I do not own 'The Hunger Games' or anything related.


I couldn't help but stare at Katniss's unconscious form.

"You should probably go and get some rest now," Effie told me.

I couldn't believe Effie's timing.

"Are you kidding me?" I snapped, "You expect me to go off for a nap while Katniss is bleeding to death-"

"HAYMITCH, YOU CAN'T HELP THEM RIGHT NOW! And you'll be no good to them tired!"

I knew she was right.

I hated it when she was right.

"Fine. Fine, I'll go."

"I'll wake you up if there's an emergency."

"No!" I quickly said, "No."

I didn't want to risk hurting her as before.

"Just - knock on my door. And if I don't wake up – just throw a jug of water on me."

"Glady," Effie smiled, "Although I think you'd be less dangerous if you don't sleep with a knife."

"Ok," I agreed, although I wasn't happy about it.

I couldn't sleep without a knife, as pathetic as it sounds. Maybe it really was my equivalent of a stuffed animal a capitol child sleeps with.


Peeta stirred. Waking up, he found himself in a pool of blood.

"Katniss?"

Looking up, he saw the source of the blood, coming from Katniss.

"KATNISS!"

Running to her he held her in his arms.

"Katniss! No!"

The blood continued to pour, filling the cavern floor. There was so much blood that it started to spill from the monitors and into the control room. Pretty soon, the entire room was filled with blood. I held my breath, turning to Effie, wondering if she could swim. Deer fell into the river, and when they died they dissolved into dead tributes, tributes that I knew from my games. And the countless tributes that were under my care. And not just them. The other dead in my life were also here. My old man. Ma. Larie. Rachelle. Mel.

"MEL!" I shouted, sitting up.

I fell back on the bed. I felt wet. I wondered if Effie went ahead with it and threw a jar of water at me, but there was no sign of her or a jar. I realised that it was my own sweat. Unable to get to sleep now, I hurried back to the control room and re-entered my booth.

"Katniss," I panted, "Katniss, is she…?"

I did not like the pause Effie had to make.

"She's alive, Haymitch."

Alive. Alive was good, but I wanted to know if she was ok, as ok as can be.

"You should still get some rest."

"No. I'm here anyway."

"But Haymitch-"

"I said no!" I snapped.

Effie realised that it was no good arguing with me.

"Fine."

Well, Katniss's blood hadn't filled the cavern floor, but there was a pool of blood. It was by evening time that Peeta finally awoke. I could tell once he sat up that he was feeling better. The blood poisoning had disappeared. At first he looked disoriented.

"Katniss?" He instinctively asked.

He turned around, and saw her unconscious in a pool of her own blood.

"KATNISS!" The boy cried, about to move her.

Don't pick her up! I wanted to cry out. But the boy, knowing better, did not do so, and instead, looked around and, seeing the first aid kit, opened it, found the bandages, and wrapped it around her head and wrapped her in several blankets.

I had another bad night that night. Not that I usually have good nights. I dreamt of Peeta, holding Katniss' lifeless body, crying, before turning his attention towards the cameras. And I realised he was looking straight at me.

"You. You did this! YOU!"

He ran towards me to attack me, causing me to wake up. I laid back down, unable to sleep. All I could think about was that even though the boy was doing his best, Katniss could still die. I questioned my decision in helping her to save Peeta, how I fooled myself into thinking that I needed both of them to live. Katniss could die, and even though Peeta was on the mend, he was still weakened, which meant his chances to survive have lessened.


It was tomorrow afternoon when she finally awoke. The boy stroked her cheek before asking if she could hear him. Waking up, she looked alarmed, as if she didn't realise where she was, but after the initial jolt she smiled.

"Peeta."

