Chapter 5

~ Peeta ~

Haymitch took my by the shoulders. "You're not getting off that easy, kid. We'll try again when she's awake."

I shook my head furiously. "No, Haymitch, I refuse to put her through anything else. She's in there because of me. If she doesn't want to see me... I won't end things by terrorizing her further. She deserves so much more..."

"What she deserves is to be able to think on all this without being tied down and drugged up," Haymitch interrupted me. "And," he stopped me again as I was opening my mouth to protest, "she deserves to hear your explanation and whatever monumental apology you've got. She deserves..." he put up his hand to stop me yet again, "your patience. Look, she can't talk right now, she can't even move. From personal experience, that's a pretty scary way to wake up."

I shut my mouth. It wasn't like Haymitch to make speeches or give pep-talks, but when he did, he could be painfully convincing, even when he was less than sober. My stomach was still painfully knotted and my heart was breaking, but only slightly less hopelessly, if that was possible.

"Peeta," he continued, "none of this is entirely your fault. If your mind hadn't been messed with, then, well... let's just say you were just trying to make the best of a bad situation. I'm not gonna get into any coulda shoulda woulda about you not talking to her or... me... or anybody else about you tryin' to fix yourself, 'cause it doesn't change what happened. That's the only place you messed up. And that's what you need to apologize for... so if you keep blaming yourself for having these tantrums in the first place, that won't be the last time I lay you out."

I gulped.

"Now," Haymitch sighed. "I brought you a sandwich. You're going to eat it. Then we're going to meet that head doc of yours at the train." I half-opened my mouth again, but Haymitch was on a roll. "Yes, I called him, figured he could help you sort through your issues. And before you get a mind to protest, his word is the only thing keeping you out of a detention cell."

The idea was perversely tempting. "Maybe I belong in a cell."

Haymitch rolled his eyes. "Don't start with me, kid."

~ Katniss ~

The next time my eyes opened, I was aware of being slightly cold. It took a moment to remember what happened before. Was there anything new? I checked, fingers and toes moved, arms and legs still restrained. Still looking straight at the ceiling. Vision, still restricted to where my eyes could turn, and some brace around my head acting like blinders. But my face... my mouth felt a bit numb... my tongue could lick my lips, and my breaths were my own. Well, that was an improvement. I felt less foggy, but rather... indifferent? Like whatever was happening without me was nothing I could help, regardless who it was happening to. No sense in getting worked up, they might knock me out again. I just wished someone would come in here, I think I was getting colder. I called out.

"Hhhhhe..."

Or at least, I tried to. That was not my voice. That wasn't even what I'd tried to say. I tried again.

"Hhhhaa..."

Nope, and it was uncomfortable, trying to make useless sounds. My throat was starting to burn.

"Hello, Katniss."

The face from before, the pale one, and in better view than last time. Simm, I think his name was. He cocked his head to the side. "Do you remember what happened?"

I just looked around.

"I'm sure you must be confused, but you're doing much better. If you'd like, I can untie your hands, but you have to promise not to move around much. Can you do that?"

Yes. I blinked deliberately.

He gave an encouraging smile. I felt my left wrist being freed, and then the right. I rubbed them where the restraints had made contact, bringing them up where I could see them. No damage, apparently. My elbows felt stiff. My hands went hesitantly to my neck, they barely brushed some kind of gauze before Simm caught my fingers. He brought them to rest on my stomach.

"I'd leave the bandages alone a while longer, you're not quite healed yet," he told me. "Would you like me to explain what we did?"

Yes. Blink.

He shifted, probably to seat himself next to me. I could still see him. I found I could turn my head, but just slightly. "Well, your trachea was crushed. We had to remove the damaged section of it surgically, and insert a replacement. It's flexible and once you're healed, you won't feel the difference."

Well that doesn't sound too bad. But what about my voice?

"Your speech will be another matter, however," he read my mind. "You'll need to undergo a bit of therapy to sound like yourself again. But that should only take a few months."

A few months? What am I supposed to do until then, point and grunt?

My face must have revealed my confused distress adequately, for he continued. "In the meantime, you'll be assigned a tablet. It may be a bit frustrating at first."

A tablet? What is this, the Stone Age? Am I supposed to carve into it with sticks?

I heard the door behind him, and he greeted someone briefly and thanked them before turning back to me. He held a rectangle of black glass up for me to see. "Here it is." He touched the corner, and it lit up. He brushed a finger across the surface, and where he traced, lines were drawn. He wrote his name, 'Simm,' on the screen. Well, I'd at least been right about his name. He pressed a button that wiped the screen clear, held it out for me to try, and I took it hesitantly. It was lighter than it looked.

"Don't worry, it's fairly indestructable."

