A/N: What do you think so far? PS - Major character deaths featured (or minor?) and also more Songbirds and Snakes spoilers!
PEETA POV
We stayed for a few hours. It was maybe eight at night when we arrived, so some members of the unit slept while some of us stayed awake. I made Katniss rest a little bit, wrapping my arm around her shoulders as she rested her head on mine, and I glanced over at Cailean, who still stood in the corner and remained silent. "You okay?" I asked him. "Cailean?" He looked at me, sadness dancing in his eyes, then gently shook his head and stared back out the window. Around us, Calum and Carolina were fast asleep in each other's arms. Gale was awake, although he feigned sleep. Castor and Pollux were dozing off in the corner while Cressida was going through footage that she had filmed that day. Finnick was scribbling away on a piece of paper furiously. Donnel was passed out in the corner snoring away.
"I've been in love with Hadley Walker since I was eight years old," Cailean said suddenly to me, and I turned my attention back to him. "When we were older, I pursued her, but she was never interested in me. Or at least, she said she never was. On the mission, things changed. We grew closer, and we weren't a couple but we were on the verge of it. Now I'll never know what we could have been."
"I'm very sorry, Cailean," I told him, and he shrugged.
"That's war, isn't it? Loss. If it's not your home or everything that you are, it's a loved one. People die everyday. Guess I should get used to it," he replied.
"Wars lead to great things," Gale interjected, proving that he was never asleep to begin with. "Victory, freedom, democracy... We'll have all those things when it's over." I saw Cailean narrow his eyes at him. In Thirteen, Cailean never liked Gale. Calum got along with him more than Cailean did, but Cailean disliked the man, and for good reason. He didn't like how he once yelled at Katniss for being 'stupid and reckless' in a mission, and he also just didn't like the man's values. Like Katniss, Cailean was a dove, while Gale was a warbird.
"But I won't have her ," he hissed at Gale, and he turned back to the window.
"Love is an illusion, I've learned," said Gale, looking at myself and Katniss, who was deeply asleep in my arms.
"She didn't love you," I told him.
"How would you know? Your relationship with her started out false. You never knew her before the reaping."
"That's not true, either. She used to come to the bakery before attending a birth."
"To see you?"
"No, but I was always there, and she always smiled at me."
"A smile doesn't mean she's in love."
"I never said she was in love with me, but we did know each other before the Games." Gale let out a laugh.
"You have no idea how angry and betrayed I felt when I saw her kiss you in the arena like that. She'd never kissed me like that before. Even if it was for the cameras, I could see that something drove her to kiss you like that, and it wasn't the desire to live."
"How do you kiss Johanna?" He was silent for a moment.
"We cling to each other, both of us having lost so much. My family survived the bombing of Twelve, but they didn't survive the bombing of Thirteen. Snow killed her entire family for how she acted in the Games. He also brought you and her together through the Games and forced you to into a relationship. By that logic, Snow took away everything that Johanna and I had ever loved."
"So your hatred of Snow brings you both together?" I was startled by Katniss's voice emanating from beneath my arm and she picked up her head to look at him. "What'll you both do when Snow is dead?"
"Katniss, go back to sleep, you need to rest," I told her, my free hand jumping to her face, but she didn't look at me. Instead, she was looking at Gale.
"Well?" she asked him, expecting an answer.
"Guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there," he said, and he looked away, signalling that he was done with the conversation. I turned my attention back to Katniss.
"Katniss, please go back to sleep," I told her, but she waved my hand away.
"Peeta, stop," she said, sitting up and pulling herself from my arms, and she let out a sigh when she saw the sting in my eyes. "It's your turn to rest... You should sleep, too."
"I won't be able to sleep until I know you're safe, and that won't happen until we've won the rebellion," I told her.
"At least try," she begged me, and I nodded gently.
"Come here, then," I whispered, and she crawled back into my arms and I held her tightly, closing my eyes. I felt her kiss my chin and she started to whisper a song to me.
Deep in the meadow, under the willow
A bed of grass, a soft green pillow
Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes
And when again they open, the sun will rise.
I smiled as she sang the Valley Song to me, the first song I heard her sing and the song that made me fall in love with her for the first time. Well, develop a crush on her that led to being in love with her.
Here it's safe, here it's warm,
Here the daisies guard you from every harm.
Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true,
Here is the place where I love you...
