A/N: Hey! Thanks for the reviews and support, here's another chapter for you. All dialogue is courtesy of Suzanne Collins.
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Chapter 20 - Cleansed
Disbelieving euphoria suddenly prevents me from removing my eyes from her face. She's covered in scars that must be from the tracker jacker stings, and there are other, fresher wounds – cuts, grazes, but nothing half as severe as my leg. She's thin – too thin, and her eyes are sunken behind puffy bags that could have only been caused by lack of sleep. Even her hair has thinned somehow, still kept in the messy braid down her back. But her presence alone stuns me.
"Close your eyes again." she instructs, her face conveying genuine fascination. I do, and hear her exhale heavily, amazed by my camouflage. When I open them again, she has knelt beside me, one knee next to my head. "I guess all those hours decorating cakes paid off." she comments dryly, smirking down at me.
"Yes, frosting. The final defense of dying." I return, my underused voice still croaky. Her face falls at my uncharacteristic pessimism.
"You're not going to die." she states, and the determination in those words alone almost makes me believe it.
"Says who?"
"Says me. We're on the same team now, you know." she says, as if this justifies everything.
"So I heard." I reply. "Nice of you to find what's left of me." She doesn't reply at first, simply granting me a roll of her eyes. Instead, she takes out a water bottle from her pack and holds it to my lips. She tips it slowly and I sip some, the feeling of liquid in my throat like water trickling through a parched desert.
"Did Cato cut you?" she asks quietly once I'm finished. I try to nod, before remembering my unfortunate state of being stuck in the ground.
"Left leg. Up high,"
"Let's get you into the stream, wash you up, so I can see what kind of wounds you've got," she suggests, forcing the breeziness into her voice.
"Lean down a minute first, need to tell you something." I say, smirking up at her, secretly absorbing as much of her face as I possibly can. Right now, I small crease has appeared between her brows as they knit together in her confusion. As she lowers her head nearer to my lips, I whisper to avoid being overheard by the Capitol cameras.
"Remember, we're madly in love, so it's alright to kiss me any time you feel like it." I tease jokingly, but the light contact between my lips and the tip of her ear naturally stirs up more serious emotions within me. Before I can dwell on it, she has pulled away quickly. After a moment of conflicted emotions flickering over face, she has thrown her head back and releases raw chuckles, causing me to smile broadly.
"Thanks, I'll keep it in mind." she sighs, catching her breath and holding her stomach. Once fully recovered, she wastes no time removing the tufts of moss and crumbling mud from my body. As soon as I can sit up, she has no trouble convincing me to take her water and drink some more. I replace it in her pack (which she has discarded in favour of un-burying me) while she works on scooping away the mud covering my legs.
I'm as much in the dark as she is when it comes to my mobility. I haven't even attempted to touch my leg in days, let alone move it, and Katniss can't have ever predicted that Cato's sword could have done so much damage without killing me. So when she tries to get me to shuffle into the river – which is only a few metres away – I am not surprised that I find the task impossible; rather, I am frustrated. My hindrance to her increases by the second, and the more inept I appear to her, the more likely she is to abandon me. But she wouldn't do that, I tell myself firmly.
She tries to help me along my dragging and then pushing me towards the flowing water, but not even my teeth, clamped painfully on the inside of my cheek, can mute my pained cries as my leg objects.
"Look, Peeta, I'm going to roll you into the stream. It's very shallow here, OK?" she requests, her attempt at hiding her increasing impatience proving useless – I can read her face like a signpost.
"Excellent," I force out through gritted teeth. The pain now almost equals the pain I experienced a few days ago when the wound was still fresh, but I know Katniss is trying her hardest, for me, and, in this moment, that matters more than my suffering.
"On three," she says, crouching and preparing to push me towards the water. "One, two, three!" This time the noise that escapes me is a mix between a strangled cry and a tortured scream, and I know it must be startling because Katniss stops pushing immediately. My nose almost touches the water now, and if I leant forward the swelling river would caress my cheek and gurgle in my ear, taking away the pain.
"OK, change of plan. I'm not going to put you all the way in," she decides, casting a worried look at my leg.
"No more rolling?" I can't help asking.
"That's all done." she assures me soothingly. "Let's get you cleaned up. Keep an eye on the woods for me, OK?"
With my head turned towards the forest and Katniss next to me, cooing gently when I wince and working to clean the mud with tentative but systematic movements, I feel an indignant spark relight within me that some part of me seems to recognize and… welcome? I can't quite put my finger on it until I glance at Katniss and she replies with a small smile. It can't be anything other than hope.
As always, I hope you enjoyed. Please leave a review, they guilt trip me into writing more, which is what you want, right? Next update should be on Thursday - see you then!