Disclaimer – SC created and owns HG, CF and MJ, the world of Panem, and all of her marvelous characters.

Heart Problems

"He's got a pulse," said Haymitch in a measured, business-like voice. "Thom, help me carry him. Sae, hurry, make sure the hovercraft doesn't leave. Katniss, go grab your stuff."

"I'm not leaving him."

Haymitch made an exasperated sound. "Okay, tell Bristel what to get. Let's go."

Thankfully the supply hovercraft was in town the day that Peeta collapsed. Within minutes we were on it and headed for District 13 and some serious doctors. Peeta was conscious, but miserable on the flight over. He couldn't breathe right. He was so weak it was hard for him to lift his hands.

"Katniss, I'm so sorry," he said in a voice that scared me. It sounded like he was using the last bit of air in his lungs. "I'll get better soon. We'll get our house built."

"Don't talk," I said. "Don't worry about the house. Let's get you to a doctor and find out what happened."

But the doctors had very little to say. They hooked him up to an IV and tried to make him comfortable. A nurse came in and said she would need some blood samples. She left a tray full of needles and syringes and then stepped away. Peeta looked at me in panic. I checked his eyes and I could see he was slipping away. He hadn't done this for months, but the extra stress was probably triggering it.

"In the cave," he whispered, "You laughed while you injected me with something that felt like acid. Real or not real?"

"Not real," I answered. "You had blood poisoning. I injected you with the medicine you needed." He nodded. He seemed to remember the truth.

"In the Capitol, they used so many needles. Real or not real?" he asked, looking at the wall.

"I don't know," I said.

"It doesn't matter. Just stay with me. Talk to me while she takes the blood."

"Of course," I said. "Let's talk about our new house. What color should we paint the living room?"

He squeezed my hand when the nurse came back into the room, but he kept his eyes on my face and he stayed with me. I found that focusing on Peeta was helping me, too, although I was careful not to watch the needles bite into his skin. It wouldn't help Peeta if I couldn't hold it together. The nurse took so many samples I wanted to chase her away, to tell her to leave him some blood. He needed it. His face was still so gray.

Peeta ate only a few crackers for dinner. I had no appetite either. I ate some crackers to encourage Peeta, but my mouth was so dry it was hard to swallow. I stayed by Peeta's bed all night, on an amazingly uncomfortable chair, resting my head on a pillow next to his. He wanted me to sleep on the bed next to him, but I was afraid that I'd crush him. He seemed so fragile.

In the morning I greeted the doctor hopefully, wanting some answers. But instead, he wanted to run some more tests. In fact, he wanted to send Peeta to the Capitol where he said that they had better equipment, as well as Peeta's medical records. I could tell by the look on Peeta's face that he hated that idea so I told the doctor flatly 'no.'

"We'll run what tests we can here, then. I can get his files sent from the Capitol later today," the doctor replied.

There were two days of tests which grew more and more horrible. They hooked Peeta up to all sorts of monitors. They x-rayed him. They wanted him to walk on a treadmill. Actually they wanted him to run, but when it looked like he might not survive the walking they didn't push it. They had him blow into another monitor. Peeta tried as hard as he could. I wished he wouldn't work so hard. They took more blood while I held his hand. They put him through a giant tube that somehow looked inside of him. When he was done, they wheeled him back up to his room. Once in bed he fell asleep, exhausted.

I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I could barely think.

Then a nurse came in and said that I needed to meet with someone, I didn't catch who. She had a young assistant walk me through the labyrinth of halls to an office.

I sat down and a woman handed me a pile of forms to fill out, then went back to doing something else. I was amazed at how hard it was to fill out the forms, how many questions I couldn't answer even though I knew Peeta better than anyone else did. "Address?" – I skipped that one at first. I couldn't write "building a house near the meadow." "Employment?" – I skipped that one, although I thought that "building a house near the meadow," was close on that one, too. "Employer?" – for that I wrote "none." "Military Service?" I finally just wrote "Yes."

I needed to come up with something. So I said that he was a baker, self-employed, who lived in Victor's Village in District 12. It wasn't quite true, but it was close.

Then there were questions about me. I said that I was his wife, a self-employed business woman. I thought that sounded better than 'I trade squirrels and door knobs for building materials.'

I didn't have many answers at all for the questions about his current condition. But I did have lots of information about his previous injuries: tracker stings, knife wounds, blood infection, leg amputation, electric shock, gas attacks, massive burns. I had never thought about how many of them there were. And some I didn't have any details about - torture in the Capitol. I shook my head to clear the thoughts.

When I gave the lady the forms she skimmed through them. She frowned. Something I had written apparently offended her. She had the typical District 13 look, straight gray hair, pale gray eyes.