I held it for a moment. What do I write? I was stumped for half a moment, then I remembered. Quickly, I scrubbed my finger across the page. 'Peeta.'

Simm read my work. "He's just outside. Do you want to see him?"

I blinked. It was faster than writing.

"Are you sure? I was informed what happened. Mr. Abernathy has been watching him closely."

'Him too', I wrote.

He patted my knee. "You got it."

After he disappeared, my stomach tightened suddenly. Am I afraid? I don't think so... at least not the way Sae had inferred. Maybe I'm just feeling a little lost, out of sync. And tired, there's that too. But Peeta... How long was I asleep? How long has he been dwelling on what happened? He must feel so guilty...

I heard voices and shuffling to my left, it sounded like they were just outside the door.

"I can't, Haymitch, I can't..."

"She asked to see you, now suck it up and get in there."

"What if I..."

"You won't. Just go."

I hear him! Where is he? I tried to make my neck turn just a little more, but I couldn't. My hand reached out, palm upward.

"Oh for spirit's sake..."

Then Haymitch was in my view, struggling slightly. I guessed he was towing Peeta along beside him. I reached further.

"Well, go on," Haymitch said, a little more mildly. "She wants you, not me."

It felt like the moment went on forever. Then, very gently, warm, rough fingers brushed mine. I curled mine around his, and weakly pulled him to me.

His watery blue eyes were shocked, and so sad. But he held my hand. And stared down into my eyes. I formed his name silently on my lips, and his breath hitched in his throat.

I brushed his hand with my thumb, and remembered the tablet in my other hand. I set that down at my side and reached shakily toward his face. He knew what I wanted, and obliged, hesitantly, bringing his face to meet my hand, and I pulled him down to my chest. He cried quietly.

Haymitch rolled his eyes, patting Peeta awkwardly on the back a few times before backing off a bit.

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..." Peeta mumbled, over and over.

I stroked his hair. His right cheek was bluish and bruised, I tried to avoid touching it, I didn't want to hurt him. His arms rested carefully on my sides, his face on my chest warmed me. "Shh," I soothed him. The whoosh of air through my teeth was easy to do, I found. Just like breathing, my voice not needed. It was a while before his breathing evened, just a few hiccups here and there. I brushed the tears from his cheeks, carefully avoiding the bruise, and he raised his head a bit, wiping his nose on his sleeve. His eyes never left me.

He reached toward my face, hesitantly, carefully, palpably afraid of hurting me. I gave him a weak smile, the best one I could afford. I saw him fight not to cry again, as his fingers brushed my cheek, and came to rest on my hair. His face crumpled, and he struggled to contain himself. I knew this would be hard, I just had to give him time.

He heaved a few shuddered breaths and sniffled. "Katniss... I... I don't have words to tell you how... how desperately sorry I am," he choked, closing his eyes for a moment, trying to gather himself. He heaved a breath. "If... if you'll let me, I'll do anything... whatever it takes... to earn your forgiveness."

I was lost for a moment in his heart-wrenching apology, and then felt a twinge of guilt at making him wait for my answer. I reached for the hand that had stopped to rest in my hair, and brought it to my lips, marking his knuckles with a kiss. Peeta looked stunned, either he couldn't believe I'd let him off the hook, or he'd taken my response the wrong way.

I hated dropping his hand, but the tablet required both of mine. Simm was right when he said it would be frustrating to use. I had to hold it up to see it properly, and in doing so it blocked my view of Peeta's face. I worked quickly, then turned the tablet toward him.

'Nothing to forgive.'

This brought on a fresh round of tears, as well as a number of confessions and promises. I was pretty sure Haymitch was still closeby, and probably gagging. Before Peeta could get carried away, I stopped him with the tablet again.

'Please tell me what happened.'

Peeta gulped. He wiped his face on his sleeve, looking a bit lost. I patted the edge of the bed, and after a moment he convinced himself to settle there. I waited patiently.

"Katniss... do you remember, it was pretty soon after we got back to Twelve, after the end of the war... when I had those early tremors and thought sometimes what I saw would change if I concentrated enough?"

I blinked. Peeta looked at me, confused.

'Blink = yes.'

"Oh. That works." He took a deep breath and continued. "There are only a few bad ones I ever have anymore... I haven't been telling you about them and now, I know that was wrong of me. This one in particular, about you... it had me confused a number of times, and I couldn't distinguish you from the hallucination. I really couldn't, but I had to, so I could stop them when they started. I couldn't bear the thought of hurting you accidentally."

I blinked. He took that as a sign to continue, and nodded.

"So, the next time that one came, I tried to make something different about the other you, the one that was showing me such horrible things... so I'd know she wasn't you. And... it worked." He gulped, then took a heavy breath. "Until... until you came home looking the way I'd made her."

