I wake up to her gently shaking me and saying my name. "Peeta, we've got to go now."
"Go? Go where?"
"Away from here. Downstream, maybe. Somewhere we can hide until you get stronger," she explains, helping me get dressed. I slowly get up, but my leg suddenly throbs and I feel like I'm going to keel over. "Come on. You can do this."
I wish it could just be that easy. I lean on her shoulder, limping and wincing as we make our way down the stream, but we both realize that I'd sooner fly than keep going for long. Everything begins to go black, and I've almost lost consciousness when she stops us. She gently sits me down, puts my head between my knees and pats my back. I breathe heavily, trying regain total consciousness, and I'm not sure how much longer it is until I stand shakily. I can barely walk, and I'm scared that I'm putting too much weight on her as she guides me to what looks like a small cave. I start shaking uncontrollably, leaning on her so that she's nearly carrying me. I'm blacking out for seconds at a time, resurfacing enough only to take a few steps. I black out at one point and find myself into a sleeping bag and a very determined looking Katniss kneeling beside me with water and pills. I swallow them reluctantly, letting her think that she's won, but I don't eat any of the fruit she tries to give me. I can't chew anything, especially not dried fruit. She sighs and gets up, grabbing some vines and trying to make something that will disguise the cave from the outside. I watch her for a while, still in shock that I'm here, that we're both alive. She finally groans and rips what she had down what she had finished.
"Katniss?" I croak out. She doesn't turn. I swallow and try to be louder. "Katniss." She hurries over, kneeling again, brushing my hair back from my face. "Thanks for finding me."
"You would have found me if you could," she says simply. She keeps pushing my hair back and suddenly looks worried. I know what she's thinking, and I agree; I won't make it out.
"Yes. Look, if I don't make it back-"
"Don't talk like that. I didn't drain all that pus for nothing," she tells me, trying to convince herself.
"I know, but just in case I don't-" I try to get out, but she cuts me off again.
"No, Peeta, I don't even want to discuss it," she sighs as she puts a finger on my lips.
"But I-" I begin again, trying to tell her that I want her to be prepared, that I want her to make it out. She doesn't let me finish. She's kissing me.
She breaks away too soon. I blink a few times, staring up at her in disbelief. I had imagined that happening in so many ways, never like that. I had thought of giving her bread as I had so many years ago, and suddenly finding that she was kissing me, telling me that she had loved me since we were children. Delly Cartwright once suggested that I just walk up to her and kiss her, but I told her that she must be joking. But I'd never thought that here, in the hunger games, where we would both die, was where we would connect.
Katniss breaks into my thoughts, saying "You're not going to die. I forbid it. All right?"
"All right," I reply, a slight smile playing at the edge of my lips.
I watch her as she steps out of the cave, turning just out of my view long enough for me to black out again. I wake up to her kissing me again, and though I've never been so mad at myself for losing consciousness, I'm glad she had an excuse to kiss me. She's holding a silver parachute in one hand and small pot of something that smells suspiciously like food in the other. She motions towards the pot. "Peeta, look what Haymitch has sent you!" Yay. I think, sighing inwardly. More food for her to try to make me eat.
Katniss can tell how unenthusiastic I am, and at first tries to intimidate me, along with a bit of pleading and ineffective charming. Finally she kisses me again, and I respond. Maybe she'll take it as a hint that that's the only way I'll take it.
Soon, the pot is empty and I feel myself drifting off. I dream for the first time since I've been in the Games. I'm back in District 12, walking out of what's left of my house, which is really nothing but what looks like it might have been the oven, and I'm walking slowly to Katniss' end of the Seam. It's a ghost town, everyone is gone, everything is rubble, ash. Katniss suddenly comes around the corner, headed straight towards the ruins of the bakery, her face screwed up in pain, mental pain, as if she's lost everything. "Katniss!" I walk up to her, meaning to wrap my arms around her, to comfort her. She walks right past me. "Katniss?" It's like she doesn't see me. She walks on, stopping in front of the bakery, staring up at it, contemplating something. She shakes her head, moaning, and backs up quickly until suddenly her knees are knocked out from under her by a huge metal mass. She sits on it a moment, catching her breath, and she realizes what it was, though I don't recognize it. Something seems to hit her, she gasps slightly, and squeezes her eyes shut, trembling. "Katniss, it's okay…" I sit down next to her, my arm around her shoulder. "What's wrong?"
And suddenly she is gone, she's taken off running, the tears that I'm not even sure that she's aware of flying down her cheeks. I sit, stunned, on the metal. Was she running from me? She acted like she couldn't see me, she acted like District 12 had been demolished, that everyone had died. I sit on the unidentifiable hunk of metal for what seems like a very long time and a very short time. Out of nowhere, I hear something overhead, and I look up. It's a helicopter, I realize, but it looks different from those in the Capitol. I watch it, emotionless, until I realize that it's headed to where Katniss ran.
