Regardless of Outcome

Thirteen, of course, still expects my answers, whether or not I can provide them. As I walk with Gale toward Command, I am still just incredibly confused. I find myself staring at the communicuff on Gale's wrist - he was given it as a token of his leadership among the remnants of District 12. It's a direct line to Coin and the highest members of her command ranks. It makes me uneasy in a number of ways. One - there's a twinge of anxiety, that the people I distrust have a hotline to Gale. Two - there's a twinge of jealousy, that the person I do trust, more than anyone else here, is being partnered with people other than myself. That's how inconsistent and selfish I am. But I already knew that.

The usual crowd has gathered in Command - Coin and her top commanders, Beetee, Plutarch and Fulvia, his obnoxious assistant. But this time they are not gathered around the table, ready to pepper me with questions. They are clustered around a monitor, which is often tuned in to the Capitol's broadcasts, for them to monitor. This time, however, they seem to be watching an entertainment program. At least - there is Caesar Flickerman, the aging peacock who hosts the Hunger Games interviews. Then the camera pulls back and I see that he is interviewing someone again.

A sound comes out of me, somewhere between a gasp and a moan. And my heart jumps so hard, it hurts my chest. For a second, I think it might even have stopped. As he lifts his blue eyes to the camera - they are clear, and his face is clear and clean and polished - I am jolted back to life, and I breathe again. With my own eyes, I can see him. He is alive. That is not necessarily good news. So many reasons why it might be an impermanent condition - so many ways he could be made to suffer, still. But - not yet. I push my way through the gathered viewers and they part for me - this, in so many ways, is meant for me, his appearance on the television. So soon after I emerged from 13. They know for sure now that the Mockingjay is alive and on the move. So here, on cue, is her weakness. Her captured partner. On full display.

I try to remind myself of this. But when I touch the glass where his face is projected, I can only feel a vast and clutching relief. For once, he is exactly what they believe him to be - the Mockingjay's lover. Just seeing him brings back that strange, manic night. No time for nightmares. Three, four times - blending into each other so it is hard, really, to count - and we were both so exhausted it was a miracle we woke before our stylists came to get us in the morning. But we woke early, and one more time … a last, more deliberate time … Peeta kissed me everywhere ... made me promise I would eventually share myself with someone else, once I was out of the Quell … thanked me for giving him the night. I didn't even try to make him promise me the same - promise me to love again, to fuck another girl - one who would deserve him more, appreciate him better. For one thing, it's not something that he would ever let me say. For another - and again, I'm self-centered this way - I couldn't really formulate the words. He's mine.

After that - and it was gentle and strangely quiet, his body bathed in the silvery dawn light as it pressed against mine - we dressed and waited, quietly, for Cinna and Portia to come separate us - me wrapped in his arms for what was to be nearly the last time. I hurt everywhere - oh, my god, I hurt in places I didn't know before that I had. And I thought for long moments about the strange likeness of sex between us to the hunt. The irresistible, the hungry need; your heart thumping - your thoughts, heightened, racing. Then your insides open to him, invaded. Vulnerable, I suppose, but in that last moment of vulnerability, the feeling - that rush … that moment when the very point that is the nexus of pain and pleasure is reached and it rushes like a wave up the muscles of your thighs and your stomach and your arched back. And like a blur you see that the other person - your predator and your prey - is every bit as vulnerable, your feelings reflected in his face. How he is trapped. How he is snared. Then it is over, and it doesn't really matter anymore, who is the pursued and who the pursuer.

And then the collapse, the slow death; the beginning of life.

All this I think to myself in a flash, barely taking in his words as Caesar interviews him about the end of the arena. Peeta, it seems, has been shown what I did to destroy the arena and now he has been put into the position of defending my actions. I have been branded a dangerous rebel operative - and he, too, perhaps, at least by association - but he swears that I knew nothing of any rebel plans, and that my arrow to the force field was just a lucky shot in the dark. Which is true. But it chills me to think that he is being made to account for it. Maybe even to wonder if there were secrets I was keeping from him, again. Even as I think it, he is being questioned about secrets - Haymitch's involvement (there's anger in his eyes now I note with grim satisfaction). And I've just thought through all the consequences of that - when the conversation between Caesar and Peeta shifts, slightly. With a straight face, with a reasonable tone and logical arguments, Peeta looks into the camera again, and calls for us all - rebels, Capitol - to lay down our weapons. To halt the war before it's even really got started.

Around me, the people become restless and annoyed. But it is Peeta's words that ring in my head, after his image is gone from the screen, replaced by the typical Capitol chatter. "Is this really what we want to do? Kill ourselves off completely? In the hopes that - what? Some decent species will inherit the smoking remains of the earth?"