'You made her hair short?' I wrote, the guess was obvious.

He nodded. "When I saw you..." his face started to crumple again. "... all I saw was the hallucination, and now you know... in my head how I make them go away..." He choked out a few sobs, desperately trying to contain himself again. I had started to forget just how hard the hijacking had been on him, what he went through in forcing them to pass. He handled his tremors so well these days, and he'd rarely brought them up, even when I'd ask he'd tell me it was okay, that it wasn't so bad. Seeing him so broken about something that was beyond his control tugged painfully on my heart. Tears now burned in my eyes as well.

Peeta sniffled, pulling himself together, and looked down at me deliberately. "I'm going to take such good care of you." He squeezed my hand.

I blinked, both in acceptance and to release the tears that had collected. Roughened, gentle fingers brushed them away. I took to the tablet once again.

Does my hair bother you now?'

Peeta looked away for a moment, and Haymitch stepped back over. "His doc gave him some new meds." Peeta looked shyly proud, and my heart leapt. What a relief it must be for him.

"They've worked on some of the worst-affected victims, Peeta told me. " They don't get rid of the flashbacks, but they're supposed to help separate them in my head. I just wish..." he paused. "I wish... that I'd gone to visit him in the Capitol a month ago when he first asked me. This would never have happened."

I squeezed Peeta's hand, and he squeezed back. He offered me a small, apologetic smile, one that most would think was hardly adequate to communicate the immense guilt he felt, but I knew better. He knew I was uncomfortable when he'd bring up things that might have been, if we'd done things differently. That was a road we'd decided long ago we wouldn't ever go down, but we slipped sometimes. We were only human, after all.

I suddenly felt tired. I had so many more questions, but writing took considerably more effort, so I just wrote one more.

'How long?'

Peeta looked puzzled, then realized. "Almost a week," he said, his fingers stroking my hair. I allowed my eyes to flutter, half-closing at his touch. "Are you getting sleepy?"

I blinked, but not as deliberately as before. He knew, though.

"Want me to stay?"

As my strength left me, I squeezed his hand. I felt his lips press against my forehead.

"I love you... so much," he whispered.

~ Peeta ~

She'd forgiven me.

I was still so bitterly angry at myself, and not completely trusting of the medication, but things were easier. She rolled her eyes when I told her later that I didn't feel like I deserved it, but she'd still forgiven me. It didn't take lines of script on her tablet for her to remind me that she felt the way Haymitch did; she was more than a little irritated that I'd been keeping so much bottled up, but she was right. And so as they came to mind, I would tell her things.

I had only a handful of tremors in the weeks that followed. None before we brought her home from the clinic, but after. I had so much more control over them now when they happened, they weren't less frequent but they were milder, more of an out-of-body experience I suppose. But the fear that one could get away from me drove me to ask her to leave me to handle them on my own. To go to Haymitch's until it was over and I came to get her. I was becoming more confident, but I would never put her in harm's way again. Ever.

Dr. Aurelius helped, when he was around. Or rather, he took really extensive notes, and described empirically what he and his team had been working on to get the treatment to where it was. He lost me when he started going into formulas and amounts, but I got the general notion that the venom I was given is something called a 'bio-accumulator', something that the body doesn't ever get rid of naturally, so the more you take, the worse your symptoms are. And I hadn't had the worst of it... there were a number of victims who had to be locked up to keep them from hurting themselves and others. Dr. Aurelius told me in confidence that one was a child... I told him it would be better if Katniss didn't know about that.

He also told me that I was the first of his patients who had figured out how to manipulate their hallucinations. I hoped it would be helpful in treating at least some of the others. We'd all be taking the treatment, or some later version of it, for the rest of our lives, so we had something in common. I was curious about them... but not curious enough to go back to the restructured Capitol with the Doc yet. Katniss needed me, so I was staying. And thought I didn't deserve it, I needed her too. I'd promised to take care of her.

She sometimes didn't like it though. I think I hovered too much, and she preferred her solitude. Most days she pinned her hair back or secured it with a handkerchief, it fell in her eyes otherwise. I often saw her mindlessly feel behind her back to twirl the end of the braid that was no longer there, and sigh in loss. I was thankful she hadn't tried to run off to hunt, that would have been quite the squabble... except she couldn't speak well enough yet to defend her position. I'd walked with her to all her therapy sessions, but she made me stay in the waiting room. I think she was embarrassed at how she sounded, but when she finally started to speak, her voice progressed to just sounding like she had a really bad cold, but it was an obvious relief to her that she could communicate again. Haymitch didn't help much when he commented that his geese sounded better than she did. He laughed. She threw her tablet at his head.

