Chapter 72: Yohan Fairbain

Belle Everdeen giggled as Beetee Latier chased her down the hallway of the Primrose Hospital, set in the Victors' Village on Victors' Island off the coast of Odair, the former District 4. Cornering the mother of the Mockingjay in a deserted storage closet, the Victor of the 35th Hunger Games caught his girlfriend by the waist, spun her about in his arms, and kissed her deeply.

"Hmmmm…." Purring, Belle reached up to drape her arms sensuously about her lover's neck, kissing him back. When Beetee's hands – so talented with wires – dipped lower to feel up her bum through her skirts, she swatted him playfully.

"Behave," she murmured into his soft and pliant lips. Beetee simply squeezed the toned flesh of her rear insistently, and with a sigh, Belle hitched her leg up about his waist, spreading her thighs and pulling her lover tight against her. She could feel his erection as he rubbed it insistently along her damp underwear, now in view from where her skirts were bunching up around her hips.

"Mmmm….. Beetee…" Belle tried to twist her face away, Beetee chasing her as he dove back into for another peck. "No…. Hmm…. This isn't right…" She gasped, tilting her neck to grant him better access as Beetee rained his lips down along her creamy face. "We… we… oooh, yes, right there…. We have work to do, and your legs… they only last for short amounts of time…"

"They'll last," Beetee hissed into the soft curve of her neck.

Drawing back, Belle's flushed, rouge and very-kissed lips curved into a smirk, saucy. "Will you?"

The challenge thrown down, Beetee hoisted Belle up the wall of the storage closet. She climbed him like a tree, folding her limbs about him. She barely had time to ready herself before she was crying out into his shoulder as he entered her swiftly.

"Huhhhh….. Uhhhh…. Ugggh…. Errrmmm…."

Belle groaned as she and Beetee rocked against each other frantically, matching each other thrust for rabid thrust. Beetee beat her to completion first, grunting and staggering as he ejaculated into his paramour's wet folds. Squirming against him, Belle finally let out a happy wail as she followed him seconds later.

Beetee's legs were weakening, she could tell, so Belle daintily disentangled herself from their embrace and slinging an arm over his shoulder, helped him out of the storage closest and down the hall two doors into his office, where his wheelchair was waiting for him. Beetee more or less fell into it, his cybernetic legs with time and power to spare, though not much, as he switched them off to recharge. Glancing up, the brilliant doctor watched as his pretty little girlfriend smoothed down the creases in her dress, under her white hospital jacket.

"Well…" Belle gasped, sounding breathless with exertion. "I still say we have to be careful about where we shag, love. And how loud we are! Remember when Katniss caught us, making love on the beach?"

Rolling up to her, Beetee pulled Belle down into his lap and kissed her deeply. His lips caught hers by surprise, but she relented, holding it for a moment before they broke apart.

"It worked out OK, didn't it? Though I suppose we should have told her we've been seeing each other before she walked in on us doing the dirty deed."

"Indeed," Belle chirped, cheeks pink as she rose off his lap and once again collected herself. "I suppose we should have."

"Dr. Latier! Dr. Everdeen!" Annie Cresta-Odair (soon to be Henson, once she and Pollux stood under the golden fishing net and wed) suddenly burst into Beetee's office, panting and looking truly frightened. "Emergency admittance! They just brought him in from the mainland!"

Beetee adjusted his lab coat. "How bad?"

Annie's face was as white as a barnacle. "Bad. Beetee…. You're going to want to see this. They said they found him half-dead on the border of us and Mason!"

Belle and Beetee followed Annie at a rush into the triage ward. The nurses and surgeons on hand were all shouting at once.

"Vitals are crashing! We need him stable!"

"I need an IV rigged up to the patient STAT! Like, five minutes ago STAT!"

"We're losing him!"

Beetee had to admire his girlfriend as she drove everyone back with a commanding wave of her hand. "Give us the room! Let us through!" She approached the operating table, Beetee wheeling to her side. Turning to Annie, she nodded. "Winch the table down so Dr. Latier can examine the patient."

Annie moved eagerly to obey. When the table was winched down, Beetee peered over the rim. When he locked eyes with the poor youth on there, he seemed to freeze. He felt but ignored Belle gently rubbing his arm.

"Dr.? Beetee, love, what is it?"

The youth could only stare back at the brilliant scholar with wide, terrified eyes. Eyes which were now filling with tears. "Beetee? Is that you…?"

"Yohan…." Beetee breathed, pushing the lad's sweaty bangs back from his forehead. Glancing about at his colleagues who had briefly frozen to take in the bizarre sight, Beetee bellowed at them: "HOOK HIM UP TO FLUIDS NOW! WE'RE WORKING ON A VICTOR HERE!"