She looked up at me and asked "No employer?"

"No."

"No other insurance?"

"No."

"Is his current condition related to military service?"

It took me a minute to make sense of her words. "I don't know," was all I could answer.

"We'll have to wait for a more complete diagnosis then before we can discuss an appropriate payment plan."

Now I felt like I was the one who would turn gray and collapse. I knew that District 13 was different now that the war was over. I knew being a Victor no longer meant a life paid for by others. But I had no idea how I could pay for any of this. Even a price list would mean nothing to me, unless it was translated into how many squirrels I could trade for each item. Who was I kidding? These weren't going to be squirrels. They would be deer, lynx pelts, maybe I could bring down a bear and make a dent in it.

The lady had turned her back to me, so I left. I wanted to look for a closet I could hide in, but I needed to be there when Peeta woke up.

The next day we started to get some answers to our questions, but it wasn't long before I wished we hadn't.

Basically, Peeta's heart was failing. So far his heart had stopped at least four times. Each time had caused permanent damage to his heart tissue. I had known about the first three. I remembered seeing them restart his heart twice after the first Games. The third time was during the second Games when Finnick had revived him. I had never worried about it. If the Capitol could make my damaged ear hear again they could surely fix Peeta, too.

But they hadn't.

And it got worse. They reviewed the medical records from what they called "his time in custody in the Capitol" – the records of his torture. Apparently his heart had stopped there again. I didn't ask for any details. In fact, just looking at the manila folder made my stomach clench. But Peeta remembered it. I supposed that would be hard to forget.

"So what can you do? What is the treatment?" I asked the doctor.

The doctor spoke to Peeta. "The first thing that we can do is try some different medications. They will not repair the damaged heart tissue, but they might help your heart to work more efficiently. We might also be able to bring in a specialist from the Capitol. They have been able to do wonderful things for heart failure in the Capitol, although I don't know if . . . ." He paused, unsure about something.

Just then a nurse came in to take Peeta's blood pressure, his temperature, all the things they checked every few hours.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'll come back later," she said, starting to back out of the room.

"No, that's fine. We were just finishing up," the doctor said. I got the feeling he was relieved to have a distraction, to not have to finish what he had been unable to say.

While the nurse was busy with Peeta I slipped out of the room and followed the doctor. "Excuse me, sir? Would you say that his heart . . . problems," I couldn't say 'failure,' "are the result of military service?" Everything he said had sounded not only uncertain, but also expensive. We needed to be able to try whatever it would take to get Peeta better.

"Um, I'm not familiar with his military record. That determination is not my decision. You will have to talk to the accounting department." With that he hurried off.

I leaned against the wall. This might not be easy. My mother would cut people a break if they had trouble paying for the medicine they needed. I had a feeling that they wouldn't be so understanding here.

I heard Peeta call my name and went back into the room.

"How're you doing?" Peeta asked me.

"You are the one we need to be worried about."

"Yes, but you are the one I am worried about," he said. "You look unhappy and pale."

"Of course, I am unhappy," I said, a little too harshly. "We have to fix your broken heart."

He took my hand and kissed the palm. "My heart is not broken. My body has some problems, but my heart is happy as long as you are here."

I couldn't believe he could be so patient with me, even though I had snapped at him. "My heart will be happier if we can get you healed up and out of here," I said stroking his face.

"It sounds like we will just have to find the right medicine. And when the heart doctor from the Capitol gets here we will talk to him about what else can be done. Now, what do you want for dinner? And this time let's try to actually eat something." Peeta handed me the menu form.

I managed to choke down some chicken stew and mashed potatoes, but I ate it just to humor Peeta, to get him to eat something. I had a feeling that he was only eating his to humor me, too.

After we ate Peeta looked tired. Then the phone rang. "Mrs. Mellark, this is Mayvene, downstairs. I have your husband's updated forms here. You'll need to come down so that we can arrange your payment plan."

"Okay," I said mechanically and hung up. "Peeta, go ahead, take a nap. I'll be right back." I gave him a kiss on the forehead, then headed to accounting.

The meeting with Mayvene did not last long. She told me that Peeta's injuries were not related to military service, that we had no employers or insurance to cover the cost. She gave me one sheet which was a bill for our costs already incurred. Another was a list of price ranges for the various medications and procedures which Peeta might need. The numbers were not translated into squirrels. But I could tell they were very large. Too big for me ever to pay.

The last sheet that Mayvene gave me had 3 different payment schedules depending on what treatments we choose. They ranged from impossible to horrifying. I thanked Mayvene and left her office. I had the feeling that she enjoyed her job.

