Finding Heart

Haymitch was magnificent.

He had come on the next weekly hovercraft from 12. As soon as we had explained the problem we all started poring over the documents Mayvene had sent. The boys looked through the forms with the definitions, and I went through Peeta's medical file. I made a timeline with the important dates, trying as hard as I could to ignore the details, especially in his Capitol file. I did see that it had been electrical shocks that had stopped his heart. Like Lavinia. I looked for any medications given after his heart had stopped, to repair or mitigate the damage. But there were none. They were not trying to help him then.

Haymitch was triumphant when they found the definition of an irregular rebel soldier. The rebels, especially those outside of District 13, were not as keen on paperwork as the Capitol. So, there were lots of alternate ways to determine who had been a soldier and when. One was identification by either side as a rebel. Another was causing significant damage to an important Capitol structure. And one was being taken captive by the Capitol.

It was Haymitch's theory that being a tribute should count as "being taken captive by the Capitol." Then Peeta noticed that all of the listed events only counted "after the commencement of the rebellion." That was tricky. Peeta's time in the Capitol after the Quarter Quell Games would definitely count, and that was important because that included his most recent heart stoppage. But we didn't want to have to argue about which damage was from which incident. Could we get them all covered?

Sure enough, when we all went down to see Mayvene there were problems. As soon as we walked into her office Haymitch started roaring to see her supervisor. Peeta and I were both surprised at how angry he was. We had expected him to at least start off trying to be nice. It wasn't until after the supervisor came that I finally understood what was going on. Haymitch had seen something I had missed.

Her name. Right there outside her office: Mayvene Coin, Assistant Accountant. She was President Coin's niece, and, yes, she hated me.

Haymitch let me have it as soon as we got back to Peeta's room. "Katniss, what is it with you? In the arena, in the woods, you're a huntress. Nothing gets past you. Why can't you keep your eyes open in real life?"

"Lay off!" Peeta said, standing up from his wheel chair. I had never noticed before how much taller he was than Haymitch. "If you are not here to help, then get out." The two of them glowered at each other. I sank into a chair and pulled my knees up. Haymitch was, of course, completely right. My hunting mode was slipping away from me. I didn't seem to have the energy to focus like that.

I looked up to see Haymitch slouched against the windowsill. Peeta was sitting down. He took a deep breath. "This is actually good. Now we can work with somebody reasonable."

He was right. We had been assigned to a new accountant: Surrey. When we met with her she agreed right away that Peeta counted as a captured rebel from the moment the hovercraft picked him up from the arena after the Quarter Quell. However, she said she would need a doctor's opinion on how much of his heart damage occurred after that point. We needed to push that date back.

Haymitch left a message with Plutarch's office. He thought that the Gamemaker's files from both of our games might be useful.

"We just need to have someone call you a rebel, preferably someone in power." He stopped talking abruptly when a nurse, my favorite nurse, Cloy, came in.

She checked Peeta's vital signs, then turned to Haymitch and asked "Do you need another chair in here?" She looked at the chair I was sitting on and said, "Actually, let's get rid of that one, too, and get you two recliners, in case either of you wants to sleep in the room." Haymitch had a room on another floor, but I hadn't stayed anywhere else since we had gotten to District 13.

Haymitch and I followed Cloy down the hall. As we went he said "Sorry about what I said. I was still mad from dealing with the accountant witch."

"Don't be sorry. You were right." My stupidity was way too dangerous for Peeta.

Each chair was so big that it took all three of us to carry them down the hall. After we got them into the room Cloy pulled me aside.

"I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but can I make a suggestion?" I nodded. Haymitch and Peeta both looked up from the chair they were adjusting. "You might want to check the District 13 news propos. During the Games. We never watched all of the Games, but they made these summaries and they would always point out anything the tributes did that might bother the Capitol."

"Where can we get those?" I asked.

"They are in the library, video section. I'll get you a map," she said as she left. I wanted to hug her.

Sure enough, we hit pay dirt. We started with the propos from the 74th Games. There were some possibly good comments when it became clear that Peeta had only joined the Careers to help me. He was obviously popular in District 13. The editing was a bit disconcerting. Somehow they made me out to be much nicer, and much more in love with Peeta, than was completely accurate. Haymitch said that if I ever need to establish rebel soldier status the comments when I put flowers on Rue would probably do it. Then we watched the end. I still had to turn away from Cato's death.

