Chapter twenty two will be the last. Just a head's up. :) and also :(.

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The pain washed over him five seconds after he opened his eyes. Five blissful seconds. For one of those seconds, everything was blurred, as if he was viewing it through a rain-streaked window. Then, for two seconds, the image resolved into two clear, bottomless gray eyes, like misty pools of stardust. The last two seconds were filled with a babble of voices, breaking thorough his senses and giving him snatches of a conversation that didn't make sense.

"… had to, the bone was shattered…"

"… more serum ready, quickly…"

"…before he wakes up…"

At almost the precise moment when Peeta registered the overlapping words, drawing the meaning out of them with excruciating difficulty, the world imploded. The grey eyes vanished, the voices slurred into one continuous shriek, and he spiraled into bleak nothingness.

When next he woke, he could tell even before opening his eyes that he had been out for a long time. A day, maybe more. His eyelashes stuck together with gritty rheum, and he had to scrub his eyes with the heels of his hands before they could open, letting in a sharp burst of light. He immediately closed them again, waiting for the throbbing in his head to abate. Eventually, he pried open his eyes, keeping them slits to guard against the stinging light. As he waited for them to adjust, he became aware of his immediate surroundings. He was stretched out on some sort of thin mattress, his head resting on a pillow covered in some sort of rough cloth. A blanket was draped over him from waist to toes. His left leg was entirely numb. Well, the bottom half. His thigh, and the area just below his knee, hurt like, well, something he wouldn't have muttered if he knew Rory was there.

"You're awake," a young voice rejoiced. Shortly after, Rory's face appeared in his field of vision, grinning widely.

"Hey," Peeta whispered. He hadn't meant to whisper, but his throat was so dry it sucked his voice right out of his mouth. Rory helped him sit up and held the rim of a canteen to his lips. This time, it was water. He didn't realize how thirsty he was until the first mouthful hit his stomach. Then, he latched onto the canteen and drained it. His throat now sufficiently moistened, Peeta tried again. "Hey, Rory."

"Hi." Rory passed him a second canteen, which he gulped down with equal fervor.

"How long was I out?" he asked between chugs.

Rory hesitated at this, his grin slipping. "Well… Longer than we thought… I mean, not that long, but…"

"How long?"

Rory rubbed the back of his neck, clearly uncomfortable. "Four days," he said quietly.

Peeta absorbed the information. Four days. Four days! He had thought one, two at the most, but four?

"You had a fever," Rory rushed on, trying to cram his explanation all into one breath. "Not the Rose Fever, but a fever, and your leg was infected, and we weren't sure if it would, um, work out, and you weren't waking up, but your fever broke last night, and here you are, awake, and, um, alive, so, yeah, things ended up working out, I guess." He looked up at Peeta from under his eyelashes, as if waiting for his reaction.

So, that's what happened. His leg was infected. The bullet must have done more damage than he thought. He stretched out his right leg, the one he could actually feel, experimentally. His muscles were stiff, and didn't appreciate having to move after such a long period of inactivity. Then he tried moving his left leg. The result was a spasm of pain that shot up his leg and rendered him unable to do anything more than lock his jaw and clench his fists for several seconds.

When he regained control, he was struck with the urge to see the wound. He wanted to see how bad it was for himself. Rory, a blur in his peripheral vision, made a sudden move towards him as he reached for the blanket. "Peeta, you might not want to do that- Peeta, wait- don't-"

Too late.

At first he didn't understand. He stared blankly at his leg, or, what he could see of it. All he thought was, What? What? Where's- And then he understood. The bottom half of his leg wasn't numb, it was gone. Three quarters of his calf were… just… gone. His leg ended a couple inches below his knee. Bandages, blindingly white and heavily layered, encased the stump in a tight, cast-like cap.

"The gun was fired at such a close range that the bullet shattered the lower part of the bone," Rory said, quiet again. His voice had the too-smooth quality of a practiced speech. "And, you wouldn't let them look at it right away. If you hadn't waited so long, maybe they could have done something else." He saw Peeta's expression and backpedaled. "I mean- it's not your fault. I'm not saying it's your fault. It's no one's fault, except that sailor… Peeta? Are you okay?"