"Katniss?" I stand up, my breath coming in short gasps. It's then that I see a small figure frozen on the ladder that descended from the helicopter, a small figure with dark braided hair. "Katniss!"
I lose the concept of time, I don't know if its hours or seconds that I see the ladder rising slowly, taking the one person that I would gladly give my life for with it. "Katniss!" I scream, and I start running towards it. It doesn't occur to me that of course I'll never catch up to it, of course I won't be able to keep up with it, get in it, save her. My feet pound against the ground, beating out a rhythm for me. I keep running, I keep myself going for her. I can save her! I CAN! I tell myself, because the concept of losing her to whoever is in that helicopter is enough to make me move even faster. "Katniss! Katniss!" I shout until the word is burned into my brain, and I'm still running.
I'm held up as I run, I feel like something's been wrapped around me, I can hardly jog. "Katniss…" I sob as I trip on something invisible and fall into the dirt. Rocks and ash are caught in my tangled hair as I twist violently, trying to get up, but it's useless. A single tear rolls down my cheek as I watch the helicopter take away the only person I've ever loved.
I wake up writhing in the sleeping bag, panting and shaking. "Katniss?" I say again. There's no answer. I struggle to get up, searching around the cave. She's gone.
No, no I can't lose her! Not again, not after I just woke up and realized that she was really still here!
I don't process the fact that Cato cut my leg to shreds, I forget all about everything but Katniss. Just as I'm about to rip the sleeping bag off of me and start running for her again, she walks in. Just like that. I breathe out a sigh of relief. "I woke up and you were gone! I was worried about you," I tell her, conveniently leaving out my dream of losing her.
To my shock, she laughs as she walks over to me, running her fingers through my hair and helping me back into the tangled mess of a sleeping bag. "You were worried about me? Have you taken a look at yourself lately?" Yes, actually, I'm in a cave that no one else knows about. You, however, left, and being out in the open with Cato and Clove is more dangerous than you know. I bite my tongue, and simply say, "I thought Cato and Clove might have found you. They like to hunt at night."
"Clove? Which one is that?"
"The girl from District Two. She's still alive, isn't she?" I've never hoped for the loss of someone's life, but now, I want Katniss to tell me that someone got rid of Clove.
"Yes, there's just them and us and Thresh and Foxface." I must look confused because she hastily says "That's what I nicknamed the girl from Five. How do you feel?"
I'm still upset that for a moment, I thought she was gone, but I decide to let it go. There's nothing I can do now. "Better than yesterday. This is an enormous improvement over the mud," I tell her, shuddering at the thought of being locked in the hardened earth for who knows how much longer. "Clean clothes and medicine and a sleeping bag…and you." I add, because I can't stand it anymore. I'm so glad that she's alright, and she's here with me.
She blushes slightly, though it looks a little off, and reaches out tenderly to my cheek. I take her hand, kissing it gently, as I stare up into her eyes, the color of the sky just after a storm. She pulls her hand back, smiling timidly, and lets out a short breath, as if she's breathless. "No more kisses for you until you've eaten," Katniss tells me playfully, and helps me sit up.
Soon I'm sitting with my back against the wall of the cave, swallowing something identifiable, but I don't really care anymore. I refuse the meat again (which she calls groosling), eating only the mush that she has.
I notice the dark circles under her eyes and something clicks in my head. "You didn't sleep."
"I'm all right," she replies, stifling a yawn.
"Sleep now. I'll keep watch," I tell her. "I'll wake if you anything happens."
She looks reluctant, but I can tell that she's about to drop anyway. I say, "Katniss, you can't stay up forever," and I can tell that I've won her over.
"All right, but just for a few hours. Then you wake me." Like I would take her out of the little bliss that we have in the Games unless we were in danger.
She smoothes out the sleeping bag and curls up on it, one hand on her bow. I move over so that I'm just next to her and lay my leg flat in front of me. "Go to sleep," I whisper, brushing her hair behind her ear, and I feel her relax, her breathing slow as she drifts off.
I stroke her hair long after she's fallen asleep, and I notice that the look on her face is completely unfamiliar. It's because she's calm, she's not worried. Even when I saw her at home, she always had a scowl on her face, she was always concerned that she couldn't feed her family. Now, in the Games, she could die, and I can't blame her for scowling here, too.
Time passes and the light changes in the cave. It's darker, cooler, and I'm still staring into a perfect face. Her eyes flutter open and she takes in the changed setting. I see it register in her eyes, she knows that I didn't wake her up when I was supposed to. "Peeta, you were supposed to wake me up after a couple of hours!" she tells me, avoiding my gaze and grabbing her bow.
"For what?" I ask. "Nothing's going on here. Besides, I like watching you sleep. You don't scowl. Improves your looks a lot."
She scowls again, and I grin because she didn't get the joke that nothing could improve her at all.