Disclaimer: no, no, no, no and no. Not mine.

Chapter 22

Theories

Peeta slowly moved off me, but stayed between Gale and I. I wanted to push Peeta behind me and tell him Gale was more likely to attack him than me, but I was afraid that any sudden movements might cause him to attack.

"Gale," I whispered. "Calm down. Everything will be alright – we're safe in here."

"No, we're not!" he spat, gesturing to Peeta. "That is in the same room as us. We're not safe with him."

Finnick started to creep around the back of Gale, motioning us to keep distracting him. I groaned. This couldn't end well.

"Gale," said Peeta slowly. "We aren't going to hurt you. I am not going to harm Katniss in any way. She's right – we're safe here, for now at least. You aren't helping anyone by being angry."

"Stop trying to get me to let my guard down, mutt," snarled Gale. "I know what you're doing, you're waiting for me to relax and then-"

-thump!-

Gale fell limply to the ground and Finnick sighed.

"Sorry about that. I hope I didn't hit him too hard…"

Boggs pulled out a set of handcuffs, and tried to attach them to Gale's wrists, but struggled due to the burns on his fingers.

"Here," I said, taking the cuffs from his hands. "I'll do it."

I felt strange to be handcuffing my friend, but I forced myself to return to the mindset I had been in the night before. This wasn't Gale. This was a mutt. At least for now… I would help him as soon as we had gotten out of this mess.

"So," said Finnick, glancing at Boggs. "What's the plan?"

"For starters… One."

"Two."

"Three."

"Four."

"Five."

"Six."

"Nine."

"Ten."

"And we all know Gale is here," muttered Johanna.

"Alright then," croaked Boggs, "We need to find a way out of this house, probably around the back or something. It seems The Capitol has made their houses pod proof – they don't want to have to build a new city every time one is set off – but we can't stay here forever. They must know we set off the pod, and I'm sure they'll be able to figure out the fact that we're in one of the houses. Where else could we be? So, if we can get out, I reckon there's enough room in the street behind us for a hovercraft." He pulled his holo out of his pocket, activated it and started to study the map.

"Hovercraft? We're leaving?" asked Johanna.

"Yes," said Jackson in a defeated tone. "Look at us. We all need medical attention. Serious medical attention. We could all die if we stay here much longer, and not just because the Capitol might find us."

I looked around to see that she was right. Everyone's injuries had become a lot worse after the second blast.

"Right," said Finnick. "Lets call Haymitch then."

Boggs grabbed his communicator and walked into another room for a little more quiet, leaving us to tend to our wounds as best we could and chat amongst ourselves.

I walked Peeta over to a sofa and got him to lie down on his stomach, as his back was pretty sore, even though, luckily, his skin was still intact. Then Johanna and I, who seemed to be the least harmed, set out looking for a fist aid kit. We found one in the bathroom, and so I grabbed some supplies and headed straight to Peeta.

"What are you doing?" he groaned.

"What do you mean? I'm trying to lessen your pain, but if you don't want me too-"

"I know what your doing," said Peeta, shaking his head. "What I meant was, why are you here with me? There are others that are even more injured…"

"Exactly," I groaned, wrinkling my nose. "Do you not know anything about me? I'm letting Johanna deal with the more grisly stuff."

"You seemed fine about helping me during the Games after Cato skewered my leg."

"Urgh. Please don't remind me. But if you remember, you were half delirious, and therefore unable to notice how I felt about the whole situation. I remember struggling not to throw up as I drained pus from your leg!" I glared and Peeta's prosthetic leg, as if it was it's fault that I had had to endure such torture.

"True," he chuckled. "But that just proves that you can look at 'grisly stuff' when you have too. Are you sure that there is no other – ow!"

"Oh sorry, did that sting?" I smirked, dabbing ointment on his back. "If you want, I can just go and see how Finnick-"

"No, no, you can stay here," he muttered through clenched teeth. "That stuff had better help, it stings like crazy!"

"Haymitch is on his way," said Boggs, walking back into the room. "The hovercraft won't be able to land for long though, as we are in the Capitol, so we'll have to time this perfectly." We all nodded.

