Chapter Twenty One
The sunlight peeks through the cave wall. It is early morning when I see that the dark sky has this glow of orange. It is such a wonderful color. I have always loved watching the sunrise. If only it was in a much happier place, I would ask Katniss to watch it with me. The grayness of the day simply goes away from the sun. My father once told me that the sunrise is a kiss of the sun and earth. The rays that come from them are the passion that they have for each other. They long to be with each other, so that is what a sunset is. The reuniting of their love and the rays dwindle because they are in each other arms. I look back to Katniss, there sleeping peacefully. I come over Katniss checking her bandage. I kiss her forehead and I caress her cheek.
"Katniss, Katniss, can you hear me?" I whisper to her.
Her eyes begin to flutter and open. She looks a little dazed as to trying to place where she is.
"Peeta?" She says.
"Hey, good to see your eyes again." I tell her. Honestly it is good to see at all. I thought after the nightmares that I would never get to see her again. It is good to see she is ok.
"How long have I been out?" She asks me.
"Not sure. I woke up yesterday evening and you were lying next to me in a very scary pool of blood," I tell her. "I think it's stopped finally, but I wouldn't sit up or anything."
She lifts her hand to her hand and I can tell she is dizzy because she quickly lowers it. I get a bottle of water and place it on her lips.
"You're better," she tells me.
"Much better. Whatever you shot into my arm did the trick," I tell her. "By this morning, almost all the swelling in my leg was gone."
Honestly I should be angry at her for tricking me, but you know I am actually grateful that she saved my life. I can finally save hers. I can finally take care of her.
"Did you eat?" she asks.
"I'm sorry to say I gobbled down three pieces of that grossling before I realized it might have to last a while. Don't worry, I'm back on a strict diet," I tell her patting on my stomach.
It took me closing my eyes and eating the thing, to not have it come back up. After a while the taste wasn't that bad. It sort of reminded me of a wild turkey that we once had. Those are rare in the District and well it is only traded at either the Hobb or through the hunters at our backdoor.
"No, it's good. You need to eat. I'll go hunting soon," she tells me.
"Not too soon, all right?" I tell her. "You just let me take care of you for a while."
She nods.
If I know Katniss, she would go outside the cave right now with her bow and arrow to hunt if I asked her to. Since her Father died, she had no one looking out for her. I know that it is hard for her to let go and let someone else take care of her, but she is in no condition to do so.
I grab some of groosling, and start to feed it to her.
"Now if you want some desert, let me know," I tell her smiling.
"I will let you know," she tells me.
"Here let me warm your feet, don't want you catch pneumonia." I tell her, and begin to warm her feet with my hands. I wrap my jacket around her feet and place them inside the sleeping bag.
"Your boots and socks are still damp and the weather's not helping much," I tell her, as the rain continues to pour down.
I look outside the cave at the storm.
"I wonder what brought on this storm? I mean, who's the target?" I tell her.
"Cato and Thresh," she says.
I turn around.
"Foxface will be in her den somewhere, and Clove … she cut me an then …"
"I know Clove's dead. I saw it in the sky last night," I tell her. "Did you kill her?"
Out of all the four that are left, Clove would be our greatest adversary. It isn't because of her ability to throw knives although that in itself is deadly, but it is her controlling nature. The way she manipulates the situation, and people, it is a gift that not many people have. People like that, you have to watch out for. I think Haymitch would have been like that back in his games, manipulating people and circumstances for his advantage.
"No. Thresh broke her skull with a rock," She says.
"Lucky he didn't catch you, too," I tell her.
"He did. But he let me go," She says.
"How did that happen?" I ask.
"Well the sun was just rising when I saw the District Twelve bag on a table in front of the Cornucopia. It was so tense the atmosphere like you know we were all just waiting for someone to make a move."
"Okay, so Cato wasn't there at the Cornucopia?" I ask her.
"No, but Foxface had hidden herself inside the Cornucopia, probably waiting there since the night before. Dangerous I know but if anyone could have done it, would be her." She says.
"That is pretty smart of her; I would have never thought to look inside the Cornucopia." I tell her.
"Well I thought if anything I would make a run for it and not wait any longer. So I grab the bag, but not before one of Clove's knives sliced my forehead. I try to get her with an arrow but couldn't see with the blood over my eyes. She grabbed me and pinned me on the ground. I thought that was it, when she started taunting me, telling me that it was her idea to kill Rue." She says.
I can't help but look at her with concern. She almost died.
