Chapter Eight
Slowly my eyes open and I see that she is nuzzle in close to me. Her warm body wrapped in my arms just feels right. No nightmares, although the pain the bite is more evident today that it was yesterday. I think she might have given me some sleep syrup just to knock me out.
I hear a purring. Turning my head I see Buttercup laying on the foot of the bed just looking at us.
I slowly scoot back to see her face. She looks so peaceful, caressing her cheek, her eyes slowly open.
"Morning," I say.
She stretches and finally says,
"Morning, how did you sleep?"
"Better," I say. "Although the pain is still there. Not to mention we have a guest."
Pointing towards the foot of the bed. She looks down and looks at me.
"Ever since District Thirteen, he has been sleeping at the foot of the bed, in whatever bed I sleep in." she says. "He use to do that for Prim."
She sits up, shoo's the cat away and goes downstairs to get new dressings and warm water. Coming back upstairs, I find it difficult to even sit up. It is like someone has taken every ounce of my strength.
"Come here let me help you," she says. "You lost a lot of blood so your body is going to be weak for a little bit. You will just have to let me take care of you."
I smile and welcome the help from her. She places her hand on my back and with a little effort; I am able to sit up. She moves the bowl with the warm water to the night stand. Removing the bandages, I see the stitches on where the rip marks of the teeth were. Guess as he was whipped off my hand it rips my skin.
Moving my fingers, I see that it is a little difficult to close all the way my hand.
"There are some exercises that my mother told me that you can do to strengthen the muscles around the damage area," she says.
"Your mother?" I ask.
"Needed someone to walk me through what I was going to do to save you." She says, eyes starting to water. "Which reminds me, that she asked me to remind you of a promise?"
Thinking about it, there were many promises I made to her.
'You come home to your family, you hear me?' she says. And if it isn't too much to ask. Can you bring her home too?'
It was right before I left District Thirteen to meet up with the rebels in the Capitol. I had made a promise to her to always come back to my family. She had invited me into her family, telling me that I had another one here that loves me.
"Your getting better at being my own personal healer," I say while she wraps the new bandages around my forearm. She squeezes them at my statement, which causes me to yelp in pain.
"Oh sorry, just the thought of having to go through this again and my hand slipped." She says.
"I promise," I say.
"What? What do you promise?" She says.
"To not be foolish again. You are all I have left in this world." I say, grabbing her hand.
"Okay," she says. "Still mad at you, though."
She stands and takes the bowl. Walking downstairs with the bowl, the steps is very deliberate, every sound is heard, and every creak of the wood is heard. I hear the clinking of the bowl as she places it in the sink downstairs. Just then I can hear it, it is faint but I still hear it.
It is the sound of her quietly sobbing.
It pains me more to hear her crying that the pain I feel in my forearm. After a couple of minutes I hear her begin to walk upstairs and finally come into the room.
"Katniss, come here," I say.
Her arms crossed.
"Please," I say.
She finally comes over and sits on the edge of the bed, facing out. It is hard for her to trust anyone, and people who she loved have left her. Her father died when she was young, her best friend left her here all alone, and her little sisters died, when she needed her the most, and now I am almost die.
"I won't leave you," I say.
She turns and looks at me.
"Promise?" she says.
"As long as you want me here, I won't ever leave you." I say.
She smile finally and nods.
"So what do you want to do today?" I say.
"Not much you can do Peeta. Doctor's order." She says.
I furrow my eyebrow.
"But aren't you the doctor?" I say.
"Yes, and in my professional opinion all you can do is just lie here." She says.
"Well okay, if it is what the Doctor says." I say smiling. "Come here,"
She lies down with me, and we just look at each other for a couple of minutes.
"So tell me about yourself," I ask.
"Kind of general don't you think? What do you want to know?" She asks.
"Well let's start with when you were born and then up to today?" I say jokingly.
She starts to tell me about what she can remember when she was young. How she started walking when she was nine months or at least that is what her mother told her. She was a tom boy and learned to shoot back when she was five.
"So you were already deadly at five huh?" I say.
"Hardly," she says. "I couldn't even hit the side of a barn. But we practice in the woods."
She tells me about the times that they would go into the woods, her and her dad. How he would let her go into the woods by herself, or at least that is what she thought, once catching him watching her form a far.