"So," said Jackson, "we'll be needing a way out of this house."

"There's a back door through there," said Johanna, gesturing to a hallway. "I saw it earlier when we were looking for a first aid kit. It opens up to an alleyway, which I think leads to the street behind."

"Brilliant. Lets go then."

We all got to our feet and stumbled towards the door. Then we remembered Gale.

"Oh great," I muttered. "Who's going to carry him?" In the end, Messalla succeeded in heaving him onto a large piece of cardboard we found in a cupboard, and then Johanna and I each grabbed a corner by his feet and dragged him out of the house. Boggs called up Haymitch again to tell him to get over to the street.

It was too dangerous to land, so instead a ladder lowered from the hovercraft, much like the one before the Hunger Games. Peeta and I exchanged a glance before we grabbed onto a rung.

The ladder had to do a couple of trips up and down to get us all, Johanna and Gale coming last. Thank goodness the ladder stopped anyone from falling, or I don't know how we would have gotten Gale up there.

Just as Boggs was about to close the hatch, we heard a voice down below, too far down to recognize, but close enough for us to make out words.

"Wait! Wait! Wait for me! I'm here! Come on, I thought you guys said you'd send a search party if we got lost! Don't go without me! Wait! Did you not notice I was gone? What was the number system for, huh? Well, Twelve, Twelve, Twelve, I'm here, now wait up! Lower the ladder!"

I know we were supposed to be happy that he survived, but that didn't stop the groan from resounding around the group when we heard the word 'twelve'.

~~0~~

As it turns out, Bryce wasn't injured at all. From the moment I had yelled out 'gas', Bryce had grabbed his mask and ran for it. I know Johanna had been yelling for us to run, but that still doesn't stop me from feeling angry at him. Worse than angry. He all but deserted. He abandoned us.

Not that he could have helped anyway, but he shouldn't have left.

Coin was furious when we got back to Thirteen. I'm not sure what made her fume the most; Bryce's confession or the sight of Gale with handcuffs around his wrists. I don't even know why that angered here, but it seemed too. Maybe it was because Boggs was right and she wasn't – she had thought Gale was ready for the mission, when he clearly wasn't.

Bryce was banned from all future 'special' missions. No matter how driven or connected to a tribute he was, his actions – and not just the running away part – were far to unacceptable to be a part of anything major. Even though what we were doing wasn't very big at all.

Speaking of big, Coin is planning something. She's always in command, calling other important people up to see her. There's big movements about the place – soldiers given more and more missions, extra orders for weapons, longer and harder training sessions, and the whole atmosphere is tense.

Everybody knows. No one has been told anything, but we just know; we can feel it deep down.

Coin isn't just planning anything. This is it. The big one. The last move in the game. The move that will determine whether we win or lose this war.

It was several weeks after we had returned from the Capitol that we heard for sure. Coin called a meeting for the entire district in the dining hall – those that couldn't ft would have to listen in over the speakers in their rooms.

When Peeta and I got to the hall, we headed straight to the stage, as that was where we were normally supposed to go. We were by ourselves, as Finnick's arm was still in a bad condition, and Johanna decided to listen in her room; she had been going through a lot of therapy since we got back from the Capitol, as the mud had freaked her out more than it first seemed – she had just been able to keep her calm while we were still in danger. Probably all that 'practice' in the arena, as Coin said. I hated her for that comment. You call going into an arena full of terrified, bloodthirsty kids trying to kill you practice for a rebellion? Practice? You have got to be kidding me.

Haymitch – after once again filling in the role of victor alarm clock – had also decided to watch in his room. I wondered why, but the question was answered when we entered the hall. It was packed – I remember thinking it was full for all of the other announcements, but it wasn't. This was full; there was hardly room to move. I guess this news was more exciting than anything else yet; everybody could tell that this was going to be big. It took us ages to push out way to the front of the room; it wasn't that people didn't want to move, it was that they couldn't. That's how packed it was.

When we finally got to the stage, Coin didn't beckon us over like she usually did. She looked at us, frowned, and then went back to her conversation with a commander I had never seen before. However, when she stepped up to speak, man – I guess another commander – pushed us forward. I guess we were just there to show people that we approved of the plan.

