A/N: I'm back, everyone! This is a longer chapter than usual, but I thought you guys deserved it :)

Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games. Anything you recognize, I don't own.

A day later, I go up to the stairs to go hunting. But when I reach them, I see Gale.

So it's the first time in over a month I go hunting with Gale. I'd forgotten what it was like, having a hunting partner. Someone to watch our back.

Even though we've been here for nearly six months, the game still isn't suspicious. We get lucky, and catch seven squirrels and three rabbits.

Gale offers to clean the game, so I let him, sucking on a mint leaf. Luxuriating in the golden sun.

"Katniss?" Gale's voice brings me out of my stupor. "Why do you care about your prep team so much?"

"I—I really don't know," I confess, shrugging my shoulders. "They're kind of like little children. It seems so wrong to hurt them."

"Ah," says Gale, but I can tell he's not very impressed.

"I mean, well, they've made me over! Like, a bunch of times." This is so dumb. Why would I defend my prep team? "They're not bad—they're like little kids! Like Prim, or Posy!"

My voice is rising to a shout. "I guess, maybe, Mr. Gale Hawthorne, when they're the people that help make you beautiful before you're shut in an arena with 23 other people who want to rip your face off and you're probably not going to live; well, they kind of become important to you!"

Gale raises his eyebrows.

I just hmpf and stalk off back to 13.

I'm in a bad mood all day. Nobody talks to me, I think they might be scared of me. Well, they should be.

I wake up to a very familiar face in my face. "Ohmygosh Prim!" I shriek. "Don't DO that!"

She giggles. "Sorry, Katniss, but—well, I couldn't resist."

I sigh dramatically. "So what's got you all hyped up? I haven't seen you this excited since I got you Lady."

I barely even noticed my bad mood going far, far, far away.

She leans over and whispers the two words I will remember for the rest of my life.

"Peeta's awake."

I don't remember going to the hospital at all, but I must have because I don't know how to teleport.

I crash into Peeta's ward, ignoring the guy at the front desk who yells at me to sign in, but then gives up really quickly. Maybe he saw the look on my face or something.

And then I open the door.

Chris and Rye and Mr. Mellark, even Prim, are there.

And then in the middle of the room is Peeta himself.

"Peeta!" I cry and run over to him.

"Katniss," he says, looking oddly strained. "Katniss, go, run! Snow wants you!"

I freeze, not sure what to do.

"Katniss!" Peeta says hysterically, "GO! GO! RUN!"

"Peeta?" I ask cautiously. "Are you, um, okay?"

But Peeta doesn't answer. Instead he vaults off his bed running towards me, to hug me? I don't know. I reach out my arms to return the hug.

But instead his hands lock around my throat.

The last thing I see is Peeta's crazed blue eyes staring back into my own grey ones.

I'm in the hospital again. Not in 13 though, it's the one from the Capitol, that I was in after my first Games.

Many people come to visit me. The door opens to reveal Haymitch, holding a bottle of beer. Prim, with her Healer's outfit and a stethoscope.

Chris and Rye and Mr. Mellark, all holding bags of flour and throwing them at each other. All three are covered in flour.

Even the dead come visit. Cinna arrives, sewing me another fire dress. Beetee brings some technology for me to look at. Mags comes and sits by my bed, holding up a fish hook.

I think I fall asleep, because when I open my eyes again, I'm back in reality with nobody in my room.

But as soon as I stir, a red-haired doctor bustles in. It takes me a moment to place him, but I remember he's Peeta's doctor. Dr…something. It started with M.

"Hello, Soldier Everdeen," he says, sounding positively chipper. "How are you feeling?"

"I….really don't know," I say honestly. My voice sounds cracked, like I drank a tube of toothpaste or something. "What…happened?"

"Peeta was trying to kill you," he explains. "We think the part that was left of what you saw before the coma, the Peeta you remember, was trying to warn you. The Peeta the Capitol…made…was trying to kill you. I think you know why."

My fingers go and trace the lumps on my neck. "Those?" Dr. M explains. "We had to do a bit of surgery after it happened, we didn't want you to lose your voice."

I nod, slowly, taking it all in. "Where's…"

"Where's Peeta? He's back in his room, now under surveillance and lock and key. Even got a machine to knock him out if he starts to be too crazy."

I nod again. "Can I go see him?"

"I—well, I really don't know, Katniss," he says, sounding pained.

"Please?"

Something in the doctor seems to give because he says, "All right. Let's wheel your stretcher down."

I manage to talk him out of a stretcher, though, and into a wheelchair.

I cautiously open the door and wheel myself in. It's an awfully awkward process, partly because I have no idea how to maneuver this thing, and partly because Peeta's staring at me with such intensity.

It's a little creepy.

"Hello," I cautiously venture.

"Katniss."

"I—um—yeah, that's me."

The awkwardness in this darn room could choke a deer or something.

"How are you?" I ask, trying to make conversation, but not succeeding.

"Don't try to make conversation Katniss, you're not very good at it," he says lightly but I can sense a darker undertone.

"Well what should I do?"

"Talk," Peeta says, like tis is the most obvious thing in the world.

"Well—but you just told me not to make conversation!" I say, frustrated.

"I did, didn't I?" asks Peeta. Then suddenly his demeanor changes. "Katniss, KATNISS, RUN! They're coming for you! They'll rip you to pieces! RUN!"

Then he's madly struggling at the restraits, but it's worthless. In a few moments he goes limp.

I slowly wheel out of the room, blinking back tears.

I stare at the wall for days upon days. Peeta's worse than he was in his coma. It's like he was remade with a different brain or something. Depressing.

Dr. M. comes in one day and says, "Hey Katniss, we've got an idea. Will you come talk to Peeta? I want to see if I can prove something." He pauses, then adds, "It might help make him better."

So I allow myself to be wheeled down. The conversation's the same as it was last time.

The very next day, Dr. M. comes in grinning like…..I don't know. I don't know anything that grins like that. Kinda creepy, actually.

"We've figured out what's wrong with Peeta," he says.

In people terms, he explains it to me.

In the Capitol, they'd also injected him with a sort of poison. It would take effect when Peeta breathed in smoke, and then it would throw him into a coma for twenty-three days. Then the poison would work its effect.

Basically, it wouldn't kill Peeta, it would just make him see things when he saw me. Mutts. Tracker jackers. Everything you could think of.

The best part, he says, is that Peeta tries to fight back. When he's telling me to run, he fighting against the poison.

But the poison always overpowers him.

There's no known cure, Dr. M. says, because the Capitol had just developed it and decided to try it on Peeta. It's a horrific thing.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry after Dr. M. leaves. So I do both.

Oh yes! This was so fun to write. Oh, how I love making my characters...and my readers...suffer...

Heh, heh, heh.

There's nothing much to say, except I still want you to REVIEW!

Until next time!

~~FuzzySocksAndWriting