"Katniss, the thought of you almost…" I try to tell her, before I stop myself, "I am sorry but I wouldn't be able to handle it."
"I am sorry Peeta, I just couldn't let you die the way that Rue died. We had a plan to meet up after blowing up the supplies of the Careers and I couldn't save her, I got there too late. The boy from District One had prepared a trap and by the time I reached her, a spear had killed her. I couldn't…I couldn't let that happen to you," she tells me.
"I am sorry Katniss," I tell her and hold her face in my heads.
"Well I couldn't leave her like that, she was a child Peeta. The same age as Prim, that is all I kept thinking about how it could have been Prim. I grab as many flowers as I could and placed them all around her so that she wouldn't be alone. I sang to her Peeta, until she died in my hands," she continues.
"I saw you after the explosion walking through the stream. I tried to call out to you but you didn't hear me." I tell her. "I heard the two cannon fires. I try, Katniss, I tried to help, but I couldn't." I tell her.
"Well you couldn't, not with the injury you had. The explosion, deafen my ear, I probably didn't hear you, when you called out to me." She tells me. "I still can't hear from this ear."
"I thought it was you. The cannon's, that one of them was you." As I move my face away from her, not wanting her to see my tears.
She grabs my hand, and I turn to face her.
"Thresh didn't kill me, I am right here. He let me go because he didn't want to owe me. For staying with Rue until she died."
"He let you go because he didn't want to owe you anything?" I repeat to her.
"Yes. I don't expect you to understand it. You've always had enough. But if you'd lived in the Seam, I wouldn't have to explain," she says.
"And don't try. Obviously I'm too dim to get it." I tell her.
"It's like the bread. How I never seem to get over owing you for that," she tells me looking down.
"The bread? What? From when we were kids?" I tell her. "I think we can let that go. I mean, you just brought me back from the dead."
"But you didn't know me. We had never even spoken. Besides, it's the first gift that's always the hardest to pay back. I wouldn't even have been here to do it if you hadn't helped me then," she tells me. "Why did you, anyways?"
"Why? You know why," I tell her holding her hand.
She nods as she doesn't know.
"Haymitch said you would take a lot of convincing," I tell her.
"Haymitch, what's he got to do with it?" she asked puzzled.
"Nothing," I tell her. "So, Cato and Thresh huh? I guess it's too much to hope that they'll simultaneously destroy each other?"
She looks down, and for a second I think she is about to cry. I come over to her.
"I think we would like Thresh. I think he'd be our friend back in District Twelve." She tells me.
"Then let's hope Cato kills him, so we don't have to," I tell her. No one should have to kill their friends.
Katniss looks up to me with tears in her eyes.
"What is it? Are you in a lot of pain?" I ask her.
"I want to go home, Peeta," she says in a moment of weakness. I see her as the world should have seen her, as a little girl, too young for this responsibility. She didn't want to come here but had to. You could tell if she had the choice she wouldn't have killed Marvel, or Glimmer, she would have found another way. She just wants to go home.
"You will. I promise." I tell her and kiss her on her cheek.
"I want to go home now." She says.
"Tell you what. You go back to sleep and dream of home. And you'll be there for real before you know it," I tell her. "Okay?"
"Okay," she tells me. "Wake me if you need me to keep watch."
"I'm good and rested, thanks to you and Haymitch. Besides, who knows how long this will last?" I tell her looking outside the cave.
With that she falls asleep. I come over and tuck the sleeping bag up to her chin, and sit by her, staring out the cave entrance. After a couple of hours, I just sit there I lay down next to her my face facing hers. The rain has always given me a peaceful feeling.
The rain has gone from a light rain, to a steady downpour. I get up and place the pot under a hole where the water is coming into. I grab the plastic from the supplies and wedge it in a way that it deflects the water from Katniss.
Back home, it would be something that I loved to do. I have always loved watching the rain. It is about the cleaning of everything that I love. The sound it makes on the tin overhang of the bakery. Many people don't come to the bakery in the rain so I would just sit by the display case listening to the rain. It is like a melody of the different pings as it hit different places. Everything just seems cleaner after the rain, even the air feels cleaner.
Once I walked outside and just stood in the rain, not caring if I got sick. I don't know why but when we were kids, we would love to run and play in the rain. Jump in mud puddles and not care. As people have gotten older, they seem to have run from it. They no longer play in the rain, or just in puddles. As we grow, do we forget the things that would bring us joy? If I had the chance and I was back in District Twelve that would probably be the first thing that I do. Jump in a mud puddle, play in the rain and not care about tomorrow.