Even though we had never heard it. And what would it matter if we had? It's not like Coin would listen to us.

She started off her speech with the usual 'the Capitol is hitting us hard, we have to fight back' sort of stuff. Then she went onto the whole 'our soldiers are doing well – let's strike when the iron is hot' stuff. It was similar to all of the stuff she's said before.

Whoa, since when did I become so critical of Coin? Well, I guess I've never really been fond of her, but I never sorted through every little thing she did. But that was before she sent me and Peeta on a mission with a man who thinks Peeta is a mutt and is trying to kill him… Why did she do that? What would she gain from it?

Then it hit me. Those propos we were doing weren't important. We had all known that all along. They could have been done without Peeta and I. We had done our bit. We had gotten all the Districts together. So what else could we do?

Nothing - at least not while we were alive. We had served our purpose.

The only left for us to do was die. Give the rebels a martyr to fight for. Because Coin must know that if Gale killed Peeta, I wouldn't live through it. Peeta and I had gone through too much together. I couldn't loose him without loosing myself.

After that thought, I zoned out. I couldn't hear Coin announce her plan. It didn't matter to me anyway. I knew she wouldn't have included us. As I said; she didn't need us. And after we had failed to die in the Capitol the first time, she wouldn't send us again and risk us messing up the whole operation. She would keep us hidden until the rebels either forgot about us or asked us to keep fighting, and maybe then would she send us out once more.

I briefly wondered if she had sent Bryce on that mission with us for the sole purpose of trying to get us killed. Without Bryce knowing of course – but he was so… so… him, that she must have known he'd do something to put our lives on the line.

At the end of the announcement, Coin read an exceptionally large list of squads that would be going., and surprise, surprise, we weren't on there. I wondered if anybody else would notice, but nobody did. Maybe they thought we were just going to do something else at that time. Or maybe they just didn't care about us anymore.

That announcement ended like so many others with Peeta steering me away from the hall, through the crowds and back to our room.

"What are we going to do?" I asked him.

"We can't do anything. She's the President, it's her decision. If she doesn't want us in the Capitol, then we aren't going."

I shook my head.

"No, that's not what I meant. What I mean is, what do you think she is going to make us do?"

"Probably more propos. She can't just let us do nothing, she'll have to give the rebels a reason why we aren't fighting. But just doing propos when the biggest fight of all is going on is going to be unacceptable for most people. They'll loose faith in us. Why is she doing this?"

I glance around the room, wishing I could explain my theory to him about Coin trying to kill us. But there were probably cameras and or microphones in the room. Coin wasn't that are off the Capitol when you think about it… but the things she sands for are better.

So instead, I just shrugged and grabbed a pad of paper and a pen out of a draw, and lay back on the bed with a sigh. Peeta seemed to understand what I was doing, and so he lay down next to me. I held the notebook above my face and started to write. It was rather hard and uncomfortable, but that way, even if there were cameras in the room they wouldn't be able to read what I was writing.

"Who are you writing to?" asked Peeta, keeping up pretenses.

"Mother," I said.

"Ah." Peeta fell silent, knowing how much I hated talking about her. I had been to see her once since we had returned, but she wasn't any better. Loosing both father and Prim seems to have broken her. Once, she told me she wished she could forget them both. That had cut me deep. What was it she had told me before?

"Love was the best thing that ever happened to me. Not once do I regret loving your father."

She seems to have had a rather drastic change of heart. She is no longer my mother. She used to cherish my fathers memory; I know she loved him more than anything, except maybe Prim and me, and that she would never, ever willingly forget him. She's changed, and so have I.

I sighed, and passed my 'letter' over to Peeta.

"Proof read?" I asked. "I wouldn't normally, only I'm a bit angry with her at the moment and I don't want to insult her…"

Peeta quickly scanned the writing, then sighed and folded it up.

"It's alright, but in one of the lines you sound really mad that she isn't doing much… just the tone of the way you told her too get up and do something was a little bit-"

"Alright, I get it," I mumbled, scrunching up the paper. "Maybe I'll write another one later." I wasn't sure what to do with the letter – I didn't want anybody reading it – so I shoved it in my pocket.

