Fire Catching

The day had started off well enough. I still woke up with a gasp, clutching my chest as I took in my surroundings. I was sure I had dreamed. My heart raced as though it had been trying to outrun my demons. Only this morning I did not remember what had happened. This hardly seemed any better as I could have spent hours poring through my past in my waking moments, bringing my nightmares into the day as I tried to recall what had tormented me at night. But instead I decided to push that masochistic desire out of my mind. Perhaps today, like yesterday, could be different. Better.

The sun was already well on its way into the sky as I made my way to my kitchen. It was almost too late to start my morning hunt. This put a damper on my plans until I reminded myself I could return to the woods in the evening. Or perhaps I would even leave the prey of District Twelve in peace tonight and visit Haymitch instead. Sharing time with he and Peeta had felt so light and natural in a life that had been filled with dark, artificial (yet no less real) horrors. Maybe we could even pick up our card game. I had been winning after all…

And then I noticed the package on the kitchen table. It was placed next to a bowl of Greasy Sae's porridge and Peeta's bread. The loaf was still slightly warm, meaning my caretaker was not long gone. The parcel was wrapped only once, tied with a frugal amount of string. The top simply said "Everdeen", and only the smallest of stamps proclaimed where it had originated from.

District Thirteen.

I froze. Was this some sort of threat? Up until now I had hardly thought of the repercussions of killing Coin when it came to those following her. She had been well respected as a leader. Could this be a form of retribution from a loyalist?

I opened the package immediately. I was never one for what ifs or maybes. I would face whatever danger had been sent head on. No use prolonging the fight.

But nothing could have prepared me for what I discovered.

A ragged, grass stuffed cat doll, a kit of basic healing herbs you could slip into your pocket, a worn picture of my father, and a diary.

Prim's diary.

I heaved into sobs on the spot, all but collapsing on to the ground as I held my sister's prized possessions to my chest. All the pain and anguish I had felt on that soul stripping day at the Capitol came rushing back. I gasped and struggled painfully for breath as I shamelessly read every word of her diary, immersing myself in her deepest thoughts and hopeful dreams of a new life.

After reading her last entry proclaiming Prim's joy in getting to go help people in the Rebellion "just like Katniss does", I threw the book against the wall and dropped my head onto the ground. I laid there still as death, hoping it would find me.

Unfortunately someone else did first.

The shrill of Greasy Sae's scream echoed around in my head hollowly. The fact that I had never seen the hardened woman react in such away did nothing to deter me from my stupor. Nor did when she shook me, shouting my name over and over again until her voice went hoarse.

It should have been me. I was the one who was prepared to die. I had accepted the inevitability. For with death would come a relief of the pain and the guilt and the memories that could send anyone over the brink sanity dozens of times. For what really awaited me on the other side of the Rebellion? I'd become a shriveled MockingJay, obsolete in a world that no longer needed me. I had two Hunger Games and thousands of deaths on my hands. I had turned my back on my mother, on those intent on helping me. I had broken the hearts of the two men who loved me unconditionally as I bounced between them, only to run away from them both.

But Prim had everything to live for. She could be free from the torment of surviving the games. She had an essence that made even those absorbed by the deepest parts of the Seam smile. She had dreams of a new future. One where she could be a great Healer. Where she would save the lives of others, including her forlorn sister. She was inspired and driven by love, something she hoped to experience with the dark haired boy from District Thirteen who had kissed her while studying for their Nuclear History test. Every word in that diary was so teaming with life and hopes and dreams it seemed impossible that the author was gone; that the few pieces of her flesh that survived the explosion were now decomposing into the harsh ground.

It should have been Prim that lived because she loved and looked forward to life. Not me, who resented every breath and the people who prolonged my misery by ensuring that I continued to take them.

Eventually I was moved to my chair. A blanket was wrapped around me to keep me warm. I didn't sleep but was never awake. I saw days' worth, weeks' worth of scenes unfold before my eyes, but only rarely did I acknowledge them:

Peeta and Grease Sae trying to get me to eat something.

