Author's Note:

Hi All! I hope you are enjoying the great weather, well hopefully it is wonderful weather where every you are. Me I took some time out of my DYI project this weekend to sneak some chapters in for you all. Come and visit me on tumblr Mega-Lover

I hope you all enjoy this because it explains a lot. Hope you enjoy. Please review I taken always what you have to say and it makes my writing better.

PS...thank you Daisy3D you are awesome and I cannot stop extoling your virtues as a great Beta!

Once more I do not own the Hunger Games!

Katniss watched Haymitch leave. Her fingers drummed on the bed. She was bored. She knew they were not going to let her out of the bed anytime soon. Looking to her side she saw her pearl. It filled her with warmth and happiness at the sight of Peeta's gift to her. She reached out on the small table for her pearl. She gently pressed it against her lips. Her mind was flooded with all of the meaningful kisses she shared with Peeta.

All of the gentle touches and conversations she had with him during that time she was with him made her heart flutter with happiness. She wanted to go back to that Peeta. To the boy who was not tortured and whose mind, was not tampered with by Snow. Yet she could not because Coin would no allow it, she was being sent away to District Two.

The machine that administered her drug kicked in. Katniss knew it would not be long before she was forced to sleep again.

"TAG! You're it I found you."

Startled Katniss eyes flew to land on the familiar face of Rye Mellark. It was like looking at a ghost. "Rye!"

Rye was looking for Katniss. He knew something was up when she disappeared for two days without word. He could see her wide eyed stare fill up with tears. She acted as if she had not seen him in years instead of days. "Hey, hey it's okay."

"You're here" she murmured incoherently over and over again. Katniss was engulfed by Rye's massive hug. They were not as good as Peeta's hugs, but they would do at this moment. Rye was the closest thing to Peeta. He must have survived the bombing somehow. Katniss was glad but she wondered who else made it. Katniss hoped Madge survived the bombing by Snow as well.

"Hey, hey, kiddo it's okay." Rye comforted Katniss. Rye trusted not one official in this hulking colorless District. "What have they been doing to you here?"

Katniss laughed. Seeing Rye here in District Thirteen strengthened her resolve to return. Though this time she needed to understand how to do it, and Katniss wanted a plan. "They have been drugging me."

"Ah I see" Rye did not like the fact that, that was what these doctors did in this underground excuse for a district. They used all sorts of pain killers instead of curing the patient.

"How's Peeta?" Katniss asked. She would get the truth about Peeta from Rye.

"Peeta is still insane though he is getting better." Rye gazed down at Katniss not knowing how she was able to cope with the idea that someone she loved hated her. Peeta loathed Katniss but not because of something she did. Sadly it was because of some maniacal dictator who wanted to hurt her on an emotional and physical level. It was why he was so determined to bring back his brother.

"He is?"

Katniss love for Peeta was a testament to Rye. Despite Peeta chocking her, it did not diminish her love she was still concerned for him. "He has been speaking to me. Delly and I are helping along with the treatment Prim and the rest of the doctors have come up with to bring him back."

"Thank you Rye." Katniss felt better knowing Rye was here. That he managed to survive the bombing. "Does he think I am responsible for the bombing still?"

"No" Rye could feel just how exposed Katniss was. She had the weight of the war on her shoulders. At least before with Peeta they shared everything. Now she had no one and he was sure Katniss blamed herself for what the Capitol did their district and to Peeta.

"But he hates me Rye, Peeta hates me." Katniss whispered brokenly.

"Katniss stop, what happened to my brother to all of us is not your fault." Rye turned his blue eyes on to Katniss. He looked at her straight in the eyes.

"I should have…"

"I saw the Game's Katniss, you wanted to leave, Peeta told you to wait. You listened to him. You did not even know about the plot. I think if hey would have at least told Peeta then he would have never left your side. But none of that matters now."

Katniss was speechless as tears fell down her face. "I miss him."

Rye knew it was important to get them back together. To undo what Snow did. Set backs no matter how little, cost the team a lot. Rye heard about what went down between his brother and Katniss. Like the big brother that he was he gently he patted her hair. "I am sorry about what happened after Finnick's wedding."

"I couldn't tell him that I love him. They watch us like rats in a maze."

Rye had a suspicion what happened between them was the reason Katniss had to be hidden for two days. Sighing he said to her "I told him how it was between you two. I told him how he made you cry once. That day was when I realized how much you loved him. I let him know just how much you love him. I also told him with dramatic detail about the time I caught you guys necking on the sofa." Rye paused and wiggled his eyebrows at Katniss.

