This is going to end soon. I'm getting bored with it, so it may seem a little rushed. I own none of the original.
Rowan – The Wilds
I know what Sky wants to do but step under the canopy of the trees anyway. Gale and Katniss are farther away from her, sitting against the edge of the clearing. I lock my gaze on her, seeing a flash of something familiar in her eyes. I ignore the heat that rushes forward, wanting to get rid of the past. There is no turning back. President Snow lives on through me, and I will not fail him.
"You realize how stupid it was of you to come here," she remarks coldly.
Raising my chin, I glare. "Once I fulfill my promise, it doesn't matter if you destroy me."
"What promise?" Despite herself, Sky lets on to her worried curiosity. "Since when do you actually admit that I can destroy you?"
"You have nothing to live for, little girl. Your friends here are perfectly fine on their own now. Your family's dead. You won't accept what's happened to you, and therefore, I must keep my promise to obliterate any signs of your existence. I owe you and Snow that much."
Her eyes grow hard again at the mention of her enemy. "See, that's where you're wrong. You owe no allegiance to a maniac who's dead! He holds no power over you anymore. Why do you think I came here? I knew you would follow me when you realized I was gone. The Wilds are a place of destruction if you don't know what you're doing." To my surprise, she draws power to her, the earth's so-called magic that the late president had discovered. Whether or not people choose to believe it, the planet takes care of all its residents using its own alleged "powers," which happens to be where people get superstitions and magic and things along those lines.
"What? Are they going to heal me?" I scoff.
Sky blinks, dropping her mask. Immense grief shows underneath. "Yes. I'm sorry, Rowan."
It's the first time since the not-an-accident that she called me by my name. Her eyes bright with sorrow, she pushes the ancient power toward me, draping it over me. It begins to seep through me, prying apart the darkness, and I drop to my knees without acknowledging the pain searing under my skin. Sky steps forward once, strengthening her hold on me, taking the taint away. In the back of my mind, I realize she is hurting herself in the process, considering we're indirectly connected. I collapse onto my side, no longer caring about fighting what she is doing. If she kills me, so be it. And if I live, will I really have changed back to what I was?
Sometime during the whole process, both of us blacked out. I wake up with the soft feel of a mattress under my back, a pillow beneath my head. Primrose's blurry form slowly comes into focus, bending over a still figure on another bed. I push myself into a sitting position, groaning at the pain that lances up my spine.
"You're not supposed to move." Rose does not turn around from her work. I ignore her warning and cautiously get to my feet. I can no longer feel the tug of the earth below my skin. She actually did it.
My eyes fall on her pale face, and I lurch forward, dropping to my knees beside her. As weak as I am after having power for so long, I manage to get used to the old, comfortingly-familiar feeling of being normal quickly. Entwining my fingers with hers, I glance at Rose out of the corner of my eye. "Will she be okay?"
"I don't know yet." She sighs. "She pretty much sacrificed her life to get rid of the death inside you. So this can go either way."
"You're up." Katniss' cold voice breaks into the silence a few minutes later. I lift my chin from where I was resting it on Sky's icy hand. "Why couldn't you have died like you were supposed to?"
Rose glares at her mother. "Give him a break. Sky actually got to heal him before this happened. He's not a threat to anyone anymore."
"Especially not Sky," I mutter under my breath, turning my attention back to Sky when Gale walks in behind Katniss. They can kill me if they want. They have every right to after what I did. But I have a distinct feeling if either of us dies now, the other will, as well. The best chance Sky has of living now is knowing she saved me. Old emotions rush forward – compassion, protectiveness, even love. Yeah, I think, closing my eyes as long-forgotten memories spring up. I love you still, even after everything that's happened.
After a while, the three of them leave me with Sky. Gale and Katniss saw by now that I really can't do much until I recover fully. Rose, confident about her skills but concerned for Sky's survival, is reluctant to be separated from her patient. She really is Prim, underneath.
"Rowan?" I've moved to my own bed; I lift my head at her voice. "What…" She groans. "Why do I feel like I've been run over by a train?"
I smile tentatively at her. "You healed me, that's why." I move over to her side, sit on the edge of the bed. She wraps trembling but powerful fingers around my wrist, keeping me in place as she takes in her old hunting partner. "You shouldn't have done that, though. You nearly killed yourself."
"I would've died before accepting defeat," she murmurs, quoting herself from the past. I twist my wrist slightly, threading my fingers through hers once more. "One quick question before I drift off again," she breathes, her voice reedy.
"What?"
The hints of a smirk play at her lips. "You love me. Real or not real?"
"Real," I whisper, catching on to her joke.
###
I come to again, this time lying next to Sky. She is still asleep, and no one has come in since they left nearly half a day ago. I brush her bangs from her face, letting my fingers linger gently on her forehead. A smile tugs at the corners of her mouth.
"How do you keep waking up before me?" She opens her eyes, letting the smile grow as she meets my gaze. She cranes her neck to look at the clock, then out the window. "It's nighttime." She sighs and rests her head on my chest. "We've been sleeping for a while, haven't we?"
"Better than dreaming, huh?" I remind her softly, hugging her tightly when she shivers. "I missed you, Sky."
She grins slightly at me. "You didn't call me 'little girl'," she comments happily.
"I don't think you were ever a little girl," I murmur, closing the distance between us. She kisses back without hesitation, and I do not need my old abilities to know she missed me, too. Pulling away, I look down at her, smiling with her. "I love you."
"I know." She pecks my lips before yawning, a sign she's about to doze off again. "I love you, too."
Kind of a clichéd ending, but there'll be an epilogue whenever I get around to it. Thanks for sticking with me, and I'm sorry there's not more action like I had planned.