I must have fallen asleep before she sang the second verse. It was a sweet sleep, and I dreamed that we were in the meadow again in District Twelve, the two of us lying on our backs in the warm sun. She was wearing an orange sundress, and I was wearing a pale green shirt and khaki pants. We lay there in the meadow and above us, a Capitol hovercraft suddenly appeared, and I began to fear it. I held Katniss tightly in my arms and then we watched as it... as it... turned into a cloud of butterflies? A cloud of monarch butterflies, richly orange and black as they fluttered about and let the sun's rays in. As quickly as the dream began, I felt it end, and I felt myself being shaken awake as I heard my name being called. "Peeta... Peeta, wake up..."
I opened my eyes and was met by Katniss's beautiful grey ones, and I realised that we weren't in the meadow. Instead, we were inside of a Capitol home, ostentatious and large, unlike the homes of District Twelve. "Peeta, it's time to go, mo ghaol ," she said to me. I checked my communicuff for the time - it was shortly after two in the morning.
"How long was I asleep?" I asked her.
"Couple of hours," she replied. "Come on, love." We made our move, slipping out of the Capitol home and stepping out into the night.
"We can't stay above ground, the cameras will see us," I said, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
"We can go below," said Castor suddenly, and he glanced at his brother, Pollux - a former Capitol avox who had had his tongue removed, so he didn't speak. Before we knew it, we found ourselves underground navigating the underground tunnels of the Capitol's travel system. Buses, vehicles and trains all ran down here, but there were still cameras, so we had to go even lower. Pollux stopped at a door, and he looked at Castor with a frightened expression.
"What's the matter?" asked Katniss.
"He used to work down there, when he was enslaved by the Capitol," said Castor. "I spent five years working to get him out." He gave his brother a tight hug. "It'll be okay..." He then turned back to us. "Pollux knows the underground systems better than anyone else. He'll get us to Snow's mansion." Everyone started climbing down the ladder, and all that remained at the top was myself and Finnick.
"After you?" I asked him. He nodded, then pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to me.
"Give this to her, in case I don't make it back. To Annie," he said, and I put a hand on his shoulder.
"I'll get you back to her. Katniss and I both made a promise to her that we'd get you back to her," I told him. He gave me a subtle smile, as if he somewhat disbelieved me, and then he pulled me into a tight hug.
"You've been a good friend, both of you," he said, then he broke the hug, touched my shoulder and then climbed down after the others. The tunnels were musky, wet and dark, and we could hardly see a thing. Katniss pulled out the Holo and searched for Pods, but the only Pods were above our heads. The Capitol must not have accounted for the rebels going underneath the city. I heard Finnick let out a chuckle. "I always hoped I'd die in the water," he said.
"Who said you're going to die?" Katniss asked him playfully. We moved on, stepping through water, walking along platforms, checking the Holo to map out our location. We were several blocks from the Capitol still, but we made our way through the maze of tunnels, eventually pausing for a rest. "Any good material to film down here?" Katniss jokingly asked Cressida, who smiled.
"The lighting's terrible," she said back. I looked around at the crowd before me. Castor and Pollux were signing things to each other, while Calum and Carolina were snuggling up and trying to sleep. Cailean wasn't sleeping, but instead looked distant and sad, while Katniss was seated across from me looking at the Holo. Finnick was trying to sleep, and Gale was standing and conversing with Donnel, who was nodding along to the conversation. Donnel resembled me only slightly, resembling our mother more. I was the spitting image of my father when he was my age, or so I had been told. Like our mother, Donnel had green eyes, while I had my father's blue. We were both blonde and well-built, with wide shoulders and toned muscles from years of tossing around heavy bags of flour and years of wrestling both in school and as brothers. I felt a tap on my foot and I looked at Katniss, who was smiling at me, and I returned her smile.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked me.
"The past," I replied. "My family... How everyone always told me I looked just like my father."
"You do," she replied. "He was a handsome man, and he made a handsome son." I chuckled gently. Suddenly, she turned towards a small tunnel that spilled water down into the tunnels beneath us. "Did you hear that?" I looked towards the tunnel that she was referring to, hearing nothing.
"I just hear water," I told her. "What do you hear?"
"Hissing," she replied.
"Hissing?" I repeated, and I tried to listen for the sounds that she was talking about and through the sound of the water, sure enough, I heard the sound of hissing. "It might be steam in the pipes."
"It's getting louder," she replied again, and she was right - it was getting louder.
"Something's not right..." I muttered.
"We need to get out of here," she said, and then she looked to the unit and stood up. "We need to move on."
"But it's not been long enough-" Gale began to protest, but I cut him off.
