A/N: Sorry this took so long, guys, I have A-levels coming up so I've been studying for them and haven't been able to get back to this story.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games.
Chapter Seven
"They really do glamourise cancer stories in books and movies, don't they?" Katniss hovered uneasily beside Peeta's bed as he hurled up what was properly all the contents of his stomach. He'd been violently sick for the past two hours or so, constantly throwing up food or stomach acid. Every time he ate something, it would all come back up his throat and out again. Katniss worried about his state of health, about how he seemed to be getting worse every day rather than better.
"Not even 'My sister's Keeper' was accurate," Clove pointed out. She was sitting in the seat beside Peeta's bed, playing with a whiteboard marker.
Peeta lifted his head from the bucket, his face tired and worn. He looked like he was about to pass out. Katniss took the bucket-fighting to hide her disgust-and quickly cleaned it out. "Still with us Peet?" Clove joked.
"Ngh," he replied vaguely. He let himself lean against the wall, his eyes fluttering shut. Almost instantly his face screwed up and he grabbed Katniss' arm, "Bucket, quick!" Katniss quickly gave him back the clean bucket. She cringed as he threw up again. She reached out and tentatively rubbed his back, hoping she was being comforting.
"I'm going to go and see if Effie can do anything to wean this off a little," Clove decided, standing up.
Once she was gone, Katniss felt herself relax a little. She knew there was bound to be nothing left in his stomach by now and he was probably vomiting stomach acid by this point.
"Make it stop Katniss," Peeta moaned once it stopped again. Katniss' heart hurt at how defeated he sounded. She put on a brave face and forced a smile.
"It's okay," she said. She hated how strained her voice sounded.
"I'm so tired," Peeta mumbled into the bucket. Katniss sighed and continued to rub his back. She didn't know what else to do. Would he really believe her if she told him that everything was alright? Because the odds of him vomiting again were very strong and she didn't know when he'd be able to sleep again.
"I know but you've got to stay awake just a little bit longer," Katniss said, trying to sound stronger than she felt. "It's just the affects of the chemotherapy, it'll get better."
Peeta gagged, as if what she was saying made him sick. The Mucositis was healing but his throwing up was probably going to make it flare up again. Katniss hoped it didn't. It had said in the booklet her mother gave her that the chemo would cause vomiting but Katniss hadn't been prepared for this.
Clove came back moments later with two tablets in her hands. "Anti-sickness," she explained. She looked at Katniss. "Your mother gave them to me."
"Oh god Clove, you're a life saver," Katniss said, taking the tablets from her. "I didn't know you could take tablets while on chemo."
"Oh yeah, you can take anything. Well, I say anything, your mother would probably know a couple of things you can't take but that's not the point," Clove said. "He can take these, so be glad."
Katniss nodded and went to the sink, grabbing a glass and filling it up. When she turned to give Peeta the tablets, her heart ached as his head was hanging nearly completely in the bucket, too tired to hold it up anymore. "Hey, come on, these will help," she said, forcing herself to sound upbeat. She winced as his hands tightened around the bucket and he started vomiting again.
For a reason she couldn't explain, her eyes were starting to water. She pressed the back of her hand against her forehead, trying to cover her eyes so Clove didn't see them watering. Katniss knew that she had never been the strongest of people when it came to illness and vomit and blood etc. but if that had been what was making her eyes fill up then she'd have already been off like a shot.
But she wasn't.
Why was that?
"Tree hugger, are you crying?" Clove asked.
"No, there's just something in my eye," Katniss replied. "I think it might be the fumes." When he finished being sick, Katniss distracted herself by removing the bucket from under Peeta's head and gently helping him sit up. She had never in her entire life seen someone look so exhausted before. "Here, they'll ease the sickness," she said, giving him the tablets. Peeta nodded slowly, almost in a trance-like state, and put the tablets into his mouth. "Are you strong enough to hold the glass?"
"Yeah." His voice was tired and weak. All Katniss wanted to do was reach out to him and enclose him in her arms, to tell him he was going to be okay and it was all going to be over soon. She almost did it too, she had extended her hand out as he was drinking the water, as if to touch him, only to realize what she was doing and pull it back before he noticed.
She saw Clove watching her out of the corner of her eye. The girl was smirking and was quirking her eyebrow at her. Katniss tried to pretend that she didn't see her but it was difficult. What was she thinking? Had she seen her reaching out? Pulling back?