"What do you think though?" I asked Peeta. "You know, about the mission we aren't going on."

"I think maybe we should ask Coin what she wants us to do." I could tell by the glint in his eye that he agreed with my theory.

"Why?" I asked, gesturing to my pocket which held the paper.

"Well, I think you got it right," he said, "which almost makes me hope that we won't have to... you know…" I frowned. What was he saying? Did he not want to help the rebellion? "I just don't want to loose you, Katniss. And on this raid, well, anything could happen. I just don't think I could function if you were gone. I think I would end up somewhat like your mother is now – sans the forgetting part, of course."

"I think I would to," I said, realization flooding through me. "I think… I think I understand why she is like that now. I can't imagine what it would be like to loose you…" my voice trailed off, and I looked away from Peeta's sad, blue eyes and instead pretended to examine the grey fabric on the bed. Peeta wrapped his arm around me and pulled me close to him. Wrapped in his embrace, I kept talking. "I can't imagine what it would be like to loose you, but I think I have an idea. In the arena, when I thought you were dead, I just…" Peeta gave me a squeeze and I took a deep breath. "But If I did loose you, for real I mean, I know that I would be in so much pain, it would be hard to function. And I think that if anyone were in that amount of pain, they might just start wishing that the person they cared about never existed at all. That way, you wouldn't be so sad. I think that's the stage my mothers at. She's gone through the pain twice now. I know that I would never swap my memories of you for anything, but if were to go through all that, I don't think I would be the same person anymore."

"It's alright, Katniss, I'm not going anywhere."

"But this is a war, Peeta! Anything could happen! Even if we are cooped up in Thirteen for the rest of the war, you could still get hurt!" I refrained from using die… the words Peeta and die do not go well together in any sentence. "Look at what happened to Prim! She never left this district since she got here, not once did she go up to the surface, and where is she now?" I became aware of those terrible sobs ripping through my chest again. I turned my head and buried my face in Peeta's chest, trying to push thought so losing him out of my mind.

"Shhh, Katniss, it will all be okay. Just calm down."

"How do you know that?" I whispered, desperate for some reassurance.

"Because I won't leave you. I will never leave you. I promise."

I nodded, pulling myself even closer to Peeta.

"Thank you. I needed that."

"Anytime," he whispered, pressing his lips against my hair. When I felt that, I lifted my tear stained face and captured his lips with mine. He seemed a little shocked, but kissed me back. I deepened the kiss, pressing up against him, running my fingers through his hair. After a few moments, Peeta pulled away.

"Katniss," he moaned, "Not now."

"Why not?" I felt my face slip into a pout.

"Because you don't really want to. You're upset and angry, and you'll regret it later."

"How do you know what I want?" I asked. "I won't regret it, Peeta. I'm not the same Katniss that left for the Quarter Quell. I've changed, and I love you."

"I love you too, but I still think that-"

"No," I whispered. "Trust me."

Before he could respond, I pressed my lips against his again, and this time, he didn't try to stop me.

~~0~~

That evening, our group – at least those of us that were allowed out of the hospital – were told to go to Command. I frowned when I heard. What was Coin going to ask us to do?

There were only a few of us there from our group of Twelve. There was Peeta and I, Jackson, Johanna, Cressida, Messalla and, surprisingly, Gale.

"What is he doing here?" I growled the moment I saw him.

"I'm a part of this squad," Gale replied. I ignored him, knowing that he couldn't have any idea of our suspicions towards Coin. I kept looking at the President. "And where is Boggs?"

"Commander Boggs is with another squad," said Coin. "That is one of the things I wish to talk to you about. This mission is mainly fighting. You lot have done your job amazingly, and every district is rallied to our cause. We have moved all of the civilians to a safe center not far from the Capitol."

"Not far from the Capitol?" asked Cressida. "Are you sure that that's a good idea? What if Snow gets wind of their-"

"It is a good idea," said Coin, sparks flying from her eyes. "The Capitol will not think we would put them so close. We had to get them out of the Districts as the Capitol may try to attack them as soon as they realize our troops have moved out. And why do you think you have the right to speak anyway? You are just camera crew."