Her nightmares were worse. I wondered if some were about Gale, after that first one, but if they were, she didn't tell me. She'd open up about the others, but just didn't want to talk about him. I tried to hold her, as always, and sometimes she wanted me, other times she'd push me away, and I'd find her later, curled up on the porch swing or that old wing chair of her father's that she'd brought from the Seam house. I tried not to take it personally... she was just like that sometimes.

The investigator from Two called three weeks after Katniss came home, demanding to speak to her. I sat at the kitchen table pretending to make a grocery list, but of course straining to make out the faint voice from the turned-up receiver as Katniss listened to a long string of questions they fired at her.

"Did Captain Hawthorne ever contact you about his work?" He hadn't contacted her at all in the time since he'd left Twelve, so of course not.

"Where was Captain Hawthorne from the night of October 17th until the 22nd of last year?" Of course, she didn't know.

"Did Captain Hawthorne associate with..." and he listed a number of people, a few familiar names from their time in Thirteen but none of whom she'd been in contact since, and the rest of whom she'd never heard of.

This went on for the better part of a half-hour, sometimes returning to previous questions, and Katniss' already strained voice was overtaxed by her short answers. It felt from the tone and the that they were trying to trip her up. It felt familiar to my time under the Capitol's control, and became exceedingly uncomfortable to witness. Katniss looked drained when she finally hung up.

"Are you okay?" I tested. It was a stupid question, but she knew coming from me, the question was always genuine.

She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, clearing her head. Then she nodded. I knew she was lying, though. I held out my arms for her, and expected her to decline my invitation, but she surprised me. I pulled her down into my lap and wrapped my arms around her waist. It felt good when she leaned into me.

"What did he get himself into?" she whispered rhetorically.

I sighed. "I just hope they catch whoever did it."

~Katniss~

I fingered the uneven edge of another note from Hazelle, hastily torn from its notepad and scribbled upon. Both she and my mother had been told I'd had a sore throat and that I'd been resistant in taking care of it, thus the reason I was avoiding their calls. Mom had given up, but Hazelle had resorted to writing. Her words were vague, but I got the picture that there were things happening, things she couldn't say over the phone or on paper. She didn't outright ask me to stay away, but she didn't have to. The code we all grew up with to keep the Peacekeepers in the dark was as useful now as it was then, and the words I read worried me. It was reason enough to pay a visit. I wasn't leaving Hazelle to face whatever this was by herself, not when she didn't have Gale to look after them. And something felt not-quite-right about that investigator, so I supposed it was safe to assume that he played some part in the situation. I tapped the edge of the paper against my lip, thoughtfully. I had to get to Hazelle as soon as possible, and without Peeta. Not that I didn't trust him or his ability to handle whatever was going on, but there were some things I would never put him through again. And walking headfirst into what I feared could be a dangerous situation was at the top of that list.

The evening news reel was on in the sitting room, more about the upcoming election. I'd curled up in my father's chair after bringing in the mail, listening to the talking heads drone on about this candidate and that candidate, Paylor's ongoing interim presidency and her campaign to serve an additional term. Peripherally, I could hear Peeta clanking the dinner dishes in the drying rack.

Peeta liked Paylor. I can see why he would, she's polished and straightforward, compassionate in her stances and steadfast in her desire for District autonomy. Which sounds all right of course, especially after the previous administration. I just wasn't that into politics.

The next thing I see on the screen threw me back to the worst few seconds of my life. The talking head is describing what I'm seeing, but he doesn't even come close to communicating what it means. How it feels. What is this? How can they show this? The running water behind me went silent, and then Peeta was there, moving to sit on the floor next to me, leaning his head by my feet.

Paylor's form had returned to the screen, waving to the Capitol crowd, flanked by a four-strong gray-and-blue-clad protection detail. But I still existed in the last thing I saw.

"I wish to express to my fellow Citizens my unwavering loyalty, to the people before the politics, and I stand firm in my belief that our greatest strength is in cooperation and faith in one another. When that faith is challenged, as it was earlier this month-"

Peeta turned to look at me. I must have hidden the trauma well, because he just looked curious and turned back to the television.

"... there must be due diligence in bringing justice to those who would take such action. Rest assured I remain unharmed from the event, and am more dedicated than ever at fostering compassion, negotiation, and integrity as cornerstones for our great nation's future. Violent dissention, neither in public or behind closed doors, has no place in that future." Paylor waves to the crowd again, and the talking head returns, moving on to the next candidate.

Peeta switched off the television. "Are you as confused as I am?"

My eyes narrowed, not focusing on anything in particular. My chest was tight. "You missed the first part," I whispered, voice shaking, mostly used up from the interrogation earlier. "A bomb went off at one of her scheduled appearances, in District Two."

I fought to meet his eyes. "Peeta... it dropped in by parachute."

AN: Reviews = updates people. I want to hear what you think, good or bad.