Chapter Fourteen

Stuck With You

Author's Note: I am happy for two reasons: these people! Arcticmist and bluespades reviewed, and therefore they are awesome. You can be too - just type into the Review box at the end of the chapter :^)

Dan

I wake up to smooth, crisp sheets, as usual. They must change these sheets in the night, somehow, with me sleeping in them, because they always stay clean.

The ward is quieter than it normally is during the day, so I guess I've woken up pretty early.

I didn't dream about running last night, for once; instead, I was leaping over the surface of the sun (y'know, as you do) and twisting to avoid balls of fire that would keep coming my way. Terrifying as that may sound in words, it was actually really cool.

And what's weird is, now, my body feels as though it's been through a lot of physical activity, because my muscles are relaxed and more limber than they have been since I got here. It feels like my body's lost a lot of the initial stiffness and can actually breathe…maybe that means the electro-induction stuff is working for me.

To test this theory, with some bated breath, I try sending messages to my fingers, telling them to tap up and down.

…I'm doing it. I'M DOING IT.

And it's not just my fingers I can move - I feel the muscles and joints in my arms and elbows coming to life, arteries pumping blood around them as they start to work their way out from under the sheets.

Wishing every second that this isn't just another dream I'm going to wake up from, I lift my hands to the ceiling, spreading them out in front of my face. Each finger feels its own stretch, like it's embracing movement, and life, anew.

Corny as it is, this sight makes me want to weep. But I let a giddy grin take over my face, promising myself never to take mobility for granted again.

Wide awake now, and full of zest for life, my hands explore the outside of the bed. I feel the shape of the rails and their cool steely metal. I run my fingers over the woven fabric of my sheets and mattress, pinch the puffy corners of my pillows, until they close around the control panel of buttons just to the right of my head. I haven't had a chance to use this yet…

Like a kid who's just been given a new toy, I bring the panel out on its cord to face me, look for the button labeled "Incline", and press it. The beautiful sound of smooth mechanical whirring kicks in, and the stark white ceiling with the skylight gives way to the ward at eye-level, which I'm now seeing for the first time.

I get a brief but exciting overview of identical beds, most of them behind white curtains; clean white floor; various robes on the backs of chairs and slippers peeking out from under the beds. Compared to my view for the last few days, this is like a piece of art.

Except then I feel this huge spike of pain shoot from halfway down my spine, and I have to press the "Stop" button immediately. Ow ow ow ow need to fix this need to fix this…Ohhhkay that's better.

Holding down the "Decline" button for just a second is enough to make the pain disappear, and I lean further back into my pillows with a sigh of relief. I guess it would have been too much to hope for that, at this stage, both halves of my body would be ready to move around.

Just as I'm returning the control panel to its original place, I hear a murmur, from a voice I can't recognise, filled with haze but also loathing:

"What the hell is this."

Startled, I turn forward again. The bed opposite mine is free from curtains, revealing a small figure with a heavily bandaged head. They don't look at all pleased to see me.

Oh no.

My face stretches itself into an expression of shock and…well, more shock. I glance around my bed: a dozing Marvel on my immediate left, and now Clove immediately in front of me.

"You cannot be serious," I say loudly, unintentionally causing one or two curtains to open along their rails.

"Where am I? Why am in a bed, and why is everything so muffled?" whines Clove, hands flying to her ears, which are snugly fitted underneath her bandages. As she feels the fabric encasing her entire head, her face starts to look a lot like mine.

"What happened." This is a statement as opposed to a question, apparently. She notices all the other beds. "Who are all these people…? Marvel?"

Clove stares at the only other Career on the whole floor. At the sound of his name, he stirs from his heavy sleep. At first he doesn't seem to remember who she is, but then a flash of recognition shoots across his eyes like a meteor.

Now, because they're both Careers, I wasn't exactly expecting them to break out into sobs and bear-hug each other, but I also wasn't expecting Marvel to pause, slowly smirk, and start cackling like a madman. Clove looks furious, but then again, she always does.

"What are you laughing about, Chuckles?"

"Oh, this is too good...do…do you really remember nothing about your own death?" he replies, barely able to contain himself. Maybe he's reveling in her failure to overshadow the fact that he lost before she did.