I watched as Cressida's face fell and felt anger course through me. But I forced it down. No mater how cold Coin was, she was still the leader of the rebellion.

"Hang on, you got everybody out?" asked Johanna. "Everybody? That's thousands and thousands of people… why? How?"

"I believe I have already told you why," said Coin in a bored manner, "And it does not matter how, only that it is done. But we are not here to talk about such matters. This final mission will be conducted by every military squad we have. They will storm the Capitol and capture Snow. There is a much more detailed plan, of course, but I shall not relay details here." I frowned and shared a glance with Peeta, knowing what Coin meant when she put the emphasis on 'military'.

"We aren't going, are we?" said Peeta.

"I never said anything of the sort," said Coin. I glanced up, my frown deepening. What was she doing? "True, this squad as a whole will not be going," she continued. "Finnick's arm is still too damaged, Boggs has partially lost the ability to speak and so has been assigned another role, Mitchell and Homes are dead, Bryce has been discharged. Johanna, you will be staying here with Finnick."

Johanna growled quietly but otherwise stayed silent.

"Peeta, Katniss, you two will be going to the Capitol. You will not join the fight, but you will still be there, lest the rebels loose faith in you. Cressida and Messalla, you will accompany them and film what they are doing. The story is you were both injured when Finnick and Johanna were, but you jut had to be there to see the fall of the Capitol. Gale will be going with you, as the public demands to see Katniss and her childhood friend back on friendly terms."

"What!" I cried out before I could stop myself. "We are going with him?"

"He has had more training since the last incident," said Coin, "And he should be able to cope this time."

"Should?" I growled. "Should? What happens if he can't? What if he tries to kill Peeta again?" Peeta sighed and took my hand, rubbing those soothing circles into it with his thumb.

"As I said," said Coin in a hard voice, "He should be able to handle it. On the very unlikely chance that he doesn't, you know what to do. You handled it well last time."

"Last time we were in a house with no peacekeepers or anything to run from," said Johanna quietly. "What would happen if they are being chased and Gale turns against them?"

"They'll deal with it. As I said, it is very unlikely."

I squeezed my eyes shut. That almost confirmed my theory. She wanted us dead.

"So, we're going as figure heads?" asked Peeta.

"Essentially, yes. We'll need you in the Capitol for the official surrender – or victory, what ever you want to call it – so when you have been filmed, get to the safe place where the District civilians are being held – Soldier Jackson knows where it is, she will be with you also – and wait there. You will be collected and sent to the Capitol when the battle is over and we have won."

She was awfully confident. She was also referring to us as if we were some sort of package.

"Right," said Peeta. "I guess that makes sense…" he seemed to be trying to decide whether to be irritated that we wouldn't be doing much or relieved that I wouldn't be in direct line of fire.

After the meeting, Peeta and I went with Johanna to see Finnick. When we told him about Coins plan, hinted our theory of her wanting us gone and told him he would have to stay in Thirteen, he was outraged. He spend a while breathing heavily and asking us what we were going to do to let us fight, and Annie had to talk to him softly for a while t get him to calm down. It was quite ironic, really, normally it's Finnick calming her down.

When he did calm down, however, he spoke to us in a clear, plain voice.

"You have to do something. You can't just sit back and watch it happen. You have to get in there. For all of us Victors. For the lost tributes. We have more right than anyone to get back at Snow. Don't let Coin take that away from us. I seems that I can't help, and neither can Johanna, but you two can. You've always been special, the only two tributes to ever make it out together, the two that beat the Capitol and stirred up the rebellion. Do this for us."

"I know you're right, but how?" I asked. "How can we convince Coin to-"

"Don't try to convince her. It won't work."

"Then how-"

"Come here," said Finnick, a grin spreading across his face. "I have a plan."

"Oh no," said Peeta. "Here we go…"

Hope that answered a few questions. And no, Bryce did not set off the pod on purpose n the last chapter, he was just being an idiot. He really did think that one of those bees was moving. I guess I should have explained that better.