When I wake up she's there with me.
She's hurt, though, and I panic when I see the blood pooling around her head. For a full minute, I think she may be dead. But then I see the movement of her chest as she takes slow, shallow breaths. Alive, but injured. I press my hands to her forehead, but it does little to stop the blood.
I've hardly noticed how much better I feel when I move to look for something to stop the blood. It just barely registers that my senses are returning, that I have a fuller range of motion than before. Next to me on the ground is an empty syringe and I know she's saved my life as I was on the brink of death. This only makes me more determined to nurse her back to health. I notice some torn socks next to her, already soaked in blood, but I rinse them out with some of our water and press them to her forehead. I can feel the blood pulsing against my hands, but eventually it seems to slow.
I'm rinsing the socks out again when I hear the anthem begin to play. I look back at Katniss. The blood has trickled to a drip, so I think she can afford a minute while I see what has happened today. One death. Clove. I wonder if Katniss killed her, if that's where she got that ghastly head wound. I think back to my time with the Careers and remember watching as Clove practiced with those throwing knives. I remember her painting the face of the blonde girl with her own blood. It sends a chill up my spine. How Katniss managed to survive this encounter, I don't know, but she's here now and Clove is dead.
I turn back to Katniss and press the socks against her head once more. It doesn't matter now. Clove is dead and Katniss is alive, no thanks to me. Suddenly she has brought me back from certain death and brought back to life the possibility of returning home. I am wondering more and more as time goes on if Katniss really might have some feelings for me. She did risk her life, as the pool of blood on the cave floor testifies, to save me. I know the rules have been changed, but what is the likelihood that they're actually going to let the both of us out of here? She knows how the Capitol works as well as I do, knows this strange rule change was crafted only to elongate the Capitol's fancy for a doomed romance.
An intense warmth swells over me, and it's nothing like the fever I had before. Leaning over, I brush hair out of her face and lightly press my lips to hers. It's the first one I've given while I'm fully aware and I just wish she was awake to kiss me back. That's a selfish thought. When I owe her my life.
No. I knew from the beginning this was going to be for her. The romance, misleading the Careers, and now… now what? What is this? Those three days I spent in the training center, working out my plan to save her, I never imagined Katniss facing down the Careers to save my life. The fight I had with Cato back after the tracker jackers, that I could have predicted. But then she shows up and pulls me from my deathbed. Those aren't the actions of someone who is indifferent.
I push aside those thoughts and set to doing what I can for her now. Her shoes and socks are soaked, so I pull those off. The nights have been ice cold, and I can feel the chill sneaking into our hiding spot in spite of the wall she presumably built before heading off to that feast. I set her things out to dry and move back to try and warm up her icy feet. I massage them and watch her breathing, making sure it's steady.
Then the rain starts. A trickle and then it becomes steady. I find out that our cave has a few leaks. After a bit of looking around, I find a piece of plastic that I wedge in betweens the stones of one side of the cave and it gives Katniss just enough protection from the rain. My stomach rumbles. For the first time in days I'm hungry. I'm starving.
Katniss still has a good bit of groosling left and, before I can reign myself in, I gobble down three pieces. When the third piece is barely down my throat I realize I can't keep at it, though my stomach still craves more. Surely Katniss should have some food to wake up to. Selfish again, when all of this is for her.
I can't help it. I lean over and kiss her again before tucking her into the sleeping bag. And there's something about all of this, about being trapped by rain in this little leaky cave with her, about knowing I could die at any moment, and about knowing that Katniss risked everything to keep me alive when she could have easily stayed it out alone, that fills me with a fire and a hunger that's unmatched.
I excuse myself to the other side of the cave, near the opening where I can wash my face with the rain, and I keep one eye on her through the night. She looks more relaxed now, tucked into the warmth of the sleeping back, under the safety of the plastic that keeps her relatively dry. I resist the urge to wake her up so I can kiss her again. Really kiss her. And hold her. And tell her how grateful I am, how I owe her my life, and that I'll do anything for her. That might be a bit much for Katniss. Or even for the Capitol. So I keep to myself through the night, reaching out for rain water to cool my face and my limbs every so often. I check my leg. It doesn't look pretty, but the pain is virtually gone. I breathe grateful breaths and the hunger calms.
The rain pours hard through the night. I think briefly of who is left and wonder how they are faring. Cato is probably furious without his district partner. I wonder if he felt anything more than a blind rage at losing an ally. Then there's Thresh, who stays out in the fields. He's almost certainly getting pounded by the rain at this point. And the girl Katniss calls Foxface. I know next to nothing about her or where she could be. I turn my mind away from those three and resume monitoring Katniss from afar, safe here with me.
When I think it must be close to dawn, I move back over to Katniss and start stroking her hair again. I want her to wake up. She needs to wake up. She needs to eat and drink and recover. I'm a little fearful that the wound on her head will start bleeding again, so I scrounge around some more (I'm feeling even better than when I first woke up now) and find a first aid kit. There are some bandages there just in case. I move back to Katniss and run my fingers through her hair, which is messy and charred. She had gotten caught up in that Gamemaker-induced fire ages ago when we were still on different teams.
"Katniss," I say softly. Then again. "Katniss." Whatever happens. However long it takes. I will be here when she wakes up and I will do anything, anything to keep her safe. Now that I'm not hanging onto life by a thread, I can actually take care of her. And hey, maybe we'll both make it out of this after all.