In the elevator I leaned my head on the wall behind me. Again, what I wanted to do was find a place to hide. Or better yet, somehow get upstairs, outside. But I couldn't do that. Peeta needed me. I had to stay for him.

That night I had an idea. We were going to have to come up with some money. Not squirrels, but cold hard cash. One of the nurses, Cloy, seemed more friendly than the others. I pulled her aside.

"I used to live here in District 13," I started, but she stopped me.

"Of course, you did. I know who you are. You are the Mockingjay. You have no idea what you meant to us."

I couldn't get used to people knowing who I was. Living back home in District 12 I was just a normal person, not a freak. Still, I smiled and said "Thank you."

I took a deep breath. "They have changed the way things run here in District 13. Now that you have to pay for things, is there a place where you go to trade?"

"I don't ever go there, but my brother does. It is above-ground. But you aren't going to go there are you? My brother says it is a bit rough." Cloy seemed seriously concerned.

"A friend of mine wanted to know where it is," I lied.

"I'm not sure. They are building a lot of new things up there. There is an area they call the "Row" and there are people there who trade. I can ask my brother where it is for . . . your friend."

"Thanks, that would be great. I'm not sure if they are even going to go, but I just wanted to know." I went back into the room.

Slowly, I made a mental list of the things I could trade: my locket, my pearl and my Mockingjay pin. All of them were worth something just as jewelry. But all of them could be worth more to someone who had a thing about the Hunger Games or the Mockingjay. Of course, that someone needed to still have some money to spend. I had a feeling that life had changed for a lot of the Hunger Games fans.

Peeta and I had been keeping most of our things in duffel bags in the tent before we left District 12. It helped that neither one of us had much stuff. Since Bristel had just grabbed both bags we both had most of our belongings with us in the hospital. The little bag that held my valuables was down at the bottom of my duffel.

I thought of something else that I had that I could trade. I had the bags of cameras and microphones that I had taken from the old houses. That wouldn't even require a Mockingjay fan. But I couldn't think of anything anyone could want those for that wasn't a bit dodgy.

I fell asleep feeling a bit of hope for at least beginning to pay the hospital bills.

In the morning I began to see the many problems with my plan. District 13 was not the place to trade Mockingjay stuff. Here people were very practical. One of the traders would snap up my stuff for nothing, then take it to the Capitol and make a nice profit. Also, the things would be more valuable if the buyer knew they came from me. That would mean that they weren't copies. They were the real thing. That was particularly true of the pearl, which was the one thing I would find difficult to lose.

Peeta had to go retake the test where he had to go into the long white tube. He swore that he wasn't claustrophobic and it didn't bother him at all. It would have bothered me. In fact, it did bother me, but I went down with him and stayed in the waiting room.

An older lady was also waiting there. As usual, most of the people who were getting the same tests as Peeta were much older. She gave me one of those small smiles that said "We are both going to sit here and be miserable. We might as well be nice to each other."

I was bored and I picked up a magazine that was sitting there. It was a trashy thing - "Panem Circus." When I looked at the cover I dropped the magazine like it was a snake. There on the front was a screaming headline: "Hawthorne Finds the Sweet Life in District 2." I could barely see Gale as he was kissing a redhead with huge hair, but I could tell it was him.

I folded my arms and turned away from the magazine. The lady looked at me and shook her head. "I saw that article about your cousin. Who would've thought?"

"He's not like that," I said defensively.

"Honey, they are all like that when they get the chance," she said, shaking her head. "Just a bunch of tomcats."

I got up and went into the hall to pace in privacy. It didn't make any difference. In fact, knowing what he was up to would just make it easier to forget him. Give me a new reason not to want to remember him. As if I needed any more reason.

I went back into the waiting room. I sat down and stared at the clock. Then I had a terrible thought. If I tried to sell my Mockingjay stuff someone could go straight to the Capitol's gossip magazines and get big money for the scoop. I could just see the headline "Mockingjay Broke: Sells Jewelry to Save Lover's Life."

I could never let that happen. It would kill Peeta and that would sort of defeat the purpose. I could not sell my Mockingjay things.

My last idea, my only idea, was gone.

When Peeta was done I followed as they wheeled him back to the room. He had fallen asleep. I sat next to his bed, my legs pulled up onto my chair. I wrapped my arms around my own legs and wished I could just disappear. I was useless. I had no more ideas, no way to get Peeta what he needed.

Sometime later I had to wake Peeta since the cardiac specialist from the Capitol had arrived. He shook Peeta's hand and started to talk. But I couldn't focus on what he was saying. Did it matter? Whatever he could do, it was going to be expensive.

Peeta talked to him for a long time, taking notes. He seemed so hopeful. It was horrible. He didn't know that we would never be able to do any of the things the doctor was talking about.