"You heard her. Let's go," I said firmly. Pollux led us down a series of tunnels, but then everyone froze as the hissing became louder and clear to us that something terrifying had been searching for us, and possibly found us. Katniss pulled a yellow-tipped arrow out of her quiver and activated her bow. The tip of the arrow, upon connecting to the bow, lit up in flames and she launched it in the direction of the hissing, lighting up the dark tunnel.
There, crawling on the walls and easily scores more than we had in our unit, were very large, skin-coloured lizard-like humanoid creatures with sharp claws and large, sharp teeth. And they were crawling right towards us.
"MUTTS!" I shouted loudly. "GO! RUN!" We ran in the opposite direction of the mutts, following the tunnels, and the faster we ran, the faster they crawled in the pipes. We leapt out of the tunnel and into a large basin that was filled with water as the lizard mutts came at us from all directions. What happened was entirely a blur as I shot at mutts, but every time I killed one, two more took its place. I saw one jump at Katniss and I shot it down in midair, but she was too busy firing arrows at the creatures to even notice the mutt that had nearly attacked her. I heard screams and cries of pain, anguish, anger and more. I heard roaring, hissing, water splashing all about, the sound of Finnick's trident sinking into the body of one of the mutts, the sounds of Katniss's bow throwing arrows all around.
"GO! CLIMB OUT!" I heard a voice shout. I looked towards the source and found myself being shoved under the water, but the pressure was lifted and I was pulled back up and met Finnick's fearful eyes as he freed his trident from the body of another mutt.
"Go! Get out, Peeta!" he shouted at me. Katniss. Where was Katniss? Not just Katniss now - Katniss and Lark, or Donald. Katniss and our baby. I had to get her out.
"Peeta!" I heard her voice, and I looked up and saw her standing near a ladder. I watched her fire arrows at more mutts as we fought our way to the ladder. Some members of the group had already climbed and were at the uncovered manhole above raining bullets down on the mutts, but there were just too many.
"Katniss, go! I'm right behind you!" I shouted at her, grabbing her and pushing her towards the ladder. She started to climb, and I was right behind her. I felt teeth sink into my calf and with my other foot, I kicked the mutt in the face and it fell to the ground. I continued to climb, finally making it out of the manhole. Right behind me had been Calum, who was covered in blood and looked very weak. I grabbed him by the wrists and hauled him through the manhole, laying him down on the ground as Carolina and Cailean ran to his side. There was more person that needed to get out.
"Finnick!" cried Katniss, but it was too late for Finnick. Katniss and I both let out a scream as we watched Finnick become overwhelmed by the mutts, and I felt my hands jump to my mouth when I witnessed the mutt that killed him completely decapitate him with its teeth. Everything went silent around me and it seemed as if everything moved in slow motion, and beside me, I watched Katniss as she pulled out the Holo. "Nightlock, nightlock, nightlock," she mouthed, and she must have said the words but I didn't hear them. I saw her drop the Holo and it exploded, killing off whatever mutts remained that were devouring Finnick's body.
I sat motionless with my hands over my mouth, unable to take my eyes off of the manhole that Katniss now dragged over the hole, locking away the horrors that lay beneath it. I've seen people die before, even killed people. I'd lost men before under my command. But never like this. Never like what happened to Finnick. I will never be able to forget the fear in his eyes as the mutt ripped his head off, nor will I ever forget the river of deep red blood that came rushing out of the wound. Suddenly, I realised exactly why Annie Cresta had gone insane upon seeing her district partner being decapitated - it was one of the most gruesome deaths to witness. Annie... How could I tell Annie? As Finnick's Commander, it was my duty to inform her, but how could I? How could I face her after promising her that I would keep him safe and bring him back to her? Instead, all I had was the piece of folded paper that Finnick had given me what feels like decades ago but had only been a few hours.
As the moment passed, I could hear the sounds returning again. "Calum... Calum, stay with me. Calum!" I heard a voice say in a distinct Hebridean accent.
" Fuirichidh tu còmhla rium, " I heard a male voice say. " Chan eil thu a' dol a bhàsachadh orm. A Chaluim, tha thu a' dol a dh' fhuireach. " I couldn't understand a word of it.
"Oh, Calum," I heard a third voice say through tears, and I brought my head to look up at the mournful scene before me. Calum has been attacked on his neck and he was bleeding out, and there was nothing that we could do to save him. I raised myself from my shock and crawled over to him, and his one blue eye and his one brown eye looked at me not with fear, but with acceptance.
