Author's Note: Sorry, guys, my computer was jacked up. But it's working now (obviously). So on with the story! (And I know, poor Kit, right?)
"If I'm going to die today, it's Rue I want to win." –Katniss Everdeen, The Hunger Games
Vale had never witnessed a sunrise inside the arena before. It was positively picturesque, an almost magical event: the golden sun rising above the horizon, painting the sky and the light silver clouds with an orangey-pink glow, flooding the world with pure, unadulterated light. Lovely.
If only Vale could have enjoyed it. But no. She was tired, wet, and hungry. She had been walking through what seemed like half the night, in fear of the lightning storm that had assailed them, in search of a safe place to rest. And she was half-carrying, half-dragging Kit, whose left shin was tightly bandaged; it had been fractured badly, and he was having difficulty walking, she reminded herself when her foggy brain began to question the situation again.
She was terribly sore now. The arm that she had around Kit was twinging with pain, and her hunched back ached even worse. She wondered if she would ever feel good again.
For the sixth or seventh time, Kit nearly fell asleep standing up. His head nodded down onto his chest, and he started to stagger forward. Vale stuck out an arm to support him, and he roused with a snort.
"Huh? What…?"
"You were falling asleep again." Vale sighed. "We need to find some place to stop."
"Yeah, seriously," he said through an extensive yawn.
It was a few minutes later, as the rain came to a welcome halt, when they came to a spot in the woods where a massive boulder lay amongst the leaves. It was more than five feet high and at least as wide, with a smaller rock half its size resting beside it, like a sort of stepping stool.
"Why don't we stop here?" Vale suggested.
She helped ease Kit up onto the rock—no matter how gentle she tried to be, he still gritted his teeth and gave a piteous whimper of pain as his injured leg was shifted. Then, Vale climbed up herself. She sat down next to Kit and placed her gray, crowded backpack on her other side.
"How is your leg feeling now, Kit?"
Kit's eyelids narrowed, and not only from drowsiness. His tone was rather acidic. "Painful, of course. There's kind of a bone sticking out of it, you know."
She ducked her head in embarrassment. "Of course. Sorry, I wasn't thinking. I meant, is it doing any better?"
He shrugged. "Not really."
"Oh."
It went silent for a time. The rain continued to hold off, and gilded rays of sunlight peered down at the two through the leafy boughs overhead. A light breeze whistled through the trees, one that would have felt good if it had been hotter, but it only served to chill them through their damp clothes now. Somewhere in the distance, Vale caught a snatch of birdsong, and nearer, a pair of squirrels chittered and scampered, gathering nuts.
Finally, Kit spoke again, but it wasn't in the lighthearted tone that she had been hoping for. "Sorry I got hurt. Now, I'm gonna slow us down even more."
"Don't say that," she said sharply. "It's not like you meant to." She leaned back, attempting to shift into a more comfortable seated position, but she flinched at the soreness in her back and arms.
He seemed to notice this. "Of course not, but it still happened. You should've gone on without me when I told you to."
"Not a chance. For the last time, I told you that we were allies—family—and family doesn't turn their back on family."
"But I can hardly walk with your help," he reasoned, "And not at all by myself. You're saddled with a helpless kid, and both of us are gonna get ourselves killed that way."
She noticed Kit glance down at the two tiny knives that he kept under his leather belt. Slowly, he reached down, slipped them out, and just held them in his small, grubby hands, staring. There was too much contemplating thought racing behind his blue eyes for Vale's comfort.
"Kittson Littleby, don't even say it again!" she exclaimed, remembering when he had suggested throwing himself off of the train to the Capitol, and when he had actually tried to jump off of the roof on the night before they entered the arena. "Say it, and I'll… I'll… Just don't say it!" she finished weakly.
The boy pretended not to hear. "I don't want you to get killed for me, Vale. If I don't win this—and I won't—I want you to."
"What?" she said softly. She was very aware of the thundering of her heart, the difficulty of breathing as he said such things. "What do you mean? I thought you said that neither of us had a chance…. That we were wimps…"
Kit's dirt-stained face was entirely solemn. "That's what I thought. And I know that I am. But you, Vale—you killed that girl from Seven when she attacked us, and ran all the way through the bloodbath to save me, and managed to keep us alive so far, no matter how much of a burden I am."
"That doesn't mean…" she began weakly.
His eyes seemed to shine, not with tears but with some other emotion. "I know already that I can't win, and there's no reason to even hope I will. But maybe you can. Maybe you can stay alive and win the Games for District Twelve. Prove Lavinia right when she said that even we have potential. See your family again, even if I'll never get to see mine."
The world began to blur before Vale's eyes. She felt the teardrops start to roll down her cheeks. She hated it so much when Kit talked like this, about his death being inevitable…. But he said that he wanted her to win. Vale did want to win, go home, and see her loved ones again — more desperately than she had ever wanted anything else in her life. And she wanted to prove to those disparagers in the Capitol that District Twelve could win, just like any other district….
She quickly yanked herself out of these thoughts. She wasn't capable of becoming a victor. No matter what Kit said, she was just as wimpy as she had been before. It would only make it hurt worse in the long run, believing that she had a ghost of a chance, when she ended up being cut down by some bloodthirsty tribute's sword.
The winner of the forty-fourth Hunger Games won't be me, she thought. It will be Obsidian, or Amber, or Achilles, or some other Career. Maybe even one of the siblings from District Five, or Phlox from Eleven. But not me.
She looked gravely at Kit, a rare flash of tenacity in her gaze, and shook her head. "I don't have any more of a chance than you do. And I'm not going to go on without you; we're a team. So don't you dare talk that way again."
Kit fell silent, subdued.
Vale felt a pang of sorrow; she had spoken a bit more harshly than intended. She reached for the backpack. "Do you want something to eat?"
He smiled slightly. "Do I ever!"
But even as Kit munched happily on a meat strip and the last of the crackers, his melancholy mood all but forgotten, Vale couldn't keep her mind from revisiting the things he had said to her. Images flashed through her head despite herself.
She could see herself standing, arms held over her head in victory, over the fallen bodies of the Careers. She could hear the voice of the announcer proclaiming, "Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present the victor of the forty-fourth Hunger Games—Vale Whitaker!" She could practically feel the warmth in the embraces of her parents, sisters, and brother as they welcomed her back home after it was all over.
No, Vale. No, that acrid, pragmatic voice in the back of her mind reminded her harshly. Don't even allow yourself to go there. Remember? You're a spineless, scrawny girl from the Seam. Some of these others have been training for this for their entire lives. What chance do you really have? Get your head out of your fantasies, girl, and get a grip. You could be razed to the ground in a second out here, nothing more than a bloody smear on the floor of the arena, gone and forgotten. No more of these childish dreams.
As much as Vale hated to admit it, the austere voice was right. Whoever the winner of the Games was going to be this year, it wasn't going to be her.
"Climb into the ring for a battle that you can't win. Swing as hard as you can swing; it will still mean nothing…." –Nickelback, "This Means War"
Author's Note: More depressingness. Unfortunately, that's kind of inevitable...
Anyway, hope you liked it nonetheless. Again, sorry for the wait!
~Lily