I'm awoken the next morning by the sound of an IV machine beeping. I blink my eyes open and see early morning light streaming through the windows. It seems early, I would guess around six, and given the time we got to bed last night I was only asleep for a couple hours. My body is tired, but I force myself into alertness, wanting to know what's happening.
"Is he ok?" I ask groggily, sitting up slightly and looking at the doctor, who is currently pressing some buttons on the offending machine.
"Oh yes, he's fine," says the doctor, which eases my anxiety a little bit. "The beeping just means that it's time to hang a new bag for infusion. It's perfectly normal."
I really don't know what that means, but the doctor seems to be going about his business as if everything is normal, so I let myself relax. I lean my back against the wall behind Peeta's headboard and take his hand in my own. He's still sleeping, they haven't eased him off the sedation drugs yet. I take two fingers and press them to his wrist. His heartbeat is steady and solid, entirely different from the last time I felt it. This is the heartbeat that lulls me to sleep even on the worst nights. This is Peeta.
I hear snoring and look over to the corner to see Haymitch asleep in the little chair. He's contorted at an odd angel, and I already know he's going to be complaining about his back when he wakes up. The doctor finishes tending to whatever issue there was with the IV, and it stops making noise soon after. He checks some papers and adjusts a few dials, and then leaves the room.
I just sit here for an hour, maybe two, watching Peeta sleep. Watching the rise and fall of his chest at a steady rate that shows me he is alive. Feeling the texture of his curls between my fingers, and the warmth of his body against mine that radiates from him and seems to comfort me even in our darkest moments. Appreciating him.
At around eight in the morning, a different doctor comes in, a woman this time, to check his vitals. She takes his pulse and seems satisfied, as well as checking his temperature and his blood pressure. She tells me everything is normal and assures me that this is a good sign. I nod and thank her, and she leaves.
The moment of quiet that came after her departure is short lived, however, as the door is flung open and Delly Cartwright comes bustling into the room, looking extremely distraught.
"Is he ok? What happened?" she asks, hurrying over to the side of Peeta's bed so she can get a better look at him. Haymitch wakes with a start at the commotion. "Thom came by my house this morning and told me he was here. He didn't really explain why, he just said he thought I should know so I could help you all. I'm so glad he told me, I wish I could have been here sooner. Is Peeta going to be alright?"
She keeps on rambling like this, asking questions that beg for answers yet not leaving enough time between her words for Haymitch of I to offer any. I make eye contact with Haymitch, whose face shows an expression of disbelief that is almost comical. She's way over the top, but I know every last ridiculous word out of Delly's mouth comes from a place of deep care for Peeta, and I do appreciate that.
"They say he's going to be fine, Delly," I say, cutting her off mid-sentence. She gives an audible sigh of relief, and I continue. "I spoke to the doctors not too long ago. They were telling me that his vital signs are all normal while he's under sedation, and that they're trying to tinker with different drug ratios in order to get him to a place where he will be stable even when he's awake. They want to try to minimize any of the effects the venom could have on his heart or any other organs." Delly nods and then looks down at Peeta.
"He's been doing so well," she mutters. "I...I sort of thought this sort of thing wasn't going to happen again."
"I know," I say quietly. She takes my hand in hers and squeezes it, and much to my surprise I don't recoil.
"Well, I know you two must be exhausted," Delly says, seemingly back to her peppy self and addressing me and Haymitch. "I want to help. How about I go find the cafeteria and get some coffee and whatever snacks I can find?"
"Delly, you don't have to -" I start, but she cuts me off.
"Nope! I'm gonna go do it," she says, and in a blur just as fast as the one that brought her into the room she's out the door.
"What the hell just happened?" Haymitch says, and I chuckle a little bit. "I swear, that girl bounces from place to place faster than I can think."
"She's trying to help," I say, laughing. "It's just...a lot." Haymitch makes a noise of agreement. He rubs his hand on his neck and tilts his head to crack his joints.
"God, I'm getting too old to sleep in places like this. My neck and back are killing me," he mutters. I try my best to avoid laughing at the absolute predictability of his comments.
Haymitch, Delly, and I make idle chit chat for a few hours as we wait for updates from one of Peeta's doctors. Delly had returned to the room with cups of coffee, which Haymitch and I both needed and greatly appreciated, as well as all of the packaged snacks her arms could carry. We have them all laid out on the small table beside Haymitch's chair.