Peeta and Delly Cartwright reading to me out of an old story book.

Peeta and Hazelle delicately wiping away the layer of grime and coal dust that eventually covered everything that sat too still in District Twelve.

Peeta…Peeta…Always Peeta.

Always.

I didn't know if he ever left. He should have. He should have left me far behind to decompose like Prim's remains as he steadily rebuilt his life. But every time I grasped at consciousness he was there, his blue eyes holding back tears as he talked to me firmly…gently…lovingly.

"Alright, sweetheart. Time to end this tea party!"

I was roused from my nothingness as a bucket of water was dumped unceremoniously over my head.

"Haymitch!" Peeta scolded. "I told you not to!"

"How do you like it now?" Haymitch asked me with a grin, though only after he had jumped back expecting retribution. I remained still, my excessive blinking the only sign registering my soaked state.

"It's no use, Haymitch," Peeta stated sadly. "She's been like this for over two weeks."

Instead of igniting pity these words only seemed to infuriate Haymitch.

"Fine! You want to just sit there and be nothing because something new reminded you that your fucking sister is dead? Then fine. I don't need this."

Haymitch threw the water pitcher against the wall as he stormed out, cursing and stumbling with every step. Peeta watched him go for a moment before returning his gaze to mine. Alone, he held my hand in his, rubbing his soft thumb across my bony knuckles.

"Come back to me, Katniss," he pleaded, his voice breaking in his whisper. "Please."

I answered him with silence as my gaze dropped to the ground. We sat there in my living room for untold minutes, frozen in the crushing moment.

A crack. Barely audible, but I definitely heard a cracking sound in my left ear. I don't know why this sound out of all the sounds I had heard in the last few weeks meant anything to me, but it caused me to turn my head and face the covered window. Peeta perked up at the movement, watching me with undivided astonishment.

"Katniss? What is it?" he asked. I only continued to look at the window. He followed my gaze and was met with a faint glow permeating the otherwise snowy darkness of the night. Peeta got up and pulled the curtains back to reveal a view of the eleven other houses of Victor's Village. One of which was on fire.

"Haymitch!" Peeta yelled, before bolting frantically out the door. The flames began to grow, licking the night sky as they engulfed more and more of the dilapidated house. I could just barely hear Peeta call for Haymitch as he rushed into the collapsing building.

The realization struck me like a bolt of lightning.

"PEETA!"

I was out of my chair and running barefoot in the snow as I dashed into the burning structure. Smoke met me on the lawn, choking my rusted lungs as I forged on deeper.

Peeta and Haymitch were in there. And I couldn't let them go.

"Peeta!" I cried, coughing into my sleeve as I pushed my way blindly into the broiling house. "Peeta! Haymitch!"

"Katniss!" Peeta shouted, and I could just make out his outline in the flames of the kitchen. "Katniss, get out of here! Go!"

I sailed over the smoking couch and stumbled into the kitchen. A beam from the ceiling had fallen on top of Haymitch's legs, pinning him to the ground. The log was wedged between the wall and island counter so tightly Peeta's strength failed him. I instantly joined his side, dodging the flaming bits of ceiling that fell around me.

"Katniss," Peeta moaned as I pushed against the wood with all my strength. It didn't budge.

"Fancy meeting you here, sweetheart. Have a nice nap?" Haymitch groaned as the roof on the other side of the house started crashing to the floor. I pushed again, desperate to get him free, but weeks of inactivity had zapped me of my muscle. It was all I could do to keep from coughing my lungs out from the sweltering smoke.

Peeta heaved loudly, dimly causing me to think he had been hurt. But then I saw him re-gripping the fallen beam, picking it up a few feet off the ground to clear it of Haymitch's legs before dropping it. Without wasting a second he had Haymitch slung over his shoulder. I gasped as smoke clouded my lungs and vision, but Peeta's spare hand found my arm and tugged me along. Even as I tripped my way through the living room I felt myself blacking out.