They played this triumphant music as we spit out the berries and rode the ladders up to the hovercraft clinging to each other. The amount of blood all over Peeta was gruesome. Then there was President Coin. "These are the children who will spread our revolution all over Panem," she said. The three of us cheered so loudly that the librarian came in to ask us to keep it down.

"I wonder how her niece will like that one!" said Haymitch and we all laughed. It was perfect. And just before Peeta's heart stopped for the first time.

The next day brought another surprise. After lunch Haymitch was telling us how he had worked with Greasy Sae, Bristel and Thom to finish putting the walls up on our house. We had found a pad of paper for Peeta and he was sketching while he listened. Then there was a knock on the door.

"Come in," I called. My mother peeked into the room.

At first I was frozen, then she opened her arms and said "Katniss," and I jumped up and hugged her.

"You came." As soon as I said it I felt guilty about sounding so surprised.

"If you want me here, I'll come as often as I can." I looked at Peeta. I could tell he was trying to suppress an I-told-you-so smile, but I didn't mind.

Haymitch left a couple of days later. We made him promise to come back, although he tried to make us promise to just come back to District 12. I wished that we could.

Mom worked out a deal with her hospital in District 4 so that she could come for five days every other week, as long as she reported back on how things were done in our hospital. Even when she was in District 4 we talked quite a bit on the phone. She was a great help as we evaluated Peeta's treatment options.

Peeta was on several different medications. The doctors would start him out on low doses and gradually increase the dosages, monitoring to see if there was any improvement. The first set of drugs he tried didn't help much. After 6 weeks, Dr. Adrian recommended that we try some different medications.

Mom was enthusiastic about monitoring side effects and urging us to get outside, get some exercise. When she was in town she waited on us hand and foot, and I slowly learned to relax and enjoy it.

Now Peeta had been on his new medication regimen for several weeks. Mom was in town and we were sitting around waiting for Dr. Adrian's latest update. I was on edge. Peeta claimed to be feeling fine, but I thought his color wasn't good. He still seemed to tire very easily and he had developed a nagging cough.

Mom brought us in tea. Mine tasted horrible. I choked down a sip then looked at her.

"What is this? Wait. This is that medicine you wanted me to take. That medicine to keep me from turning into . . . ." I couldn't finish the sentence.

"I thought it might help. You've been through a lot lately." My mother looked at the floor while she said that.

The room was silent. Peeta looked at me, his blue eyes so concerned that I turned away from him. "Does it taste that bad?" he asked. He knew that the taste was not the issue.

I set the cup down. "I'm fine, Mom," I said.

But then Dr. Adrian came in. Mom and Peeta always took notes when he talked. I decided to focus instead on the doctor. He didn't smile when he shook Peeta's hand. Dr. Adrian was usually a friendly man. He started off talking about some of Peeta's numbers which had improved. But he wasn't looking at any of us, just at the chart he held in his hand. His hand seemed tight on the chart. None of this was good.

Sure enough he finally said "We're just not getting enough improvement in your blood ejection fraction." I was familiar with the words by now, although not completely clear on what they meant. All I knew was we needed serious improvement and we weren't getting it.

"We need to start discussing a more aggressive treatment strategy," continued the doctor. "I have reviewed your case with several of my colleagues in the Capitol and I think that we need to look at putting a pacemaker in."

Mom and Peeta each had questions for the doctor. I just stared at him. He had relaxed a bit after breaking the bad news to us, but he was still nowhere near a smile. When Mom asked him if there were any other alternatives he did this strange thing where he blew a bunch of air out of his lips and looked at the ceiling. Then he said "At this point I see no acceptable alternatives." There was something he wasn't telling us.

After he left my mom went downstairs to get her dinner and mine from the cafeteria. I had been content to eat whatever the nurses brought up for me, but she liked to choose something for us herself.

"So are you up for this? It will be major surgery," I asked Peeta.

"I know, but it sounds like it has a good chance of working. Don't worry. These doctors know what they are doing." Once again, Peeta was comforting me. I pushed the old tea mug around on the tray.