"Take care of her," he told me. "Of them..." I knew what he meant. Katniss's brothers could read her like a book. They probably knew she was expecting. I gave him a gentle nod, not wanting to watch my brother-in-law's final moments but refusing to rip myself away. He looked to Carolina. "I love you... C-Carolina..."
"Calum, stop, you're going to live," she begged him, but he gave a bemused smile.
"I know when I'm beat," he said. Calum always looked at the bright side of things no matter what. He then looked at his twin brother, the mirror image of himself. "Take care of yourself... and each other..." I could see a tear escape his eye as his brother gripped his shirt with desperation. " Fada beò Hebridia, ey?" I saw Cailean give a forced smile. Calum then looked at Katniss, who was trying so desperately to stop the bleeding in her little brother's neck. "Be strong," he whispered to her weakly. He was pale and getting weaker by the second, but Calum was surrounded by those who loved him most, and by those he loved most.
"Have a look at what makes you happy... the beauty of life and the love you hold..." I said to him in an effort to comfort him in his last moments, the same way that I had for the female morphling from Six when she had been attacked by the monkey mutts. He gazed up into the brilliant grey eyes of Carolina and he smiled, and she smiled back. Carolina bent down, pressing her lips to his one final time as the light left his eyes, and his hand went limp. Carolina wept as she draped herself over Calum's lifeless form as Cailean sat up, refusing to cry, and wearing a firm and angry expression on his face. First, the girl he'd been in love with since he was a child, and now his lifelong best friend and brother, gone in under twenty-four hours.
"We can't stay," I heard Gale mutter sadly and with force. I could tell he didn't want to break up the moment, but he was right, we couldn't stay. I glanced around at the group and noticed that someone else was missing - Castor. Cressida was comforting Pollux as he silently sobbed for the loss of his brother.
"No! I won't leave him!" Carolina shouted, her hands gripping Calum's shirt firmly, and Cailean put his hand over hers.
"We have to go," he muttered quietly. "For him. He wouldn't want you to say." We weren't out of the clear yet. As we ran from the manhole, we were faced with more terrifying traps meant to kill us. Snow knew we were alive, and Snow knew we were coming for him. The floor beneath us erupted into angry metal teeth intended to tear us to shreds and fireballs rained from some place we just couldn't find, but we ran and we ran. A fireball grazed my leg, the same that had been attacked by the mutt, and I collapsed on the ground. Katniss stopped and ran back to me.
"Peeta!" she cried, trying to pull me up, but it hurt too much to stand.
"Katniss, no! Go! Leave me!" I shouted at her.
"I'm not leaving you! Peeta!" she cried back. She tried to lift me, but I knew she couldn't carry me.
"Katniss, please go! I love you!" I shouted, unsure if these were my last moments, but I felt myself being picked up and thrown over someone's shoulder.
"We're not losing anyone else today!" I heard Gale say. He must have been the one to pick me up and carry me. I definitely wasn't very light, so either he was really strong on his own or from the adrenaline of escaping death. We got out of the underground travel system and we ran for cover, no longer having the Holo to protect us from unseen Pods.
"In here!" I heard Donnel exclaim, and he kicked open a door to a shop and we piled inside, Gale setting me down on the ground as Katniss fumbled with her medic pack to tend to my leg. I looked around, noticing that we were in some kind of clothing store, and in the corner was a very strange figure with a big bushy wig and very cat-like features. Everyone in the shop froze as we watched the figure approach us, and Katniss stood.
"Tigris," said Donnel. "You remember Plutarch, surely... We're with the rebellion." She nodded.
"We're going to kill Snow," said Katniss suddenly. She looked calm, but in her eyes, I could see the fires of anger boiling in her eyes. This was my girl on fire, the angry woman who was tired of the death and destruction that Snow has brought on Panem and its people for so long. This was the woman who had had enough. The woman called Tigris smiled.
"Right this way," the cat lady purred, and she led us to a dressing room with a rug. Underneath the rug was a door that led to a staircase down into a storage area, and we knew that Tigris was going to hide us from Snow. I was assisted down, and for just a little while, we were safe.
But Finnick wasn't, and neither was Calum. Nor were Hadley, Zeodary, Castor and Graham, or all of the men and women who gave their lives for the freedom of Panem, the freedom that we demanded and would take. We were beaten down, demoralised, hunted, wounded, hungry, cold and hot, dirty from the sewage and tired from the lack of rest. But we were alive, and the deaths of those who gave their lives to save ours, and to save Panem, will not have been in vain.