But he couldn't answer. What was there to say, really? And even if there was anything, his closing throat wouldn't have allowed it.

The door opened with a familiar squeak-and-thud combination, and Peeta realized he was in the Captain's Cabin. No other door made that noise. He looked around, really looked, for the first time. The ocean steadily rose and fell outside the window, like the breathing of the Earth itself. Katniss's bed was empty, but a nest of blankets lay piled on the floor beside his cot, with a pillow carelessly tossed beside them, as if she'd been sleeping there. The tang of ocean air was fresh and cold, blowing in through the billowing curtains. Wherever they were headed, they were well on their way. They had probably been travelling since before his leg was am-

No. He couldn't think that word. It was too much, too soon.

Katniss appeared at his bed side, all but shoving Rory out of the way in her haste. "Peeta," she breathed, her hands moving to check his temperature, feel his pulse, brush back his hair. "You're awake. You're all right." She took one of his hands in both of hers, holding it to her cheek. He could feel her smile under his palm. "We weren't sure if…" She let the sentence hang in the air, sending ripples through the room like a stone dropped in water. Then, all at once, her face crumpled, smile stretching into a grimace of pain, and her grip on his hand tightened until it was painful. She collapsed with a low keen, falling to her knees and letting her head come to rest on the edge of Peeta's pillow. Alarmed, he nudged her shoulder, trying to get her to lift her head so he could see her face.

"Katniss?"

She replied with a choking sob.

"Katniss? Kat? What's wrong? Please, tell me what's wrong."

She tugged on his hand, using his arm as a kind of brace to pull herself into a somewhat upright position. She made several attempts at talking, but every time she drew a breath, it rushed out again in ragged sobs. The silver stardust pools spilled over and her skin flushed in blotches of red and pink. At last she gave up, laying her head on his shoulder and weeping openly. Rory backed out of the Captain's Cabin, head lowered respectfully, and closed the doors behind him. Katniss clutched at Peeta's hand and sobbed.

When the worst of it had passed, and her sobs shrank into uneven hiccups, she finally got out what she was trying to say. "I was s-so w-worried," she wailed. "The doctor on the J-Jabberjay said the shock might be t-to much for your s-system. Your f-fever k-k-kept getting worse and w-worse, and y-y-you wouldn't w-wake up, and I thought… I t-thought…" Her words dissolved into unintelligible blubbering, and she buried her face in her hands to compose herself.

Peeta stroked her hair, a motion that was second nature to him by now. "You thought what, Katniss?" he said gently.

The hoarse whisper came out like a confession. "I thought I would lose you."

"No," he said quickly. "No, Katniss. I wouldn't do that to you. You know I wouldn't."

"Not your choice," she mumbled.

"No," he repeated, shifting himself a painful degree to the right so he could wrap his arms around her. "I wouldn't leave you."

They stayed like that for hours, until the light changed and the dinner bell clanged. Then, stiffly, Katniss rose and helped Peeta turn on the cot so he could place his one remaining foot on the floor. He gazed at what was left of his left leg, not entirely sure what his emotions were. There were too many of them, all at once. He was sure that soon, they would come crashing over him like the waves of pain when he first woke up. But for now, what pushed itself to the forefront of his mind was not based on emotions at all. It was quite practical.

"Will I ever… I mean… How will I get around?"

Katniss sucked in a breath, steadying herself. "Well… I do have something. But I don't know what you'll think of it."

She stepped to her closet, sliding open the door with careful movements. She pulled something bulky and wrapped in cloth from between a stack of folded clothes and her medicine box. When she returned to the cot, she sank down next to Peeta, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. "Here," she said, shoving the bundle at him.

He took it curiously and started to unwind the strips of cloth. They fell away, slithering to the floor, to reveal a pirate's peg leg. Except it wasn't a peg. It was more like a sculpture- a carving of the bottom half of a leg and foot, with an ankle joint that allowed a small amount of movement. It was carved of some sort of dark, dense wood, and polished until it shone like silk. At the top, straps and buckles were threaded through holes drilled in the wood. Obviously, it was meant to be taken on and off with ease.

"And, wait," she said, fishing in the pile of cloth that had fallen to the floor, "There's one more thing."