I was brought back to consciousness as I felt my body being dropped in the snow. I hacked out clouds of smoke, knocking into Haymitch as he did the same. He cried in pain and I noticed the long burn that covered his arm. I immediately grabbed some snow and packed it on the wound.

A second later I heard the whirl of District Twelve's only emergency vehicle as it rushed to the remains of Haymitch's house.

"So there's that impressive response time Paylor keeps babbling about," Haymitch cursed as he dropped his head in the snow.

I almost laughed. But I was glad I didn't.

I had never seen the likes of fury that Peeta held in his eyes as he stared down at us. It was not like when he had attacked me after his hijacking and hated me for weeks after. That look had been so foreign on his face, like a mask someone from the Capitol had replicated in one of their precious machines. The dimensions had been perfect, but no bothered to get the feeling right.

But this look, although being so rare in his warm blue eyes, was all too real. Anger and disgust blended with pain and fatigue as he seethed at the two of us.

"That's enough!" he yelled, his voice snapping through the night. Even Haymitch couldn't help but straighten up despite his pain and personality. "I'm through with the two of you intent on killing yourselves after all we've made it through. Don't you realize you are all I have left?"

Peeta dropped himself in the snow as medics rushed towards us with supplies. They berated us with questions they didn't wait to hear the answers to. Not that I could speak anyways. My mind was still reeling from what he had just said. I was still trying to take in the meaning of the harsh yet crushing look on his strong face.

"Yeah? So what do you want us to do about it? Get that shit away from me!" Haymitch demanded, pushing away the young medic who tried to put an oxygen mask on him. I watched the resolve form on Peeta's face as I slowly breathed in to my own mask.

"The two of you can either decide to give up on life and get as far away from me as possible," he began harshly, staring mercilessly at Haymitch. And then he softened, finally defaulting to his normal kind features as he switched his gaze over to me. "Or you can try, really try to get better, and come stay with me."

I inhaled sharply as the offer hit me.

"Who the hell do you think you are, making an ultimatum like that?" Haymitch snarled proudly as the medics cut off his pants. His drunken gaze deviated as he snapped at the medic, telling her to keep her hands to herself unless she was going to make it worth his while.

"I'm saying I'm done watching you will and drink yourselves into oblivion. I can't take it anymore," he said sadly. Peeta cast his gaze away from me, staring determinedly into space as his medics checked him thoroughly.

Haymitch responded with a uproar, telling Peeta he had been drinking himself into oblivion before he was even born, throwing fits about how he didn't need anyone as the medics placed him on the stretcher.

All I could do was sit, fixated by the intense gaze in Peeta's eyes, his words rebounding over and over in my head.

Don't you realize you are all I have left?

"I'll stay."

The words were out of my mouth before I even knew where they had come from. Peeta and Haymitch quit their one sided argument and stared at me in disbelief. Even the medics slowed down their efforts to hear what I had to say.

"You'll…you'll stay with me?" Peeta ask with a quiet eagerness. "You really mean it?"

"Yes," I said firmly, nodding my head curtly. "I'll stay and I'll…try."

Life resounded in Peeta's face at my reply. My own lips flickered up into a smile at the sight. Suddenly I felt certain that this was the right thing to do. The best thing for me to do. As the air glowed a muted orange as the last of the flames died down I took Peeta's extended hand, letting him pull me to my feet. His strong hand squeezed mine with certainty.

We both then turned to look at Haymitch. He gawked back, the drunken haze in his eyes desperately trying to grasp the situation. His eyes met mine as we exchanged a silent conversation. As always our communication was the most impactful when no words were exchanged at all.

The medics picked up the stretcher and carried him to Peeta's house, cementing his decision for him. Without a hospital people needed to be treated in their homes.

Haymitch, for once, did not argue with them.