon penetrates my pain-addled brain and I know that her struggle is over.

Shaking as I push myself upright, I see Brutus wobble towards me, my arrow protruding out of his back and Peeta's knife buried deep in his chest. His face goes gray as he falls to his knees, eyes locking on me. I am unable to tear my eyes away from the fading light in his. Suddenly, he collapses backwards and the cannon announces that his turn in these games has ended also.

Frantically, I look around me. "Peeta?" I call to him as I scramble to my feet, searching the murky darkness for him. Where is he?! Desperately wiping Enobaria's blood from my face, I go into the bush around the trees in the direction of the lightning tree, not three feet from us. That is when I see Beetee on the ground, twitching though unconscious. An image of Peeta lying on the ground and singed by the force field comes to mind, which brings him back to the center of my attention. My heart is pounding in my chest as the hysteria begins to rise within me. "Peeta!" I scream. He must be alive! The cannon has been silent so far. "Peeta!"

I search the area of his struggle with Brutus and that is when I see his boot between the trees. I race over and my entire body freezes in horror. He is lying within view of Beetee. Anyone observing him would have thought he was resting quietly in the bushes. Kneeling next to him, I see nothing amiss - no blood or wounds - which instantly fills me with relief. However, it is short-lived as I look up to his luminous face and see the bleeding contusion on the side of his head. Not a foot away is a large, bloodied rock, triggering a terrible panic in me. I shake him gently and whisper his name. "Peeta?" It is not a question, but a supplication. "Peeta?" I shake him more roughly but he remains inert.

I put my shaky hands on the pulse of his throat and feel the strong rhythm that has lulled me to sleep through so many nightmares. I open one of his eyes and that is when terror truly takes over me. His eye is completely dilated, the dark pupil has taken over the clear blue irises of his eyes. This could also be the consequence of the darkness, despite the bright moon I think hopefully. I begin to tremble as I open the other eye and find that this one indeed responds to the light but irregularly and weakly. The side of his head in the meantime is swelling to an unnatural size, blood oozing from a gash I am only just noticing.

I am transported back to my small kitchen in the Seam. My mother – before she became a wraith – treating an injured miner. A giant boulder had fallen on his head. Underestimating his wounds, he went straight home instead of seeking treatment (no one could afford the luxury of a visit even to the healer unless the circumstances were truly dire). Soon he complained of a terrible headache. He lost his equilibrium, his ability to see and shortly thereafter, to speak. When he was finally brought to my mother, his two young sons were forced to carry him for he was no longer conscious. My mother made incisions around his head wounds but there was nothing she could do any longer. Too much time had passed. In just a few hours, the family was making arrangements to bury the man.

This is not just a concussion. Peeta has a serious head wound and he will die if he is not cared for right away.

The realization of his impending death breaks something strong and solid in me; I become a wild, unfettered creature. I'm mad and crying before I realize it and hysteria bubbles up, crowding out all logical thinking. "Peeta." I moan, my tears mingling with Enobaria's blood, creating a slimy concoction that rolls over my face. "Don't die!. Don't die!" I'm shaking him again but I know he won't ever respond, no matter how much I jostle and move him. "You promised… You wouldn't leave me!" I wail, bringing myself down next to lie him, my ear against his chest, listening to his steady heartbeat. I'm keening now against his ribs, smearing his firm blond skin with tears and blood.

All feeling in me drops off into an abyss. I stop caring. Let Finnick or Johanna find me. I'm done with these Games. I thought if Peeta died, I would not be able to live the rest of my life knowing that he never got out and I was right. I wouldn't live with it the rest of my life because I wasn't leaving here either.

The will to survive drains out of me. The parade of faces I will no longer see begins and ends with Peeta's but I also feel my heart crack further when I envision Prim, Gale and my mother for the first time since I set them free. I feel a limp immobility overtake me and let it root me to this spot. Brain swelling that went untreated led to coma and death and I would not have the time to take out Johanna and Finnick before Peeta's brain become saturated and it drowned in his own blood. I sobbed into his chest. "Please, please, please! Wait for me." I was inconsolable and by sheer accident, I let my eyes fall where Beetee lays, splayed against the ground.

The cannon hasn't fired yet. He's still alive.