She produced a sock-sized tube of thick cloth- was it cloth? Or thin leather? – from the pile. Peeta ran his hand across the mysterious piece of fabric, only to discover it wasn't fabric at all. It was… It was… Something thin, but not as thin as cloth, soft, but not fuzzy, and form-fitting, but not stretchy. "What is this?"

"It goes…" She gestured to his leg-stump. "On your leg. So that the wooden one doesn't bother your skin."

"I mean, what's it made of? But, thank you; that answered my second question."

"It's the hide of a young deer."

Peeta looked down at the gifts in his hands, feeling Katniss's nervousness seep from her in waves. In an attempt to lighten the mood, he said, "What, you just have a leg sitting in your closet, just in case?"

Her expression changed, but not to a smile. She looked hurt. "I made it," she said. "While I was waiting."

Something in Peeta's chest, maybe his heart, gave a funny little squeeze. Waiting for him to wake up. Katniss had carved him a replacement leg, even sewing a sock to protect the remaining stump, while she waited to see whether he would live or succumb to his fever. Now the blankets on the floor made sense. She had probably stayed up all night, days in a row, to finish it, all the while not knowing if he would even be around to need it.

"You don't have to use it, if you don't want," she was saying. Her hands twisted and her fingers knitted themselves together, then separated and twisted again. "You can always just use a crutch. Or, I'm sure my mother has something, when we get to land we can ask her for-"

He cut her off with a kiss. "It's perfect," he managed. If he had to lose part of his leg, and this was the result, so be it. He would just have to learn to walk with one wooden leg. A leg that Katniss had crafted with her own hands. That wouldn't be so bad. Every step would remind him of her.

A peg leg, he thought. If there was any doubt before, there isn't any, now. I am definitely a pirate.

"Let's try it," he said.

"Can't," Katniss replied. "Not yet, anyway. It's got to heal. They had to- well, I'll spare you. I was still pretty out of it with the fever, but suffice to say I saw enough to know that you shouldn't be on your feet for a while."

"Foot," he corrected, to keep away the mental image she was unintentionally supplying despite her efforts not to.

"Yes, well." She waved the wooden foot in the air. "Feet. You'll have to rest up a bit. Don't worry, that's what everyone else is doing, too. We're all pretty spent."

Something clicked into place in his mind. "Wait, you said something about your mother. Are we going to the Seam?"

She smiled a tired smile. "Yeah. The ship is barely floating. Anyone recovered enough is below deck, trying to do a patch job on the holes the navy blew in the hull. They're doing a pretty good job, considering. We're still on top of the ocean, not under it, and we saved enough of the foot to get us to the Seam. But once we get there, we'll be stuck for a bit. Some planks and rags nailed over the breaches aren't going to hold forever, and our crew's down to half." Peeta winced. The Rose Fever had taken half of their crew before they delivered the cure. Sadness cut through him, but Katniss wasn't done. "Once we dock, the plan is to stay on land for a few years. Repair the Tracker, build up the crew, that sort of thing. Take a nice, long break."

"That sounds nice." Without warning, his head started to swim. Four days of complete stillness had taken their toll. Just sitting up, talking, had drained him of energy. Katniss seemed to sense this, and moved off the cot so he could lie down. She whisked away to the kitchens, coming back with her boots soaked and a tray of bland food in her hands.

"Flooded," she explained, pushing the tray at him. "Oh, come on, eat. I know it's not too tasty, but that's probably all your stomach can handle right now."

He reluctantly ate the tasteless oatmeal and broth, and, dull as it was, he was grateful for its bulk, which quieted his stomach. Then, unable to do much else, he turned his face into the pillow and went to sleep. Katniss crawled onto the cot with him just before he drifted off, on the side opposite his bad leg.

"You know, you're like a mermaid," he murmured sleepily.

She looked up at him, her stardust eyes puzzled.

"Maybe you really are one. I heard you singing when I first came on the Tracker, and, just like Finnick said, I was a goner."

"But no one's ever kissed a mermaid," she said, and he could feel her breath on his cheek.

"Lucky me." He leaned in to kiss her, but he was too tired to put any real effort into it. Then he dipped his head and nuzzled her neck, pulling her closer, and let himself fall into unconsciousness for what seemed like the hundredth time.