Giving her something to drink, the boy didn't seem mad over the girl tricking him, drugging him, and going to the feast after promising not to. Probably was going to save that when she was feeling better. He also apologised for eating three helpings of groosling before saying he was back on a strict diet, but I was glad that he was eating again. It was a sign of his recovery, and I agreed with the girl when she said he needed to continue to build his strength, and that she would just go out and hunt, but the boy said she needed to get better first. Feeding her, giving her water to drink, getting warmth back into her body. There was a storm going on, and some of the rain was getting in through some holes in the roof of the cave, but the boy had made a self made canopy above the girl's head and upper body by wedging the sheet of plastic into some rocks. He wondered who the target was, and the girl realised that Thresh and the remaining 2 were the targets. Then it was as if the memory of the feast came crashing back to her, as she told the boy that Thresh had saved her and killed the female 2. The boy thought it was lucky that he didn't kill her too, but the girl told him everything about Rue, about how they destroyed the careers' food supply, how Rue was killed by Marvel, how she avenged her, how she sang her to sleep and decorated her with flowers, how District 11 gave her bread out of gratitude, how Thresh understood the debt that had to be paid.

"He let you go because he didn't want to owe you anything?" The boy asked in disbelief.

The girl said he wouldn't understand given that he was townfolk. I knew from experience it was never a good idea to insult your ally even if he or she came from a more affluent background, and as expected, that did not go down well. The girl went on about how the first gift was always the hardest to pay back.

"It's just like you and me and the bread and how I can feel that I can never stop repaying you."

I thought there was something like that! I thought back to my first official mentoring of them, and how it seemed they knew each other before, or at least knew of each other, and I suspected from what was said and how he reacted that he must have given her bread sometime after her old man had died.

"What? The bread? You mean when we were kids? Well I think you can let it go now, I mean you did just bring me back from the dead."

"It's just that I wouldn't be here if you hadn't given it to me, and you didn't even know me! Why did you?"

"Why? Katniss you know why!"

The girl shook her head. I shook mine as I smiled. Oh Katniss. Still the skeptic.

"Haymitch said you would take some convincing."

"What does Haymitch have to do with anything?"

"Nothing."

The boy hoped that the 2 and Thresh would kill each other, whereas the girl wondered if Thresh would have been their friend back at home, and I thought the same thing. But the boy hoped that he would die before they would find out. The girl started crying.

"What's wrong? Are you in a lot of pain?"

The girl shook her head.

"I want to go home, Peeta," She said like a small child.

"You will," Peeta assured her.

"I want to go home now."

"Tell you what. You go back to sleep, and dream of home, and you'll be back before you know it. OK?"

"OK," She whispered.

She later woke up that evening. The rain had gotten worse, with the boy repositioning the sheet and placing pots where the rain was coming in. They finished off the food they had. The boy asked if there should ration it, but the girl said that the groosling was getting old and that they shouldn't risk eating spoiled food, saying that tomorrow they'll hunt. The boy admitted that he was no hunter, so the girl said he could cook. He joked that he hoped there was a bread bush somewhere. The girl asked him about the field, and how there must be grain there for Thresh to eat. The boy told her that they didn't dare venture in, not knowing what was in the tall grass. It made me think what people said about the woods back home. Some may venture in closely during fall to gather apples, but that was about it. Only a couple of braves souls regularly ventured in. I only went there once, and it scared me.

"Maybe there is a bread bush there," The girl joked, "And that's why Thresh looks so well fed."

"Or because he has generous sponsors."

He may have a point. I thought back to the first day of the Hunger Games, and how 11 had the fifth most sponsors.

"I wonder what we have to do to get Haymitch to send us some bread."

The girl raised her eyebrow, as if forgetting that the food they would get depended on how well a romance they portrayed, to ensure the continued and increasing support of the sponsors. I had a feeling that she suddenly remembered, and knew that she couldn't say it out loud because if they knew we were playing on their feelings then that would mean no support at all.

Not that the boy's feelings were fake.

The girl? I wasn't so sure. There are some times when I thought she was indifferent to Peeta, other times when it appeared she does care for him. How she cared for him, that was the question. Sometimes the things she does made me even think that she does have feelings for him, the same way he did for her. But I was convinced that she didn't know, and as far as she was doing was just portraying a romantic relationship rather than actually having one. As if remembering that they need to continue to portray a romantic relationship, the girl took his hand.