The mood in the room is a little bit weird; we're talking lightly and making jokes, and Delly can make even the darkest room sunny, but underneath it all is a deep sense of anxiety that the doctors haven't been able to wake Peeta up yet. They keep insisting that he's fine, and they just want to keep him seated until they figure out the right drug combination so as to keep him stable, but it just feels like something very very bad could happen even though he's resting peacefully next to me.
I sort of feel as if my mind has chosen to fixate on the reassurance or the conversation with Delly because if it tries to focus on the worst case scenario I will fall apart. I think that I should be more panicked, more distraught, but it's as if my mind has gone into a failsafe and that it is just not allowing me to go there. The alternative is just too incomprehensibly horrible.
A little before noon, the two doctors come in. I haven't really registered before what they looked like, as I've been too overwhelmingly stressed to focus. The man is older with greying curly hair and glasses. The woman is pretty young; I don't think she can be more than five or ten years older than me. She has golden colored hair and green eyes, and she looks eager to learn in everything she does. I think Prim would have looked like that if she had gotten the chance.
I see the path I could be going down and snap myself out of it. I can't go there right now. I have to be here for Peeta. I'm about to speak but Haymitch beats me to it.
"What's going on?" he asks.
"Dr. Merson and I have been conferring with Dr. Aurelius over the phone, and we think that we've identified a drug combination that should be effective in keeping Mr. Mellark stable and fully functional while awake." Delly breathes an audible sigh of relief, and the woman I now know as Dr. Merson smiles at her warmly. She returns it.
"Peeta's knew drug combination will include an additional set of mood stabilizers, as well as some heart medication to counteract any arrhythmia that the venom could potentially cause," says Dr. Merson. "It took awhile for Dr. Aurelius, Dr. Juner. and I to identify the right combination of medicines that wouldn't interact in any way that would stress his system, but we think we have found a good solution."
"So what happens now?" I ask.
"We are going to give him his first dose of each new drug intravenously, and then begin weaning him off of the sedating medication," Dr. Juner explains. "We don't want to stop the drug all at once, even though of course the end goal is to wake him up, because it could be a shock to his system. As we slow the rate of infusion and lower the concentration of the drug in his bloodstream, the effects should start to wear off. He should be awake within a couple of hours."
I think I breathe, really breathe, for the first time since this all started. We aren't done yet, we aren't out of the woods, but we have a plan. We're waking him up.
As Dr. Juner continues to explain various details of the chemical makeup of Peeta's medications, I feel a slight pang in my heart as I wish my mom was here. This man is clearly very intelligent, but he also doesn't seem to have much understanding as to what someone without his level of training would be able to interpret from his words. She would know what he means and be able to tell me. I know she cares about Peeta, even though their relationship was always complicated by the Games and the war. I'd like to think if she knew he was in the hospital she'd want to take care of him, but I really don't know. I honestly don't even know what she'd do if it was me in that bed.
The doctors get him started on the new medications and tell us that they are cutting back on the sedation drug. They say he should be waking up in about three to four hours. That time feels like an eternity, but I scold myself for my impatience and try to focus on the fact that the doctors are being careful and thorough.
Once the doctors leave, I turn to Haymitch and Delly to size up their reactions. Haymitch looks impatient too, but not unpleased. I think he trusts these people, and I'm inclined to agree with him. Delly just looks relieved and happy that we're going somewhere.
"I'm going to go see if there's a phone I can use in the hall," Haymitch says. I look up at him confusedly.
"How come?" I ask.
"I want to call Effie," Haymitch says. "She loves the boy, and she'd want to know. Frankly, I think she'd kill us all if she found out that we kept it from her. Besides, then she can deal with telling people like Annie and Johanna, and then Peeta will have his whole support system when he wakes up without us even having to make that many phone calls."
I nod. That makes sense. In a way, the simple act is very emblematic of the ways in which Haymitch knows how to express how much he cares about someone. He thinks ahead to small tasks and manages to come up with ways to use simple things to make someone's life better. It's weird, but some of the strategy is similar to the ways in which he got us all out of our Arenas; he knows how to strategize, prioritize, and optimize his actions. Of course, it helps when he's not drunk, too.
He heads out and I'm left alone with Delly and a still sleeping Peeta. I feel a little uncomfortable. I can say now that I genuinely like Delly. She has grown on me more than I ever thought she could, but I still don't spend a lot of alone time with her, and I don't really know what to talk about. Almost all of our interactions have been with Peeta to guide us.
It isn't until she starts speaking that I realize my fear of an awkward, directionless conversation was entirely unfounded given how extroverted Delly is. If anything, my issue is going to be her wanting me to share too much.