"We would play this game, where we would see who can sing the longest and have the Mockingjays repeated it." She says.
I can just picture it, the forest how it is filled with birds of every kind and having them sing to them. Wish I could have seen it.
She tells me about how she loved those times with her father. How the memories of her father causes her to miss him dearly.
"I know what you mean," I say. "I miss my father and have been thinking about him a lot lately."
"What do you miss the most about him?" She asks me.
Sitting there in bed I think about it. There are just so many things that I could say. There are just so many things I wish we could again.
After about a couple minutes, I look at her.
"I think I miss how he always knew just what to say, just when I needed it." I say. "You know once I was feeling like I didn't fit in anywhere, he just sat me down by the old tree in the back of the bakery and he told me 'You know it isn't that you are weird, it is that the whole world is weird and you are the only normal one here'"
She looks at me, caresses my cheek with her hand and says
"You are a little weird, you know that?" she says.
"Look who is talking," I say "If you are here with me, means you are just as weird."
She doesn't realize that she is close enough to grab. She is quick but if I can distract long enough.
"Hey it is still raining," I say.
She turns and looks at the window leaving me the perfect opportunity and I grab her. She lets out a yelp.
"Peeta!" she yells. "Your injury!"
"Worth it because I have been wanting to do this," I say, looking at her. Leaning in she closes her eyes and I kiss her on the tip of her nose.
She laughs and looks at me.
"See, you are weird," she says, pressing her lips on mine.
"No," I say. "Just wanted you to kiss me."
She laughs and tells me.
"If you are strong enough to grab me, you are strong enough to come downstairs to eat," she says.
She stands and walks over to the doorway. I remove the blanket and slowly move my legs to the edge. I make it my point not to place any weight on my right arm.
"Help me off the bed?" I ask.
She nods no.
Taking quick breathes I prepare myself by rocking back and forth. Finally taking the leap I try to stand.
"If you can make it here, I will give you a kiss," she says.
Good incentive I think. She could say that to anything and I will more than likely do it. Pushing myself I finally make it to her. Just as I am moving in to get my prize, she continues to walk backwards causing me to continue to walk.
Getting to the stairs she walks down the steps and tells me to be careful walking down. Feeling light headed I stop at the top of the steps to catch my breath.
Working one step at a time finally I make it to her. She is laughing and finally embraces me.
"Got you," I say.
"Now that you have me what are you going to do with me?" she says.
"Hey, stop stealing my lines," I say laughing.
She smiles and finally our lips touch and I can feel her heart beat.
"Come on, let's eat," she says.
Walking hand in hand to the kitchen is easier than trying to catch her. On the table are the plates ready, with food.
We sit down and start to eat.
"So," I say. "You are still around five."
Surprised by the thought that I still wanted to know more, she lets out a sigh and continues.
"Well, I met you in school around seven, I think." She says. "We had math class together."
"Well I noticed you a lot earlier, but I guess that was the first time you noticed me." I say.
She shakes her head no.
"You had a white button down shirt and brown pants. You were carrying a box for your father in the bakery." She says. "You must have been six I think."
Interesting.
"I remember seeing you everyday sitting by the tree in the yard eating lunch by the wind chimes." I say.
"I loved those things," she say. "The way the wind would make music with them, it was nice the same song. Would hum along the song of the wind chimes."
Can just picture it in my head. Her sitting there at the base of the tree, humming along with the wind chimes.
It is how I remember the willow tree at the end of the Seam. Where she sang to me as lullaby. It was where she brought me back from losing myself. Showing me that I can just be me and that it was enough for her.
I grab her hand and smile.
"I just remembered." I say.
"What?" she says.
"That day in the arena when you started to whistle to the mockingjays and suddenly one chorus started and then another, interweaving into each other." I say.
"Oh yeah, I had forgotten about that," she says. "What that was until the mutts jump onto the plain."
"Won't be forgetting that one," I say.
"Which reminds me," she says. "What attacked you?"
"Pack of wild dogs," I say.
"You didn't climb up a tree?" She says.
"They surrounded me," I say. "Got two of them, before the third one clamped down on my arm. But it isn't my turn; you jumped from seven year old to now. Nothing happened in between?"
She sticks out her tongue at me, and asks if I wasn't sick of hearing her talk about herself.