After the doctor left I just sat there, still curled up on my chair. I didn't know what to say to Peeta.

He broke the silence. "Do you remember back in District 11 when I was mad at you and Haymitch because you hadn't told me what was going on?"

"Yes," I said, not looking at him.

"I feel like that again. Something is going on and you are not telling me." He didn't sound mad. He sounded hurt. I looked at him. I didn't know what to say, how to explain to him why I couldn't tell him. "I . . . ."

"You are trying to protect me somehow," he said.

"No. Yes. I don't want to make you worry," I finally put it into words.

"That's not working. I am worried, but I don't even know what I am worried about. Think about what if you hadn't been there when I collapsed. What if I wouldn't tell you what had happened because I didn't want you to worry? What if I made you leave the room every time the doctors came in and tried to act like everything was okay? Would that be alright with you?"

I had to say "No."

Peeta took my hand. "Katniss, we have to be in this together. We have to share good and bad. You know as much as I know about what is going on with me. What is bothering you so much?"

So I told him. I felt like once the first words were out the rest came pouring out in a jumble. I told him everything, about Mayvene, about my idea to trade away my jewelry, even about the magazine cover with Gale. I must've been hard to understand because I cried quite a bit, too. When I was done, when I had told him it was hopeless and I didn't know what we could do to save him, I just put my head on his shoulder and kept crying.

I felt awful that he was so sick and yet he was the one comforting me. At first, he just held me and stroked my hair, told me not to cry. But then he started talking about what we could do.

"Look, the first thing we need to find out is what counts as military service. I want to give it another shot, talking to this Mayvene. Maybe we can find a soft spot in her heart."

I thought that was impossible, but then I realized that if anyone could do it Peeta could. I hadn't even argued with her.

Peeta called downstairs and asked if Mayvene could come upstairs and talk to us in his room. When he got off the phone he said to me "This is only where we start. If we can't change her mind then we will come up with something else. We've survived worse than this. We just need to stay together."

I felt like a vice had been taken off my chest. I could breathe again. "I'm so sorry I didn't tell you before."

"It makes me feel useful. Not just a lump on a bed," he replied.

"Wait and see how useful you feel after chatting with Mayvene."

It was more than an hour before Mayvene came up. While we were waiting Peeta and I discussed what the doctor from the Capitol, Dr. Adrian, had said. It sounded like we were just going to have to keep trying different things and see how well his heart reacted to them.

Mayvene greeted us with "This is highly irregular. I do not usually come up to the patient rooms. We usually have the patients' families resolve the payment issues so as not to unduly stress the patients." She gave me just a slight glance, but it was withering.

"Thank you for making an exception for us. I want to be part of the discussion about how we are going to get this covered." Peeta was turning on the charm. "I particularly had some questions about the definition of military service. Mine was a bit . . . irregular."

"Well, I have already fully reviewed your military file. There is no record of that you entered the service prior to . . . October 4th when you arrived in District 13. In fact, I don't have any signed induction forms even then, but it doesn't matter since your last adverse heart episode was clearly before your arrival in District 13, way back on September 20. As I noted on the forms I gave Mrs. Mellark, we will need to reach some sort of agreement in the next 48 hours. I think that should answer your questions." She turned toward the door.

"Actually, I had some requests. I'd like a copy of my files, including my military file, and a copy of the definitions you use for military service." I was amazed. The charm had gone out of his voice. I remembered a few times before when Peeta had shown the steel behind his smile.

"I'll see what I can do," Mayvene said. I didn't feel like we were going to get what we needed from her.

"Would it help if I talked to your supervisor?" Peeta asked. We all knew he wasn't just offering to be nice.

"No, I'll be able to take care of it," she said, her jaw rigid. She turned brusquely and left.

After she left Peeta said "I see what you mean. She's not going to do anything for us without a fight. Maybe we should get some help. What about your mother? She's opening a hospital in District 4. She knows how hospitals run."

"No, my mother knows the healing side of hospitals. She's not going to be good at dealing with bureaucracy," I said with a sigh.

"Probably not, although you do need to call her. She needs to know where we are, what's going on," Peeta said. I knew he was right.

I twisted my braid around my finger. Peeta had a point. We had faced worse than this, although at least in the arena there was the chance that a silver parachute would drop down on us and give us some relief. I caught my breath and looked up at Peeta.

"What about Haymitch?"

Thanks reviewers:

KidsInLovex

Wisdomgoddess26

EchoDeltaNine

Solaryllis

Alena Ruse – fka Analyn Lana Ruse

Heart the Squid

Isabugg

Private Tucker (who btw recommended some changes to "Monster" – anyone who is interested can check out the revised version and let me know what you think.)