"Why don't you try some of your mother's tea? It couldn't hurt." It was always so hard to say 'no' to him.

"Do you think I need it? Am I becoming . . . ."

Peeta cut me off. "No, but I think it is a struggle for you. Why not do what you can to make it easier?"

He was right. I hadn't actually hidden in a storage room yet. Right after Mom arrived I found myself with my hand on a closet door knob. I thought seriously about disappearing for a while, then shook the feeling off and rejoined them in Peeta's room.

After that time, the temptation was not as strong. I wanted to be there when Peeta needed me. He didn't know the details of how badly I handled his captivity and the horrible time after he was rescued. Of course, he knew how I had behaved whenever we had tried to talk, but I didn't want him to know about my long "mentally disorganized" phase.

I took a sip of the tea. It was worse cold, but Cloy heated it up for me. When my mom got back she was pleased to see I was drinking it, but didn't say anything.

I had some every day after that. I didn't know if the tea was helping or if it was Peeta's steady optimism, but I began to feel that this pacemaker surgery was the best option we had had in a long time. Mom was distressed that she would not be able to be here during Peeta's surgery. It would be in one week and she couldn't get off again so soon.

"I just don't want you to have to spend the day sitting alone, worrying, while he is in surgery. Maybe Haymitch could come," Mom suggested.

"There are worse things than being alone," I muttered; comforting me was not Haymitch's strong suit.

"What about Annie?" Peeta asked.

"She can't come. She has a baby," I responded, surprised at his suggestion.

"Babies are portable," my mother said. "I think we should call her. Besides she wanted to be updated. You have to at least let her know Peeta will be having surgery."

We called Annie. As it turned out she did want to come. Little Finnick, who she called "Finnie," was 4 months old. Had we been in this horrid hospital that long? She said that she would love a chance to get out and show off her beautiful baby, even if it was just to the people in a hospital waiting room. We let Haymitch know and he said that he would come too.

In the days before the operation we tried to spend as much time as possible walking in the new park which was above-ground, just above the hospital. We would take Peeta's wheelchair and he would walk behind it, pushing it, as long as he could, then I would push him in it when he got tired. It was cold out so we had to bundle up, but the outdoor air felt fantastic.

One day just after we had gotten back to the room a doctor we didn't know came in. He introduced himself as "Dr. Janus."

"I have consulted with Dr. Adrian about your case in the Capitol. I was in the District and wanted to talk to you," he said.

Peeta shook his hand. I decided to engage in another round of doctor watching. This doctor was very fidgety. He was carrying a large file that must have been Peeta's. He kept moving it from hand to hand, flipping needlessly through the pages, messing with it. It was so distracting that I found it hard to listen.

"I wanted to discuss with you another possible alternative for your treatment," he said. Peeta and I both perked up. Dr. Adrian had made it sound like there were no real alternatives.

"I have been working in cardiac surgery in the Capitol for years and it seems to me that you are a perfect candidate for a heart transplant. Your current treatment regimen is not progressing satisfactorily, you have serious, permanent heart damage and I understand that your treatment is being fully covered as the result of military service."

Peeta nodded and he continued, "The protocol for finding organ donations has changed recently and, frankly, for the next several years there will be a shortage of donations with a resulting serious backlog of candidates. However, given your public profile, you may be in a unique position with respect to procuring a voluntary donation."

I could barely understand what this man was saying. Peeta was frowning. He didn't seem to like Dr. Janus either, but a chance for a healthy life made it worth listening to him.

"I know that, so far, your condition has been kept fairly confidential. However, if you were to allow a bit of publicity, you would find much public sympathy. Your story is a compelling one. You are so young and your suffering at the hands of President Snow has been hideous. Your realistic chances of a successful pacemaker implantation are no more than 20%. In addition, due to current events and changing circumstances in the Capitol, we have found that there is a subset of individuals who find the opportunity to be of assistance quite attractive."

Peeta interrupted the flow of smooth words. "Wait, are you talking about people agreeing to be organ donors if they are to be mortally wounded?"

"Well," the doctor was now just flipping through the corners of the file without looking at it, "we are building a database of such donors, but obviously, the process will take years before there are consistent opportunities for organ harvest."