"Peeta tells me a little bit about you guys, you know," she says. I blush a little bit and don't say anything, so she continues. "I mean obviously nothing is a big secret, but he's kept certain things private because he knows you'd prefer it that way. He just goes on and on about how happy you make him, Katniss. And even when he's not talking about you, whenever he's with you it's just so obvious in the look on his face. I really couldn't think of a better pair than you two. You complement each other perfectly."
I'm flattered by Delly's description of Peeta's affection for me, although it makes me a little sad when I think about all of the opportunities in which I've failed to reciprocate. I'm distracted from these thoughts, though, because I'm thrown off by her last comment.
"What do you mean?" I ask. I am incredibly happy to be with Peeta and wouldn't want to be with anyone else, but to me we are an entirely unexpected pair who have found our way to each other for the better. Delly seems to think we complement each other on a deeper level.
"Well, you both just bring out the best in each other," she says, as if stating the obvious. "Peeta is able to see beauty in the world even when everything is horrible. He creates things and he expresses his love and he takes care of people and defends them fiercely. Those are things you need; you aren't that same sort of optimistic person, which is perfectly understandable, and his outlook makes your life better. He brings that energy with him whenever he's around you, and when he takes care of you or bakes for you it shows you he loves you. And you do the same sorts of things for him, but in your own way. You protect the people you love more thoroughly than anyone else I've ever met, and your devotion and loyalty inspires bravery in others too. I know you make him bolder and more confident, and I really think that's helped him get through all of this and find some understanding of himself. You also show him that you love him by taking care of him and wanting to make sure that he's never in pain. You're different, but your differences manage to be exactly what the other person needs, and even with these differences you are both united by the fact that your main motivation is to protect and care for the people you love. That's what matters."
I am floored. I really did not know Delly was this insightful. I've always written her off as sort of a friendly airhead, but clearly her emotional intelligence and perceptiveness is far beyond what I've given her credit for. I've never thought about these things or used those words when describing my connection to Peeta, but as she speaks everything she says feels exactly correct. We do help each other in ways that no one else can, and if we were the same that wouldn't be possible. We need those differences and we need each other.
She said I love him like it was obvious and clear. I don't think she's wrong.
Haymitch returns not long after and the three of us just wait for a couple of hours, eating and talking and trying not to worry. Counterintuitively, I feel like the longer we wait, the more anxious we get. Hypothetically we should be comforted knowing that Peeta could wake up any minute, but I feel as if the longer I wait, the more worried I am that something has gone wrong and it isn't working. I can see in their faces that Haymitch and Delly feel similarly.
After about three hours of waiting, the conversation stops. The three of us have all retreated into our nervous habits, which means commenting about every mundane thing in the room for Delly and sitting in silence for Haymitch and I. Luckily, Delly's nervous ramblings doesn't seem to require any response, so the three of us are each left to stew in our own anxieties.
He has to wake up. He has to. The doctors said he would. These sorts of thoughts rattle around my head, the velocity in which they seem to be bouncing against each other increasing with each passing moment that I see no response from Peeta.
After nearly four hours, I'm trying my best not to hyperventilate. We are reaching the end of the time frame that the doctors suggested. My chest feels like there is a cage pushing down on either side of my heart. I don't know what to do with my hands, and find myself digging into the skin around my fingernails in a way that I'm sure would absolutely horrify my prep team.
"Do you think we should call for the doctors?" I ask, looking to Haymitch with an expression of despair written on my face. He sighs.
"Maybe. I sort of think -" he cuts off and all of our attention is completely diverted when we hear a small moan. My head jerks around to look at Peeta. I'm still laying next to him on the bed, and Haymitch and Delly quickly move to either side of the bed as well. I watch his face closely. His eyes aren't open yet, but some of the muscles in his face are moving. His nose crinkles and then uncrinkles, he furrows his forehead and then relaxes it.
"Peeta," I whisper, stroking his forehead and hair with my hand. "Come on Peeta." He keeps making similar movements and quiet noises for a minute or two. Delly volunteers to go get the doctors and tell them that he might be waking up so they can check on him. I keep stroking Peeta's hair while Haymitch watches him closely from beside the bed.
"Come on, kid," I hear him mutter under his breath. I take Peeta's hand in my free one and rub circles with my thumb.
"Please Peeta," I whisper. "Please." There is a desperate and terrifying minute of silence. As I am about to pass over the precipice of panic, I see Peeta start to blink open his eyes.