"He probably used up most of his resources knocking you out."

"Yeah, about that."

And here it came. The reprimanding. I felt somewhat guilty that the girl was taking the blunt of it when I was the one who sent her the syrup, even though she wanted to save him.

"Don't try something like that again," The boy asked.

"Or what?"

"Or…Or…let me think of something!"

"What's the problem?" She asked with a grin.

"The problem is that we're both still alive, which just reinforces the idea that you did the right thing!"

"But I did do the right thing."

"No Katniss, no, don't die for me! You're not doing us any favours!"

Well I hate to disagree with you there, boy! I admit, before I was questioning my decision to help the girl save the boy, but now with both of them alive and on the mend, I was confident that I had made the right choice.

"Maybe I didn't do it for you, Peeta. Maybe I did it for myself, did you ever think of that? Maybe you aren't the only one who worries….what it would be like if…"

She was fumbling. Was it because she wasn't used to saying words like this?

Or was it because it had just dawned on her that she didn't want the boy to die?

"If what?" The boy whispered.

I waited in anticipation of what she was about to say.

"And that is exactly the kind of topic Haymitch told me to avoid."

I screeched at the screen, threatening to pull out my already receding hair, as that is exactly the kind of topic I did NOT tell her to avoid! You had a perfectly, emotionally charged moment and you completely dropped the ball! I know I wasn't exactly keen on displaying my emotions either when I was her age, and certainly not for all of Panem to see, but my situation was different! I didn't count on sponsors to give me support depending on my portrayal!

The boy smiled.

"Well, allow me to fill in the blanks."

And he leaned forward to kiss her. And she kissed him back. It was the kind of kiss people expected to see from a romance! I sighed relief, the boy having caught the ball. Now that was more like it! I opened up the menu again, to find a good meal to send them to reward them for their efforts-

Wait.

A thought occurred to me. The kiss was perfect, yes, but now I needed the relationship to be taken to an emotional level. Not that their interaction has lacked anything but emotion, but I needed pure romantic emotion. But how to send that message? I decided to refrain from sending anything, knowing that the girl would understand that since the kiss was perfect, the reason no food was sent out was because I needed the relationship to be brought to another level.

The boy kissed her on the nose.

"I think I need to check your wound. Come and lie down."

Later, they went to sleep in the sleeping bag, the boy holding the girl. After four hours the girl can't stay awake, and got the boy to stay watch.

The girl promised to find a place high in the trees for them to camp in so that they could both sleep tomorrow, but the next day the storm continued. I could tell that the girl got my message when she asked the boy when did he first fall in love with her. He told her it was when they were five, and it was the first day of school. His father had pointed her out to him and told him that he was engaged to her mother before she ran off with a coal miner. Still feeling sore, I take it? Five year old Peeta asked why she went off to marry a coal miner when his father was the nicest person in the world.

"Because when he sang, the birds stopped to listen."

Yes, they certainly did that.

He went on to explain that for music assembly the teacher asked if anyone knew the valley song. Katniss put her her hand, so the teacher sat her down on the chair in front of everyone and she sang, and Peeta fell for her. It amazed me, how history repeated itself. I wonder if the girl knew that was also how her mother fell for her father too.

Peeta went on to explain how for eleven years he tried to muster the courage to talk to her, but never could.

"You have…a remarkable memory," She said to him.

"I remember everything about you. You were the one who wasn't paying attention."

"I am now."

"Well, I don't have competition here."

For a moment, I was worried that the girl was going to withdraw again from another emotional moment.

"Say it! Say it!" I yelled at the screen.

She swallowed, as I knew it must be hard for her as it was for me to let the mask drop, especially in front of everyone.

"Well, you don't have much competition anywhere," And she leaned in.

I smiled at the two.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I think they deserve a meal."

Going through the menu, I selected a meal of bread rolls, goat's cheese, apples, and a tureen of Katniss's favourite, lamb stew on wild rice, and pressed the selection to send.