"Then what are you talking about?" Just what I was thinking. I was glad to know that Peeta was having trouble understanding this creepy man, although I had the feeling he was ahead of me.

"A directed voluntary donation. It is not a certain thing, of course, that a donor will step forward, but with the combination of your fan base and Miss Everdeen's . . ."

"GET OUT!" Peeta was sitting up in his bed, his eyes blazing. "Never, ever come back. I will have no part of your disgusting scheme!" He pushed the nurse call button, but they were already hurrying into the room.

Dr. Janus almost dropped his file. "Well, we do not have to . . ." but as Peeta started to get out of bed and come towards him he fled the room.

The nurses fluttered around Peeta, getting his various tubes and attachments untangled, settling him back into bed, clucking over his raised blood pressure. I waited until they had cleared the room before I said "What just happened? What kind of organ donation was he talking about?"

"He is just another one of the Capitol's monsters," said Peeta. He seemed deflated, exhausted. I held his hand.

"He wanted to make a big public thing out of your . . . condition," I said. "Why?"

"So that someone, someone with a healthy heart, would step forward and donate it to me," said Peeta, staring at the blank gray wall.

"Do you mean donate their heart now? But how could they keep them alive without a heart?" I asked.

"They couldn't."

I sat down. After a while I said "No one would do that."

"No one who was happy and healthy, but they are willing to take advantage of those who are not," sighed Peeta.

After a while, I asked "Peeta, do you think what he said was true, that there is only a 20% chance that the pacemaker will work?"

"I don't know. I don't trust him at all, but I think we need to talk to Dr. Adrian again."

Dr. Adrian was back in the Capitol. We called and left a message for him. He called back less than a half hour later.

"Is there a problem? What's going on?" he asked.

Peeta spoke, although he had the doctor on speaker phone so I could hear. "We had a visit from a colleague of yours, Dr. Janus."

There was silence. I thought maybe we had been disconnected.

"He is no colleague of mine," Dr. Adrian said finally. "I am so sorry. He sat in on one of the conferences regarding your condition. When he made his proposal to me afterwards I told him you would never be interested. I guess he wasn't willing to take my word for that."

"Thank you for telling him that. You were completely right. But something he said, well, we wondered if it was true," Peeta said. "He mentioned that there is only a 20% chance that the pacemaker will work."

"Estimated success rates are always a subjective business. Our normal success rate is almost 90%, but your heart is more extensively damaged than most. Twenty percent is too pessimistic though. I would give you a higher chance than that, 40-60% or so."

"That's a broad range of possibility," said Peeta.

"I am basing it on the diagrams of your heart from your EEGs, your MRIs, what imaging we have of your heart. We will have to actually see the tissue damage to know how serious it is. Then I could give you a better range, but of course, that would have to be after the surgery is completed. If you would like to get a second opinion that is fine with me, but, as you know now, there are doctors here who you would not want to work with." Dr. Adrian seemed to be apologizing for his profession.

"The organ donation program has been radically changed, for the better. Until recently, most organ donations were not . . . voluntary. It will take some time, years probably, before we can rebuild a stable organ donor base. There are doctors who do not want to wait for that. Of course, there are also patients who will not be able to wait that long."

"I wish I could guarantee that your surgery will succeed, but I can't. Do you still want to go ahead with the operation?"

I clutched Peeta's hand. The decision was his, but he looked at me while he said "Yes. Let's do it."

On the day of the surgery we had quite the crowd in the waiting room. Finnie was a great distraction as the hours ground by. When they finally said that we could go see Peeta in the recovery room I hugged him tightly while he drifted in and out of consciousness. I was barely aware of Dr. Adrian as he explained how seriously damaged Peeta's heart had turned out to be.

Annie and Haymitch both decided to stay for a few more days as we waited to see how well Peeta's heart would respond. Every couple of days they ran another battery of tests. We watched anxiously for the numbers to improve.

But they didn't.

When Dr. Adrian came in he asked Peeta if he wanted to talk privately. Peeta said that everyone could stay. I knew I would have asked them to leave. The doctor's face revealed that this was not going to be an easy discussion.