What is he doing? What is he saying? A cease fire, now, means that the crush of the rebellion by the Capitol will be so thorough, so complete, that there will never be another opportunity to get rid of it, of the Games, in a hundred lifetimes. Behind me, the voices are more direct. Just as they couldn't understand why I didn't leap at their offer to be their mouthpiece, they don't get why a district tribute, - no matter how confused, how ignorant - could speak against their cause. Traitor. As if he was ever on their side. As if they gave him the opportunity.

And on this thought, I flee from the room, ignoring Coin's orders to remain, slipping out of the reach of one of the command team and sprinting down the halls. When I get to a familiar corridor, where I know one of my regular hiding places is, I make a straight shot for a door and put myself behind it - a dim and small supply room. I sit down, press my palms against my flushed cheeks, and then I can feel it - my wild and joyful smile.

"Did it hurt, Katniss?"

If I squint, I can almost see him, dimly, his arm flung over his eyes, not looking at me - so I can tell that he is feeling all the same contradictory things that I am: shame and empowerment, embarrassment and triumph.

Yeah, it did, a little, and the pain felt so fucking good. So covered in life.

"You're alive," I whisper.

And a traitor.

Maybe, maybe not. But Peeta was nothing but loyal to me. And he deserves my loyalty in return. At the very least.

Why did he do it? I ask myself, blinking at the shelves full of school supplies. Was he tortured into saying it? He didn't look under duress, although he definitely is a prisoner. Threats against me would be enough to … or perhaps it goes deeper than that. Perhaps he is still playing the Game. After all, it never did end with a resolution.

Maybe that's why he so emphatically insisted I was not part of the rebellion, and disavowed it himself. So that - if this does end with the rebellion defeated - I might still have a chance at forgiveness. To be presented as a rebel prisoner, with no actual part in it. This is a risky gambit, indeed. The Capitol will find its way to destroy me, one way or the other, anyway. And Peeta … Peeta has just made himself a traitor to the rebellion. Expendable. Someone to hold to account, when all is said and done.

This thought is the worst so far.

So - now what?

Peeta's words have started this whole thing in motion for me, finally. He's laid it out, put down his cards: The battles cease, or we all wipe ourselves out. But if we lay down our arms now, the hovercrafts will swoop in again. Several more districts will burn. The rebels - here in 13, in 4, 8 and wherever else; Haymitch, Finnick - me. We will be swept up for imprisonment, questioning and death. Not much of a choice.

If the rebels somehow find a way to win - then the Games, at least, will be over. But so might Peeta be. Not that he'll survive long enough to fall into the rebels' hands, anyway. Snow will cut his throat, rather than give him back to me. And even if he doesn't - the rebellion ….

Still, there are only two outcomes. And I can only really help one of them. And Peeta, in his heart, I'm sure, knows it. Maybe he even expects it. He's alive. He's somehow survived two arenas, and he'll fucking survive this one, too, if I have anything to say about it. But there's really only one way for me to bring about any outcome.

I jump up, knocking a pencil box off the shelf. Pencils go flying everywhere. I stare at them - the mess, so inconsistent to District 13's tidy way of life. I should pick them up, make them neat again. Instead, I just exit the room, abruptly, running almost smack into Gale, who is waiting outside the door.

"What is it?" he asks.

I look at him. I need him, too. On my side - and as an intermediary between me and Coin. But it's a lot to ask. So, I start from the opposite end - the conclusion instead of the arguments. "There can't be a cease-fire. We can't go back."

"I know." Gale sighs as he looks down at me; that look has not left his eyes - not just sorrow, but confusion; he doesn't know what to make of me and my situation, how to deal with this person whose sole motivation seems to be to secure the life of a boy who, a year ago, was nearly a complete stranger. And he can't ask me to not care this much; and I can't ask him to care more. So, I just stare back at him, wordlessly, putting my hand to my stomach. The emptiness, the hollow place. Nausea is returning.

Whatever reason Peeta had to say what he did …. "He doesn't know what they did to Twelve," I say. It's not an argument that will really work with Gale. Nothing about Gale is situational. For Gale, what they did or did not do to Twelve is only a part of his motivations. He would never say anything to give the least amount of comfort to the enemy. Not with a gun to his head. Not for Twelve, not for me. I can't fault him. Just like I can't fault Peeta. But I have to forge my own path.

"I won't argue with you on that," he says to me, finally. "If I could hit a button and kill every living soul working for the Capitol, I would do it." His face darkens again with a deep and impenetrable anger. I deliberately ignore the implications. It's just the old argument he used to have with me, back in the woods at home, before any of this started. And all of a sudden, I realize that he is, finally, in his own element, but that he has been patiently waiting for me - not to get over Peeta, but to signal the start of the fight. "The question is, what are you going to do about it?"

I see it now, Peeta's hand guiding me onto the board, into the game with him. But if he thinks again that he can sacrifice himself for me … make himself expendable so that I am safe regardless of outcome … he is more wrong about that than anything else. My enemy has him and my enemy hates me in ways most specifically dangerous to the ones I love the most. So my enemy must go.

"I'm going to be the Mockingjay," I say.