GPOV:
I had made a salve for burns a while back and had carried it with us in anticipation of the fires to be throw our way. The only thing I didn't nesacarily anticipate was for them to be literally thrown our way.
"Poppy," I shake her awake.
She rubs her eyes and sits up, pulling my sweatshirt around her shoulders.
"Morning Gale," she says, "How was the night?"
"Uneventful. Let me change the bandage on your leg," I say with a yawn.
She forces a bit of a grin and swings her leg out in front of me. It looked pretty nasty before I cleaned all the leaves and medicine off, but by the time it was ready to be re-bandaged, it looked pretty good. It was scarring over nicely, the swelling had gone down and it had started to return to it's normal color.
"Why didn't you wake me up earlier? You didn't need to stay watch all night you know," she says.
"It's fine. I wouldn't have been able to sleep anyways, at least this was one of us is rested up."
She nods numbly and leans her head on my shoulder, locking her jaw as I smear another layer of the salve over her leg.
"It's fine, it'll be over in a minute," I soothe.
"I'm fine," She repeats.
When I finish with the salve, I layer some leaves over it. I remember Prim doing this once, but I'm not really sure what kind of leaves she used, so I'm really just guessing here.
I remember during Katniss' games, I would go over to their house after I finished hunting and I would go over to their house and sit with Prim to watch the required viewing. Every now and then I would bring my family over and we would have dinner together afterwards. Posy would sit on my lap and Prim would curl up beside me, her head on my shoulder, much in the way that Poppy was right now. Vick would sit on my other side and hold Posy's hand, Rory sitting next to him, barely fitting on the couch. Our mothers would sit at the kitchen table, whispering quietly, while I tried to distract Posy. Every now and then, Prim would mutter something under her breath about what Katniss needed to do to that wound or how she should patch up a burn or what herb to take to break a fever. I never paid much attention, but I regret it now.
After I finish up with Poppy's leg, I shrugged off my t-shirts and started peeling the leaves off my shoulder.
"I know a bit about medicine, do you want me to take a look at your shoulder?" Poppy offers.
I nob and grunt as she pulls herself up to finish peeling leaves off and wipe away the salve.
"Does it hurt?"
"Not too bad,"
"Okay, does not too bad mean not too bad, or does it mean you can still move?"
"Uh..." I trail off.
"I think it may be infected. I want to get a better look at it. Here, bite down on this," she instructs, putting the sleeve of my sweatshirt into my mouth, "This may hurt."
I lay down on the damp ground and bite on the sweatshirt as she blots away blood. Each touch burns like a fresh fire, just from the ever so slight touch of her hand.
"Gale, I think it's infected. Actually, I know it is. This is really, really, not good. Oh my god, Gale,"
"That bad?" I ask.
I knew it was bad, it was the reason I couldn't sleep. I hadn't even been able to lean against a tree or lay down on my back. I guess I just tried so hard to talk myself into thinking that it would heal that I stated to believe it. Clearly, I was very wrong.
"Yeah. Here's what I'm thinking, I'll cut open the pockets of pus to relive the pressure. It'll hurt a lot, but it'll help get rid of the infection. There are some leaves that'll draw out infection, you probably saw Rue using them last year on the Tracker Jacker stings, they'll work pretty much the same way. I'm going to chew them up and pack them over the areas I cut, then use some of the salve on the rest. Okay?"
"Yeah," I sigh, knowing just how much this is going to hurt.
Prim did a similar procedure on me a few years ago and it was hell.
"Satan, I'm home," I mumble before she starts the procedure.
There were a few points when I felt like I was going to pass out, but it never came. I gnawed on the sweatshirt as she slit open the pus pockets and eventually relaxed once she started spreading the herb mixture on my back. Once she's done, I sit up and lean my opposite shoulder on a tree. My hands are shaking and my skin glistens with sweat.
"Are you okay?" she asks tenativly.
"Yeah. I'll be fine," I say, "We should be moving on pretty soon. Don't want any one to find us. How do you feel about trees?"
"I don't know, you mean like... climbing?"
"Yeah, can you?"
"I don't know, I've never tried,"
"Okay. How do you feel about sleeping in one? I'll tie you in, you won't fall or anything."
"Sure, I guess."
We packed up and started hiking off in the same direction we had been going. We had gathered a fair amount of food already- mostly edible leaves and a few roots -but were still dangerously low on out food supply. I like to always have some type of food that way if we're trapped or injured or can't find anything to eat for awhile we won't starve. So far we hadn't had anything major happen, but that doesn't mean there isn't something in the planning.
After a few hours of trekking through the forest, we reached a hill, once we crested the top, I climbed a tree to get a better view. The back of my throat was dry and my tongue was starting to feel similar to a hunk of dried beef, so I had been looking for any sign of water since we had first started off. Nothing. Yet. Not until I reached the top of the tree and saw a small pond in a little clearing less than a mile away. I shimmied down the tree and told Poppy the good news- water.
When we got to the lake, I dropped our backpack next to a tree, I had been carrying it on one shoulder this entire time and it had begun to take ti's toll. It, like most of our supplies, had come from other tributes I had killed. I shrug off my shirt and slip off my shoes then wade into the cool water, letting it lap up around my burned shoulder and eventually up to my neck. Poppy splashes in after me and we spend the next few moments in silence, savoring the cool water.