For a moment, Clove looks as if she hasn't got a clue what Marvel's talking about, but I can see it dawning on her face - she died.

"Wait, but…but…what?" I've never heard her sound so confused. "That's impossible. I'm not dead, I'm right here, you moron!"

"As am I."

In a moment of absolutely fantastic comic timing, Logan pushes the button to reveal himself from behind his own curtain. Clove has been slotted in between him and Rue, which means she's right up close to the guy she watched getting strangled. She yelps in surprise.

"What? But…but I saw you. I saw you drown! SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING!"

Her shrieking does a good job of waking all the other tributes. Some of them are so frightened of her (ie the ones she must have killed) that they sweep their curtains back in front of them by hand.

"Jeez, woman, calm yourself," says Marvel coolly. "I'll give you the lowdown: you died. Docs brought you back to life. Now you're here with the rest of 'em, plus me. Games are still going on but don't know what's happening because we're on a different planet altogether, Neutrino -"

"Neutron," Logan and I correct at the same time, Logan's tone sharper than mine.

"Whatever. Point is, you're here. So are we. Nothing to do about it. Details will follow soon. Deal with it."

With that, he flops back down onto his pillows and goes back to sleep. Clove looks like she's just been asked to marry a lemon. She closes her eyes, one hand frozen in mid-air, as if her brain's taking a minute to process all this new information.

"Ok…ok, I will deal with all of…that…later. I still want to know why I'm within spitting distance of scum like you," she says, narrowing her eyes at me, Logan, Rue, and Jackal, who's just woken up and has bed hair.

"What, you're still too high and mighty for us?" I say.

"I thought that was obvious from the beginning," she replies icily. Then her frown disappears, and her eyes move from side to side. "…Did he say I died?"

"Yes," I respond, exasperated.

"But that would mean I lost."

"Well…yeah. I thought that was obvious from the beginning," I say, not bothering to hide my smirk. She looks torn from the inside.

"I lost…but I never lose. How could I have let myself slip up?" she asks, but I don't know whether to herself or to everyone else.

"Well," says Rue, who seems to have woken up without anyone noticing. "You're the only one who would remember what happened. How are we supposed to know?"

Clove is struck dumb by this simple question. Her eyes start darting around again. She's trying to recall her memories, but it doesn't look like it's going too well.

As she thinks, I can't stop myself from staring at her hands. They've developed this weird kind of twitching in the last two minutes, her thin but powerful wrists twisting over and over again, very quickly. It's like she's short-circuited or something.

Logan picks up on this like a mind-reader:

"What is up with your hands?"

Clove looks at them, and although the twitching subsides a little, her wrists continue to go at it. Her eyes tell me this is nothing new.

"I need knives," she says flatly. "Like, badly."

"You can forget it," I snap. "After what you did to Flint, I wouldn't let you near a butter knife."

"Flint. Who the hell is Flint?"

"Wow, so you're both sadistic and an idiot. Flint Verdasa , District Six, the one you all but chopped into pieces. There's killing to survive, and then there's that. I mean…" I shake my head, not wanting to finish the sentence. I banish the flashback from my mind.

"Oh yeah, that's right…that's what you were so mad about."

"Damn right I was mad. Even decapitation would have been better than what you put her through. I can't remember a single part of her that didn't have a knife wound. It was the most terrible thing I've ever seen in my life."

A pause, and then Clove gives a nod, as if attempting to picture it in her head.

"That gruesome, huh? Sounds like me at my best."

"You sicken me."

"Oh, get off your high horse, Dash -"

"Dan."

"Like I care. I can't even remember doing it, let alone stopping to think about design layouts. I mean give me a break - I'd just had a nest full of tracker-jackers dropped onto my head. Do you really think I was of sound mind in there? From what people keep telling me, and from what I can't remember, it was an accident."

"Still doesn't change what you did."

Clove waves her hand at me as if to say, "I'm bored with talking to you now", and yanks her bed curtain around to total obscurity by hand. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I don't like getting angry, but when I do, whoa boy…

"Oh, hey look at that!" exclaims Meliss, from Marvel's left. "You're sitting up. Good for you!"

Oh yeah. I forgot about that.