The staff scrambled to obey. The IV stand was hooked up, and fluids began pouring into Yohan's little body. Beetee couldn't believe that the kid wasting away was the same kid he had met on the train before the 72nd Hunger Games. He would be 27 years old now, but due to a short stature, he could easily be mistaken for half that age.

He, Belle, Annie and the others worked as hard as they could to save poor Yohan, but it was only a small amount of time before nothing more could be done. Beetee held Yohan's clammy hand as he languished, amazed that the boy had gotten as far as he did.

"Mr. Latier…. Please…. I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die…"

"Ssssh…." Beetee crooned, trying to mask his own tears. "Just try and go to sleep, Yohan. Go to sleep…"

Yohan closed his eyes and sagged limply. It was another minute or two before Beetee felt the life leave him as the kid took his last breath.

Annie dutifully glanced at her watch. "Time of death: 11:11 AM,"

Beetee hung his head dejectedly. He decided to leave it up to Annie and the others about how to dress the body for burial. He sadly wheeled himself back into his office, trying to refocus himself on other documents and papers, to little avail.

It wasn't even five minutes before he heard the door to his office open and close.

"Beetee?" He didn't answer Belle's soft, sweet, giving voice, laced with concern. He heard the hem of her dress swishing at her ankles as she rounded the desk. Her silky hands cradling his face, she lifted his head to make him look at her. Ghosted her lips across his nose, once, then his mouth. Caressed him. "Darling, talk to me."

Beetee sighed, scooting back a bit so Belle could straddle him in his lap. She hugged him close to her chest and he held her, resting his head on her shoulder. A companionable silence reigned for several minutes, tinged with the intimacy of lovers. At last, the Victor spoke:

"Do you remember watching the 72nd Games?"

He could feel Belle biting her lip. "Vaguely. Bits and pieces. I was still ill…. at that time. After… After Glen… Katniss had to take Prim down to the Sqaure every day for Mandatory Viewing." A shuddering breath as she seemed to recall something. "That was the first year we had that old, beat-up TV set in the kitchen. Katty bought it for a steal in the Hob because Cray was getting tired of signing off on an exemption waiver so I could miss mandatory programming. I watched almost all of that year from home while the girls were down at the Justice Building."

Beetee nodded heavily. "Yohan was my boy that year. He was only 15 at the time, and…. he reminded me much of myself, at that age. I turned 15 when I was still fighting in my arena." He let himself sink into Belle's touch, rubbing lightly up and down his arms as she sat back patiently and listened, steadfast and supportive. He continued.

"Yohan and the others were thrown onto a snowy mountain peak. He managed a 5 in training, but there was nothing but spiked maces for weapons in the Cornucopia. Yohan managed to grab one and ran. 12 died in the Bloodbath. A Gamemaker polar bear mutt took out all but one of the Career pack just under a week in. The Final Eight was set by that point. That's when Titus, the huge boy, from Six, started going cannibal. He had plowed and eaten through five before the Gamemakers finally set an avalanche upon him to take him out. Had they not done that, I'm pretty sure the monster would have won the whole damn thing. On the tenth day, it was just down to Yohan and the boy from 2, but the last Career was weak and had lost a lot of blood after the polar beat mutt attack. Yohan was half-frozen when he came across the guy and drove a mace spike clean through his temple as a mercy killing. When he got out… they had to amputate two of Yohan's toes for frostbite in Victors' Mercy."

By now, Belle's eyes were swimming with tears. Leaning in, she kissed Beetee gently, her tears falling on his face like sweet rain.

"Oh, my love… I am so sorry…."

Beetee sighed. "Yeah, well….. Yohan… he can rest now…" Turning back to gaze into Belle's pale blue eyes, he smiled tenderly. "I love you," he murmured. She smiled at him wetly.

Then, before he could stop himself, overcome by her beauty as he was, he blurted it out:

"Will you marry me?"

Belle's mouth dropped open prettily and she leaned back a little, speechless. "What?!" she breathed through a gasp. A slight pause, and she stammered through what didn't even begin to cover as a response to a proposal of marriage. "Be-Beetee… sweetheart…. you're tired, and you're grieving and…"

"Bellley…." Beetee took her face in his hands and kissed her deeply to shut her up. "Marry me…"

"I…." Tears were back to streaming down Belle's face.

"Please."

"I…." Belle stared down into her lap before finally lifting her eyes to meet her lover's and give him an answer. "Yes," she nodded solemnly. Then, quite suddenly, she broke out into a beaming, tentative but hopeful smile. "Of – of course, yes."

Beetee grinned, and pulling her close, the couple embraced and kissed.