Through the tears she laughed. Of course Rye would bring that moment up in the middle of her self pity party.

Rye grinned. "Peeta did not know what to make of it. He has been quietly stewing in his room since."

Katniss knew she had to see Peeta but not just yet. She had to first go see Beetee. "Rye when you see Peeta again tell him…tell him I said, Always."

Rye knew this had to be a code between them. He did not know what it meant but it did mean something to his brother. "Alright kiddo I am going to head back to the kitchens now, but I will deliver the message."

"Thank you, Rye" Katniss nodded contented to see Peeta's beloved brother was safe. She felt the drug pulling her under again.

The next morning when she was released she set out to find Beetee before she left and found him with Gale going over some type of small explosion that fit inside one of the parachutes they used in the Games.

Katniss frowned "What are you doing?"

Beetee looked up to see Katniss standing in front of them. He had forgotten how light her tread was. He did not hear her come into the room. "We are utilizing Gale's Hummingbird theory."

"This is a weapon we are thinking of using in the Capitol, Katniss." Gale said wiping his brow with the back of his sleeve.

"That looks like a trap." Katniss was horrified.

"In essence it is." Beetee said.

"You mean you want to gather as many people and then have that go off. Gale that is…"

Gale stopped working taking off his gloves that prevented him from getting electrostatic charge. "It is going to help us when we get into the Capitol."

"But Gale they are going to think this is aid."

"After what they did to our District to Madge…" Gale heatedly argued. He instantly became upset that Katniss could not understand his reasoning behind the creation of this weapon.

Katniss blanched she would have thought Madge would have made it since she was with Gale. "I am sorry Gale about Madge."

"She was so beautiful." Hearing Katniss apologize redirected his anger. Katniss had been through so much but so had he. Each word he spoke was dripping with emotion. Gale was upset that he could not save his girl. Madge was the one topic they never spoke about since their odyssey began.

Katniss hoped Madge survived.

"When they began bombing, Madge fled to the meadow. She told me you told he to go there if anything were to ever happen." Gale swallowed.

Katniss put her hand on his forearm "I told her that because she knew stuff was not well in the districts."

Gale nodded then smiled briefly. "That night on her way to the meadow she began to help people tell them to follow her. Rye was also leading a group. When we met up she told me she was going to go back for more. I told her no, but she was set in her ways. She went back. Some of them made it but she did not. I should have stopped her…" Gale punched the wall, recalling watching a bomb drop by her. She was killed in the blast.

"No Gale, don't get angry at yourself." Katniss thought of the way Madge originally died. This time Madge died heroically on her own terms. "She would not want you too. She, better than anyone, understood who the real enemy was and it is not the citizens of the Capitol who do not know any other way of life. The real enemy is Snow. He is the one we have to stop." Katniss whispered.

Gale looked at Katniss letting her words filter through his fuming brain.

Beetee wheeled over to them speaking, "Katniss is correct Gale. The average Capitol citizen is as functional as a lamp shade. Snow cares as little for them as for anyone else in the other districts. For years he has used redirection tactics. He pitched us against them because it detracts us from his evilness."

Gale understood. His communicator cuff link went off. "I have to go to a brief meeting before we take off for District Two."

Katniss watched Gale leave. He was still angry, but it was more at himself now and not at the Capitol. This was an improvement, though she wished his idol worship over Coin would cease altogether. Katniss thought if perhaps Madge had lived she would have been able to steer Gale away from that woman.

"I assume the real reason for coming here was to speak to me about the transportation device."

Hearing Beetee speak caused Katniss to break out of her thoughtful pose. "Beetee I want to go back." Katniss blurted out.

Beetee was about to pick up a small soldering device used to help construct a micro processor on a table close to where Katniss stood. "Your experience in the transporter must have been extraordinary."

Beetee moved away from Katniss. She walked to the table where he and Gale were working.

"It was…" Katniss did not finish speaking as Beetee interrupted her. She did not mind because she was not sure if she should tell Beetee about how she went back in time. Katniss simply did not want Alma Coin to catch wind of the machine's ability to travel back in time. That would be disastrous.

"The data indicates a successful transmission of your cells. However that is where the singularity began. Katniss my colleagues and I were not able to determine where you were transmitted to." Beetee uttered as he took off his glasses and cleaned it with the standard issued gray handkerchief. "I was hoping you would shed some light on this."

Beetee was plainly staring at her. Katniss sighed as she tried to conjure up brainy words. In the end her words were plain. "Beetee the transporter worked, I need to go, to go back."