Katniss turned her back on Clove, putting the bucket under the tap and cleaning it out. She knew it had to be sterilzed so she put it onto the floor for the time being.
"Is it cold in here or is just me?" Peeta asked.
"I don't feel cold, but I have thick skin," Clove replied.
"I don't really feel too cold either," Katniss said. "Here, I'll switch the fan off." She went round the bed and flicked the fan off. "It was getting chilly anyway. Why don't you try and get some rest now?" Peeta didn't need to be told twice, and Katniss knew this, and she stayed with him as he fell asleep.
The seat beside Peeta's bed now probably had a permanant indentation of her backside in the cushion, because of the amount of times she stayed sitting in it every day. Clove eventually got bored and slumped back to her bed, picking up her gameboy and restarting play. Katniss found comfort in holding Peeta's hand, his presence having a soothing effect on her, even while he was sleeping.
She made a mental list to herself of the things she had to do before she left. Sterilize Peeta's sick bucket, change the bandages on his arms, give him his painkillers, maybe some more of that sickness medicine . . . wait, wasn't she supposed to help the others as well? Katniss looked around the ward. Glimmer was sewing, Marvel was watching t.v, Rue was sleeping, Finch was doing her crosswords, and Clove was playing her games. They were okay. They didn't need her. Peeta needed her.
Katniss had never had experience with cancer until now. She found herself immersing in the booklet her mother gave her more and more, to find out as much as she could about the life-threatening illness that was beginning to become a part of her life with every passing day. She was familiarlizing herself with the side effects of chemotherapy, so that if something new grew on Peeta she'd know it was because of the infusion pump that was sending the medicine through his body to get rid of the cancer.
She switched the fan off because she had read that the chemo can decrease white blood cells, which can cause high temperatures, headaches, aching muscles and can make a person feel cold and shivery. It also made a person very exposed to things such as infection and disease, because white blood cells attack germs, getting rid of them with either protective antibodies or by surrounding the germ and attacking it in large numbers, devouring the bacteria causing trouble. If there's a lack of white blood cells, for example, because of chemo killing them, then germs and bacteria can multiply, causing illness and infection.
Katniss wished she could understand. She wished she could hold Peeta's hand and say she knew what he was going through. That she understood his pain and suffering. But she couldn't. Because she was one of the lucky ones. The ones who hadn't been diagnosed with Cancer.
She didn't understand at all.
That night, Katniss sat in her bedroom, unable to sleep because of the worry that plagued her. She lay swatched in her blankets, horrifying images flashing behind her eyelids every time she shut them.
Pain.
Medication.
Headaches.
Irregular Temperature.
Mucositis.
Irritated skin.
Bleeding.
Vomiting.
Water.
Tablets.
Pain. Lots of pain.
. . . .
Death.
Katniss was woken up by the phone ringing. She hadn't realized she had fallen asleep in the first place. Which was a good thing as if she had had a nightmare, she couldn't remember any of it. She sleepily rubbed her eyes and answered the phone that sat on the stand by her bed. Her mother had finally relented a couple of months ago and let her have her own phone in her bedroom. One step closer to a mobile phone or maybe a laptop. Imagine the protests she could arrange with such technology, the people she could gather together to fight for the eco-system.
That reminded her, she still needed to get in contact with Gale again. She had been so busy looking after and caring for Peeta and the other paitents that she had completely forgotten about her best friend who had also been arrested because of the deforestation protest. She hadn't meant to, it had just slipped her mind. She knew Gale was serving community service like her, she just had to find a way to contact him again.
Still, that was for a decent hour. Who was calling her so early in the morning anyway? Who would be awake this early in the morning to bother to call her? If this was Madge going through another break-up, Katniss was going to strangle her for interuppting the first decent night sleep she had gotten in what felt like years.
"Hello?" she muttered into the voice receptor, her voice hoarse with sleep.
"Katniss?" It was her mother. She sounded worried and concerned.
"Mum? What's wrong?" Katniss sat up, immediately alert. Her mother never rang her from the hospital night shift unless it was serious.
"Katniss, it's about Peeta. He started convulsing early this morning and we think you should come in," Mrs Everdeen explained. Katniss' heart stopped and her stomach churned. She felt like she was going to be sick. "We . . . we don't think he's going to make it through the night."
