It's late Tuesday afternoon nearly a week later when Katniss walks in on Prim screaming.
"What's wrong?" She asks, throwing her bag to the side and rushing to Prim's side.
"It's just the two of them left!" She nearly shrieks, throwing her hands out towards the television. Katniss turns to see what she's talking about, heart rate through the roof.
"Oh my God, oh my God!" Her little sister is yelling, and she's still so freaked out from coming home to what sounded like somebody being murdered that it takes her a second to realize that somebody is about to be murdered.
Because it's the Hunger Games Prim is screaming at, and the only tributes left are Peeta and some boy from Two that she doesn't even care enough about to try and remember his name.
Prim shrieks again, jumping up and down in her anxiety.
"Run!" She's screaming, as if Peeta can hear her through the screen.
"He's already running." Katniss chokes out, a hand hovering in the air as if she wants to cover her eyes, but can't quite. Instead she places it over her mouth and watches on bated breath.
The boy from Two is wielding a giant sword, and Peeta doesn't have anything.
"He's going to die." Katniss mutters, to which Prim cries out in outrage.
"What?! You can't say that!"
"He doesn't even have anything to protect himself with!"
The sisters fall silent as they watch on in horror. Katniss tries to turn away, not wanting to watch this. She wishes she would have stayed longer in the woods. No, she decides, It's good I came home. Prim can't watch this alone.
Peeta manages to escape two more swipes before grasping the boys wrist as it comes arching towards him a third time. Katniss gufaws as she watches him twist the boys arm, causing him to cry out in surprise. He drops the boy in a move she's seen him do in the few wrestling matches she's bothered to attend at school, and wildly reaches for something to his left. While his guard is down the boy drops the sword and quickly picks it back up with his free hand, and thrusts it into Peeta's thigh. An agonized sound crawls up his throat but he manages to keep going.
Katniss gasps as he lifts the brick over his head, and lunges to cover Prim's eyes just before it makes contact with the other boy's skull. She cringes as the speakers clearly record the sound of bone crunching and- oh God, the sound-!
A canon fires and she peels her eyes open to gawk at the televisor. Prim raises her hands and rips Katniss's away from her eyes so she can see too.
Peeta stands alone, holding the brick in his hand that's dripping with a thick, dark substance. Caesar Flickerman can be heard making comments in the background about 'the boy becomming a victor,' as Seneca Crane anounces District Twelve's, Peeta Mellark as the Seventy-Third Hunger Games Victor.
…
The District is in near chaos.
The second Peeta is declared Victor, yelling can be heard from every street, even in the Seam. A Victor means being lavished in food and parties for the next year. It is quickly becoming clear to everyone that celebrations are in order, causing people to spill out of their homes in search of others to rejoice with.
Katniss, however, stands shocked in front of her television.
"He won…" She says to herself, testing out the words.
Prim is jumping again, but in celebration this time.
"Oh, it's wonderful!" She says, throwing her arms around Katniss' neck and nearly shrieking in happiness. Suddenly she pulls away and looks back to the screen as a hovercraft comes and picks him up. "I hope they hurry; he was bleeding pretty bad."
Katniss can feel the small amount of food she had eaten that day start to come up. Even the mere mention of blood made her woozy. The fact that she had seen it happen was just hitting her.
"Is- He'll be fine, though, right?"
Prim bites her lip and thinks about it, getting the look their mother sometimes gets when a worker from the mines is brought in and laid on their table.
"The Capitol has the best doctors. Plenty of other Victors have been on the brink of death the last day in the Arena, but then look completely fine less than a week later."
Katniss nods and tries to take her sister's words as reassurance. He's come this far, he can't die now-!
Reality sets in and she remembers how she told him that she would repay him when he got back, but now he'll be back within the month, and she hadn't thought about it at all because, really, she had thought he was going to die- they all did. And now he's going to expect something in return, no matter what he tried to say in the Justice Building before. He was just being kind, and only trying to make sure she didn't feel guilty for the rest of her life if he did die. What can she possibly do to repay that kind of debt?
"Katniss?" Prim asks, breaking into her inner thoughts. "Aren't you happy?"
"What- Yes! Of course! I'm… I'm really happy." In fact, when she pushes away the anxiety at needing to find a way to thank him, she's surprised at how happy she feels that he has actually won.
Maybe she'll finally get some sleep tonight.
…
The next week she spends almost entirely in the woods. Even with the extra food they'll have this year, it likely won't be enough. Not with how cold she's expecting it to get. And if Katniss is being honest with herself, she's hiding from everyone. And her own confusing feelings.
She can't tell if she's dreading Peeta's return, or counting down every second. And she still hasn't found a single thing that could possibly make up for the debt she owes. But maybe he had been telling the truth when he said he didn't want anything in return.
Katniss shakes her head. The forest is supposed to be the place where she doesn't have to worry about all the problems she's left behind at home with Prim and her mother. Her debt is a problem for District controlled Katniss, not the self she finds in the comfort of the dense trees and fresh breeze.
A mockingjay lands on a tree a couple hundred yards away and sings a few notes. She pauses to look at it, whistling back the tune. The bird happily repeats it again before flying off once more.
Katniss finds herself wishing to follow. To take flight and go far, far away from the Districts and the Capitol and it's control.
Instead she hides her bow and arrows in the same hollow trunk as always, and heads back to the fence.