He frowned at her insistent words. It was as if there was a hidden meaning. It struck him she was employing the same use of the language encryption as Wiress did in the Quarter Quell. He looked to Katniss momentarily and decided to try out his theory. "I know you were transported."

"I want to go back" Katniss put the emphasis on the word back.

Haymitch was correct the girl was clever. Beetee raised an eyebrow using the same emphasis on the words that were pertinent. "When do you do want to go back?"

Katniss was relieved Beetee understood "Not sure yet, but if I could, how soon?"

Beetee nodded she was working on the particulars of the plan she needed a time frame in which to do it. "I would have to recalibrate the equipment. Some of it was damaged during the last attempt to bring you home. I suppose though the instrumentation would be useless after we transport you."

Katniss questioned "How?"

Beetee furrowed his brows. "Everything as we know it would stop existing like the cat."

Katniss was confused "The cat?"

"Say we put a cat in a box. Then we put box with the cat through the transporter. There would be two cats one exists but other does not. The cat only exists in the time when it is removed from the box."

"I am the cat." Katniss murmured.

"Correct."

"What happens if the cat gets out of the box and alters where it was transported too?" Katniss asked curiously.

"If the cat were to get out of the box before it was transported back, and makes a radical change, everything around the cat would morph to suit its new time frame. Its former reality would come to an end."

Katniss looked to him understanding everything in this world would cease to exist. The possibilities were endless. Peeta would not be taken by Snow. District Twelve would not be bombed. Neither Madge nor Peeta's family would have died. Gale would be a different person. "You'd be standing in free Panem Beetee."

Beetee looked down at the confines of his wheelchair "Yes I would."

"Can I count on you?"

"Yes though you are going to have to tell Haymitch, he is the only one I would trust to help you with the transportation. No doubt it would be your last one, as Coin would be very anxious to see Snow die."

Katniss understood.

Haymitch was the only one she could count on. He was the only one who understood not to trust Coin. She could not risk telling anyone else. Coin was astute and just as venomous as Snow. However if everything could planed out right she could change everything. "Thank you Beetee."

"You are quite welcome."

Katniss left her mind kept on going over what Beetee said as she was prepared for going out into the field. The possibilities were endless. She wished she could speak to someone about what happened to her. But she could not. She did not have the time the mission crept on her. Katniss did not even have time to let her mom and sister know she was being shipped out to Two.

It was as she was headed to the cargo bay to take the hovercraft that she met up with Haymitch. He was waiting for her at the elevator. Katniss smiled at him "Hey."

"What drug did they give you that plastered that thing on your face Sweetheart?" Haymitch complained more than asking. He was not surprised to find she was not in her hospital room when he went by to check up on her earlier. At one point or another Haymitch guessed she had to come by this way. He knew something was up. The girl hardly ever smiled.

They climbed aboard the elevator and since they were not alone there were a few people riding in the elevator with them. Katniss and Haymitch congregated in the back.

"When I get back we'll talk Haymitch about Peeta." Katniss jerkily said as the elevator pitched forward.

Haymitch took out his gray handkerchief sneezing an okay into it. He blew his nose. Something was definitely going on with the Girl if she was speaking about Peeta. "You want to be part of his recovery."

"I think I should." Katniss nodded.

As they arrived at the bay Haymitch looked at her, a chilly uncertainty fell in the pit of his stomach. "Sweetheart, do not do anything foolish out there."

"Okay" Katniss shook her head. This was part of her job as the Mockingjay. Part of her wanted to return to that simpler time. Another part of her knew she could not the let Snow or any other dictator for that manner oppress the people.

Haymitch gritted his teeth "Listen to me you go out there and be safe all right."

Katniss did not say anything.

Haymitch watched her get aboard the hovercraft as Cressida and her team captured Katniss' every movement. He stood there until he watched the hovercraft take off.

It was days or was it weeks, time seemed all the same to Haymitch in this dilapidated district, when the world seemed to go haywire again. The normally calm citizens were acting like ants whose Queen was killed. Everyone was in a panic around him.

He was rushing toward the hospital. The trauma room was being prepped and the words that Haymitch's spoke to her before she left came back to haunt him. Sweetheart did not listen to his advice.

In front of the entire nation Katniss Everdeen was shot in cold blood by a man. The rebellion was flying her in since no one trusted the medics in District Two. He spotted Primrose standing by a group of doctors outside of the boy's door. "Do you know anything?"

"They are having a hard time keeping her stable. Thank goodness the bullet did not go through Cinna's suit of armor. But I think it caused sufficient damage to merit them bring her here."

"What does that mean kid?" Haymitch questioned.