"Gale," she says.
"Yeah?" I turn around to face her.
She is holding up a plant that she must have dug up from the bottom of the pond.
"Is this what I think it is?" I take a few steps toward her and take the plant from her hands to inspect it.
After a second, it hits me. A grin breaks across my face and I toss it onto the shore.
"Katniss," I whisper, pulling another root from the bottom of the pond, "Katniss. Got dammit, Katniss, who the hell thought I would run into you here,"
I laugh and throw root after root onto the shore. By the time I reach my sixth root, I collapse into the water in peals of laughter.
"Oh my god, Katniss. Well, looks like we're having dinner tonight," I say, lifting Poppy out of the pond, above my head and spinning her around.
Her toes skim the surface of the water, making tiny ripples coming out around us in a spiral. She giggles and I slow down, easing her to a stop and lower her back onto her feet.
We look at each other for a moment before we simultaneously crack up again. I pull myself out and into the mud, laying there laughing, Poppy at my side, a pile of Katniss roots next to me when the little silver parachute falls from the sky. It was the first one we had received during all the games, and there wasn't much that we needed. We had water, we had a good supply or food, I had already rigged a set of snares and we had several knives. What was in the package was beyond me, but I rolled over to grab it and set it down between Poppy and I.
KPOV:
He let Poppy open the package. It was a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a couple oranges. Nothing they really needed, but I wanted to send a message- laugh. The minute they started laughing and he picked her up in the lake, sponsors came pouring in. People wanted to see that- see them having a good time, playing around, enjoying themselves, smiling. I hope the message came across, but I'm fairly confident that Gale got it, if nothing else, he smirked directly at one of the tree cameras. Though it could have been a coincidence, I have a good feeling that he put two and two together and figured out that at least some of the cameras are in the trees.
"Hey," Peeta says from behind me.
I swivel my chair around to face him and grin.
"How're they doing?" He says.
"Good. They got a lot of sponsors."
"Good for them," he sits down on the chair next to me and reaches for the ear wig, "How have you been doing?"
I shrug and tap on on e of the screens to bring the volume up.
"So... you don't really like Peeta that much, do you?" Poppy's voice said, "I mean, you two don't seem to get along well."
I put my hand over his and push it back onto the desk.
"Let's go get something to eat. I've had enough of this for one day," I say.
A flash of something crosses his face before he stands up, takes my hand, and leads me into the lounge.
PPOV:
I don't think she knows, but I heard it. I heard what they were talking about. I sit down next to her on the couch though, pretend I don't know what was going on, pretend everything is the same. I pick up a cracker off the table next to us and dip it into a thick, creamy dip that resembles the garlic and onion dip we sold at the bakery sometimes. Katniss curls her feet up on the couch next to us and leans her head on my shoulder. I'm about to offer her a cracker when Cinna walks in, his face etched with worry.
"What happened?" Katniss asks the second he's within earshot.
"I don't know. I got a call from Haymitch, he wanted to talk to you."
She springs up from the couch and speed walks next to him all the way to his office where she snatches up the phone and waves me over to listen in.
"I haven't seen Ripper in days, I can't get into town to buy any liquor, and Prim won't even pick up the phone anymore. I would like you to lodge a complaint to the President that I would like them to send in another train, only this one loaded with something alcoholic Thank you and good bye. Oh, and by the way, Peeta, you suck at listening in." With that the line goes dead.
She closes her eyes and sucks in a deep breath.
"Can we go up to the roof for some fresh air?" She asks.
"Yeah, sounds good," I say, taking her hand and leading her to the elevator.
Once on the roof, we sit down next to a bed of flowers.
"Something's going on. I don't know what, but they aren't letting him leave his house, the phones at my house have been disconnected, and there's something about the Hob. They're bringing in trains, I assume they're full of peacekeepers, and there are shortages. And something about Snow. I just don't know. I need to get home, I need to know," She cries into my shoulder and I wrap my arms around her waist.
Our district has always been a fairly safe place, if you found a way to put food on the table, you would live. Period. There were never any of the punishments outlined in the laws, never any whippings or executions Most of those laws have been long forgotten, rules gone unnoticed for years. If they were finally cracking down on the whole district, people would starve. Every hour of every day of work anyone could get was taken, when you had money, you fed your family, any notion of saving it for an emergency wasn't an option, if you did that, you would die of starvation before you had a chance to use the money. So, when something did go wrong, the entire world fell apart. Everything in the district was coated with a fine layer of coal dust, the second a fire started, it took every able bodied man woman and child in the area to put it out and make sure it didn't spread.
"Katniss, you don't think that they would stop the trading at the hob by burning-"
"I don't know. I don't know. I need to know. There has to be something... anything. Anything we can do." She cries.
And I have a feeling that that was what was going on at home- our world was disappearing, in fire and ash.
Okay, I don't really like the chapter itself, kinda' boring really, but I like the ending, especially the last sentence, I think it's one of my favorite lines from this chapter. So, what do you think? Too much, too little, too boring? Give me your input. I have a plan for the next chapter and I think it is going to be pretty good!