I don't know why this revives me but I bring myself to sit upright despite the pounding of my own head and crawl over to him. His twitching has slowed down and he is mumbling in his confusion. I bring my ear down to listen to his words.

"You w-were right…" Beetee forces through his chattering teeth. "W-weak-s-spot…" he stutters. "F-force f-field…blow up-p the a-re-rena…"

My grief recedes and a primitive force takes over me, the wheels of my mind begin to turn, fueled by brute survival instinct as I recall what he had been trying to do before the wire snapped. I pick up the wire that is tied to the tree and observe that it is wound about his knife like yarn on a skein. What on earth was he doing? Think! I look up at the force field and back down at the knife, recalling the cracking sound I heard before. A realization dawns on me like a rush of hope, scattering my terror for Peeta. Beetee was up to something and I don't know what it is but it was more than just electrifying the beach. He had tried to stab the force field; that was why he was semi-conscious. But why? Why?

Blow up the arena…

My brain scrambles for a logical explanation but there is none to be had. However, a plan takes root in my mind. I don't have all the clues but if there is one person I trust here besides Peeta, it is Beetee. My ruminations are interrupted by my name desperately being called from below the tree line. "Katniss! Katniss!" My heart gives a momentary lurch as my name is uttered in an unmistakable male voice and for a joyous moment, I think it's Peeta's. However, my mind delivers the umpteenth disappointment and I deflate when I recognize the voice as that of Finnick instead. I hear scrambling in the tree line below and know that both Finnick and Johanna will soon be here. But why make all that ruckus? They don't know for whom the cannons were fired. I shake my head and turn my attention to the force field. I'm running out of time.

I get up from my spot and run to fetch the bow and arrow I dropped near Peeta. Looking at him, I kneel to touch his cheek. I'm standing at the edge of a deep ravine where all my grief awaits me and force myself to back away from it. I can't imagine what Beetee was hoping to find on the other side but if there was even a tiny chance that whatever it was could save Peeta, I was not going to let the chance escape. I tear myself away from him reluctantly, racing back to where I dropped the knife near the tree.

Adrenaline courses through me as I struggle to unwind the wire from the knife, the sound of approaching footsteps accelerating towards me. I've wrapped the wire around my arrow and positioned it in my bow, pointing to the shimmering square in the force field that only I can see when the top of Finnick's bronze head appears above the slope. Johanna is two steps ahead of him, her eyes wide with shock as she takes in my position - on my feet, legs spread out, an arrow poised in the air, no longer caring if I am creating the most perfect target for her ax. Finnick grabs her arm and pulls her back to him.

"Do it, Katniss!" he shouts as he crouches over Johanna and I have my certainty. Haymitch's voice reverberates through my already teeming head.

When you are in the arena, just remember who the real enemy is.

Why would I need reminding? I have always known who the enemy is. Who starves and tortures and kills us in the arena. Who will soon kill everyone I love. Who has already killed the one that I love?

I take one last glance at Peeta's limp body, trying to take courage that whatever it is I am doing will be better than doing nothing at all and if it ends in tragedy, so be it. It can't be any worse than the tragedy I am living now. The square shimmers as the arrow pierces it, the wire flying along with it. I'm too close to the tree when I feel the electricity pass through my hair and into the surrounding air, the blast of lightning blowing Finnick, Johanna and me off of our feet as it explodes. My head, already pounding from my first impact with the ground, now throbs from being knocked again with renewed pain as my vision beginning to swim before me.

Meanwhile, the wire is alight with the energy of the lightning bolt. The dome of the force field sizzles and crackles with a blue light as bright as Peeta's eyes and I turn my dazed head towards him, now only a few inches from me. I want so much to close the space between us but I am paralyzed and my desire comes to nothing. My body is pinned to the ground by an invisible force but my eyes search his profile as a series of explosions rock my peripheral vision. I am riveted by the halo of light reflected on his clear skin, and forget the burning arena as the light seems to set every strand of his golden hair on fire. I am no longer seeing earthly Peeta, the solid certainty of his mortal coil but Peeta as he has always been, as he really is - his incandescent soul perhaps rising out of his battle-worn body. In my delirium we have both become surreal. Maybe this is how he will lead me into eternity and I feel a moment of pure bliss that after everything, this is how it will all end.

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