"Katniss might have internal bleeding if they do not get her here soon she will bleed out from the inside. I am on my way to donate blood our blood type matches and they know we are going to need it." Prim was scared for her sister but she had all confidence the doctors were going to be able to help her.

"What about me?" Haymitch was out of breath. "What can I do?"

Primrose was about to say something sarcastic but seeing how worried he was she instead placed her hand on his forearm. "We can check your blood. She will be here in less than fifteen minutes plenty of time for them to check and draw blood if necessary."

Haymitch was a match as well and he sat next to Primrose waiting for the transport with Katniss to come in. He was worried and he hoped for Katniss injuries to be non-existent. "Where is your mom?"

"She is out collecting herbs from the woods. She is helping the doctors make medicines from the locally grown plants."

Haymitch nodded as Primrose stood up from her chair where they were told to sit after donating blood. The nurse gave Prim a friendly smile as hey made their way out.

It was as they were leaving the room that all hell broke loose.

A surge of doctors came in through the door and into one of the trauma rooms. They were shouting medical jargon and Haymitch was not sure what was going on. He watched the youngest Everdeen immediately begin to pitch in. She was a lot like Katniss completely in control at this moment. Haymitch was glad there was at least one person who was going to make sure Katniss was well taken care off.

"We need to stabilize her." One of the doctors roared.

"WE ARE LOSING HER!" Another shouted.

It was then everything became quiet as the eerie presence of Peeta Mellark was felt.

The boy somehow made his way by Katniss side.

In the melee he walked out of his guarded hospital room. He stood over her, his breathing harsh. His bandaged wrists had red stains on them. The manacles hung lifelessly in his hands. It was clear he broke the restraints that held him back.

The feint beat of her failing heart was the only thing that could be heard in the room.

Peeta Mellark then slid his arm under her head as he grasped her arm. Then with a broken battered voice that was loud enough for the entire unit to hear uttered into her ear "Always."

No one understood what happened. But her vitals picked up. Her heart beat grew stronger her mouth softened and her face grew peaceful.

Peeta once more uttered "Always Katniss, Always."

No one questioned what they just saw. But the doctors immediately began to work on her. Primrose walked up to Peeta and gently laid her hand on his shoulders.

"Come Peeta."

Peeta silently followed Primrose out of the room.

Haymitch followed behind. When they returned him to the room, he looked at the boy and simply marveled at this break through.

With a soft voice, Primrose promised she would take care of Katniss as she helped Peeta sit down on the bed. She checked where he had been bound making sure he had not done any damage to his wrists or to his ankles. Carefully as if she was dealing with a wild creature she cleaned his wounds and re-bandaged his wrists and ankles. "I will be back, Peeta I am going to check on Katniss."

Peeta nodded it was painfully obvious his fragile sanity was breaking.

Haymitch uttered. "Thank you."

"You kept us alive" Peeta uttered holding his hands to his ears. "You kept us alive."

"I did."

"She loves me, she is not a mutt."

"She is not a mutt." Haymitch agreed.

"She killed my family."

"Snow killed your family. Boy you know she would never harm your family not even your mother the witch."

Peeta nodded he began to rock where he sat "She's sick, she blacks out."

Haymitch frowned "Since when?"

"Haymitch times three, three times before the games."

Haymitch was not sure if what he was listing to was real.

Peeta repeated again "She's sick, she blacks out."

Haymitch was not sure what Peeta was speaking about but he said "Boy I will tell her doctors there is nothing to worry about."

"She's sick, sick, she's sick…" Peeta urged

But Peeta was so insistent he repeated it several times over. Making Haymitch believe what the Boy was telling him was a real memory and not some made up fallacy by Snow and his goons. "Okay, okay just calm down. I will make sure she is fine"

Peeta shook his head once more then turned around and lay on his bed. He began to rock himself and whisper furiously "She kissed me before the games. She loves me. Ask Rye, he will tell you. Katniss loves me. She is not a mutt. She is not a mutt. Always. Rye met her. He will tell you. Always. Katniss Always. She is sick you got to help her, she blacks out."

"Okay boy." Haymitch gave Peeta a look to let him know nothing bad was going to happen to Katniss. "I promise you, I will make sure Katniss is taken care off, alright."

This pacified Peeta.

Haymitch left him but his words caused his brain to go into overdrive. Neither one ever mentioned knowing each other before the Games however they did know things about the other that were not common knowledge. He was also not aware that Katniss met Rye, Peeta's brother. Haymitch wondered silently when this took place. The girl always held Peeta at arms length.

Haymitch wondered where the hell he was that he did not know this. He wanted to find out and do a little digging. Something in his gut did not feel right.