"I could hear about her all day and still not get sick of hearing about it." I say.
"Well isn't this nice. If you would have done this back in the District Thirteen probably this would have turned out differently." I hear someone say from the living room.
Without either one of us turning, we continue to eat. I lift up my leg to the chair next to us and slide it out.
"Heard you coming up the steps," she says.
"Smelled you coming out of your house," I say. "Did you eat already Haymitch?"
"Look, love birds, I didn't come here to eat, I came here to tell you something." He says.
We both look at him. He looks just as bad as he always did, but now drunk, he is acting just like he always had. His hand still on the flask.
"Your presence has been requested." He says with a seriousness in his face.
"Her presence? Where?" I say.
"Your Doctor tried to get a continuance," he says. "However the council has denied it. We have to be on the train first thing tomorrow."
"No," I immediately say. Turning to her, I say, "let's go, we can run off into the woods like you said. No one would ever find us."
I caress her cheek. She kisses my hand.
"Peeta," she says. "It is okay. We all knew that it would someday come to this."
Turning to Haymitch.
"Couldn't you have done something?" I ask.
"Look here boy," he says. "They wanted to bring in guards to secure her, saying that she is a dangerous criminal, I talked them down. Saying that I will bring her in, on the Capitol train."
"Why are they continuing this?" I say. "The war is over, can't they just leave us alone?"
I stand and kick the chair to the ground. Walking over to the sink I grab the counter. Starting to shake, I can feel that I might lose her just as I finally found her.
I feel her hands, and can hear her humming.
"It is okay, Peeta. We made a promise to each other no?" She says.
I turn and she grabs my hands.
Looking over her shoulder. I address the messenger that has come to kill the dream.
"I am going with her," I say.
"Boy, wouldn't have it any other way." He says.
He stands takes a spoonful of my food in his mouth.
"Hmm, it is good," he says.
Turns and walks outside.
"Bright and early," he says.
Walking outside, I can tell through the insensitive remarks, that he is hurting just as bad. We have become our own dysfunctional family, and however we push each other away, we still love each other.
She walks and sits on the sofa.
Walking over to her, I sit next to her.
She grabs my hands and looks at me in my eyes.
"Will you stay with me tonight?" She says. "I don't want to be alone."
Wiping away the tear that was coming down her cheek.
"Not crying because I am scared. I am crying because I don't want you to be alone should it come to it. You deserve to be happy." She says.
"I am happy when I am with you." I say. "Can we just be happy tonight?"
She nods and I kiss her there on the sofa of her house. Thinking that tomorrow morning, we would have to get on the train and go to the Capitol.
Back to the belly of the beast. They still hunting to kill the Mockingjay, even though she is just a girl that isn't even seventeen yet. We just sit there, holding each other, knowing that time is just too short.
"Did I ever tell you about the time, your mother gave me the locket?" I say.
She looks at me surprised.
"My mother gave you the locket?" she says.
I nod. I see her grab the chain and pull up the locket that was around her neck. She examines it again, checking the little nicks and scratches.
"She told me that it was your fathers. That she had given it to him when they were dating." I say. "I want you to know that you were always the one keeping me going."
She gently opens the locket, and in there, falls the perfect little pearl. She hands it to me.
"I want you to know that you were always the one keeping me going." She says.
"You kept it," I say.
"Always with me at all times," she says. "When you were taken from me, I kept it there in the locket, knowing that I would find you once again."
"Did I ever tell you what Finnick told me about the pearl?" I say.
She shakes her head no.
"Well it was that time that we were preparing that last big seafood feast. He tells me about a tradition that they have back in their District. Every year all the males of the District would go in their boats, to catch oysters. It was said that inside oysters sometimes you can find a pearl. If you were destined to be with the one you love, then a pearl was just a way of confirming that. Because you see, an oyster spends it entire life making it, meaning that the love is forever." I say.
She looks at it now, and understands why it was so important to me that she have it that night.
"It is how I feel," I say. "It is how I will always feel. I wanted you to know that."
Grabbing my hand she does what only we can understand. It is our way, our special way of telling the other how we feel.
Placing the pearl back in the locket she closes it, and places it back around her neck.
"I will be with you the whole way there," I say. "If I can I will even be inside there with you."
"Promise?" she says.
"Promise." I respond.