"The problem, in laymen's terms, is that your heart has suffered four unrelated externally-caused heart stoppages. This is, of course, very unusual. Each episode damaged different parts of the tissue. There is just not enough remaining healthy tissue for the pacemaker to be completely effective."

"Did it help at all?" asked Peeta.

"Hard to say. It is possible that with some combination of medication and the pacemaker's assistance your heart may continue to function for some time."

"Some time? How much time?"

"Again, these sort of estimates are subjective. It could be as long as years, maybe 3-5 years. Of course, that would give us time to further study your unusual condition and possibly come up with a new treatment strategy. I have been consulting with an excellent team of doctors in the Capitol and between us we may be able to devise something that will improve your heart function."

"If the long end is 3-5 years, what is the short end?" I couldn't believe that Peeta was brave enough to ask that. I was afraid to even be in the room for this conversation.

"Impossible to say. Total heart failure is a constant possibility."

"You mean it could happen at any time?"

The doctor just nodded.

That afternoon we were both quiet as we took a walk outside. It was a cold, but clear day. The ground was covered in snow, but the sky was a light blue.

Finally I said "One thing that horrible doctor from the Capitol was right about. You are so young and this is so hideously unfair," I had avoided saying things like that to Peeta. But he didn't like it when I tried to cover up what I was feeling. He pulled me over to a park bench and we sat down.

"I don't look at it that way," he said. "Do you remember the day we spent together on the roof, in the Capitol?"

"Right before our second Games?" I said. "Of course. It was beautiful."

"They never messed with that memory. Maybe they didn't think to look for it. Maybe my brain protected it somehow. We thought that was our last free day together, with no cameras, no Games. We thought there was no way we could both get out of those Games alive," he said.

I curled in close to him. That day seemed like a million years ago, a different me, a different Peeta.

"That day was beautiful because it was a gift. We hadn't expected a whole day with nothing to do and we ignored everything that was coming and just enjoyed it," he said. "Ever since I came back to District 12, back to you, I have tried to look at every day as a gift, a day we never thought we would have together."

"I guess if you had told me that day on the roof that today we would both be alive and be together I wouldn't have believed you. I would have thought it was just wishful thinking," I said.

"And it would have been. The odds of us both surviving were tiny."

I shook my head. "But, we didn't know what Plutarch and the others had planned. We didn't know what was really going on."

"And we still can't know, what is planned, what is going to happen, what our odds really are. So let's just take each day as a gift and enjoy it," he said.

I closed my eyes and tried to just be grateful for this time together. It took a lot of effort to ignore the bitter thoughts that kept returning.

"Katniss?"

"Yeah?"

"Let's go home."

"Are you giving up?" I didn't mean to sound hopeless.

"No. But if all we are doing is trying different medicines we can do that in District 12. I'm tired of living underground."

"Okay. They will probably make you come back for tests every once in a while." I was getting used to how this whole medical thing worked.

"I know. But I want to have more to do than just being sick all of the time."

I wanted to get out of District 13 so much that I had to be careful not to agree too quickly. If it was better for Peeta to be here then we should stay. But he wanted to go home so I needed to find a way to make it work.

The snow-covered ground seemed to make the park quieter. It was so peaceful, no sound but a lone bird somewhere.

"I had a weird thought," I said. "What if the Quarter Quell Games had been normal? What if there hadn't been a rebellion? What if you had been the Victor?"

"Don't even think of that. It is too horrible."

"No, but what I am wondering is – after you came out, the time before they fixed us up, fixed my ear. Would they have fixed you up? Your heart had stopped 3 times by then. Would they have given you a new heart? Whose heart would it have been?" I couldn't stop thinking aloud.

Peeta shuddered. "It would have been a waste of a good heart," he said. "Without you, it would have been broken."

Thanks to IrishLuck19 - If any of you haven't checked out her Batman fanfic you should – it is called "Unmasked." I didn't know much Batman, besides the old cheesy T.V. show (which I loved) and the movies, but this is a great story.

Thanks to all my great reviewers! If any of you are interested I went back into "the Surface" to give Johanna a little more edge (and a few more contractions).

Even if you haven't reviewed up to now feel free to drop me a note just so I know who is out there. (Cue spacey music.)

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