When I wake I feel as though thick fog is clouding my mind. Something, pulling at the edges of my memory, trying to come back…when did I fall asleep anyway? I don't remember getting into the sleeping bag… the last thing I remember is Katniss bringing me the sugar berries…
"Katniss!" I suddenly remember. I open my eyes in a startle and jerk my body upright, in a reflex reaction, without thinking. I hold my breath, expecting the pain to take its toll for my stupid reaction…but asides from a head-rush, nothing happens, no pain. I stare at my now un-swollen leg in confusion for about a second before I become aware of the bloody scene next to me.
"Katniss!" I gasp in horror. "Oh no, oh no," I crouch anxiously over her not sure what to do. "What happened to you?" I worry out loud. I gently turn her face around. There's a huge gash in her forehead, and she has a small cut in her lip. There are also a number of bruises and scratches distributed where her skin is exposed, but those don't worry me right now. I'm more concerned with stopping the blood that's slowly flowing from her forehead. It's not a lot, but judging from the scary pool of blood she's laying in, any small amount of blood counts.
"Why couldn't you just listen to me for once?" I demand, though I know she can't hear me. Why cat you understand that if you die, I die, too? That the only reason I'm still breathing is because of you. That life wouldn't mean anything to me if you stopped breathing…
I reach for the bottle of water and slowly pour it on her face, washing away the dried blood and dirt. With some effort, I manage to move her on to the sleeping bag. I look through the emergency kit and am glad to find white, sterile bandages. But before I bandage her forehead, I chew on some of those leaves she used to drain the pus from my leg, and put it on the cut until it dries and then wash it away. Finally, I put some burn ointment on her forehead, and then carefully bandage her forehead.
Her face is pale – too pale – and that worries me. The pool of blood on the cave floor is not all she lost. If she got cut at the cornucopia while fighting for whatever it is she gave me, then she had a lot of time to lose blood on her way back here.
I sit next to her, brushing the hair off her face with my fingers. I gently touch the small cut on the corner of her lips and sigh, shaking my head. This is all my fault, I think. Why didn't I just let Cato kill me? Why did I have to put this heavy burden on her fragile shoulders?
I sit by her through the entire night, sometimes staring through the cave door at nothing in particular, sometimes at her beautiful, peaceful face. Having slept through I don't know how long keeps sleep from taking me over, and I'm glad for that. I don't want to put my guard down now that she needs me. Though if our friend Cato found us right now I wouldn't be of much help… I don't know how long I sat like that before my stomach growled hungrily. I look through Katniss's bag till I find the groosling that had seemed so revolting to me a couple of days ago. I eat three pieces before I realize that's probably not a good idea, considering that Katniss is unconscious and I'm not strong enough to hunt yet. I return to take my place next to Katniss. Shortly after the anthem plays, and I watch as the picture of Clove lights the sky and then disappears. I'm not surprised. If Katniss made it back, then that means somebody else didn't.
I lose track of time, distracted with my own thoughts, but am brought back when – after so long – I catch a small fidgeting on my peripheral vision. I turn my attention on Katniss who is now groaning lightly.
"Katniss? Katniss, can you hear me?"
Her eyes open slowly, a strange expression crosses her face, like she was expecting to see somebody else, but then she smiles
"Peeta," she says in a raspy whisper.
I take a deep breath of relief.
"Hey," I smile back. "Good to see your eyes again."
"How long have I been out?" she asks after clearing her throat.
"Not sure," I answer truthfully. "I woke up yesterday evening and you were laying next to me in a very Scary pool of blood." I shudder at the memory. "I think it's stopped finally, but I wouldn't sit up or anything."
She gingerly lifts her hand to her head to touch the bandage covering her forehead. I reach for a bottle of water and hold it to her lips. She drinks thirstily.
"You're better," she says.
"Much better. Whatever you shot into my arm did the trick. By this morning almost all the swelling in my leg was gone." I should be furious with her right now for having endangered her life like that, but right now the last thing she needs is me yelling at her.
"Did you eat?" she asks tenderly.
"I'm sorry to say I gobbled down three pieces of groosling before I realized it might have to last a while," I say guiltily. "Don't worry, I'm back on a strict diet."
"No, it's good," she says quickly. "You need to eat. I'll go hunting soon."
"Not too soon, all right? Just let me take care of you for a while."
I feed her bites of groosling and make sure she drinks plenty of water. I rub her ice cold feet, trying to return some warmth on to them, and then wrap them securely on my jacket before I tuck the sleeping bag back up to her chin.
"Your boot and sucks are still damp and the weather is not helping much," I say. There's a clap of thunder and we see lightning electrify the sky through an opening in the rocks.
Rain starts dripping through holes in the cave ceiling, and so I build a sort of canopy over her head and upper body by wedging the square of plastic into the rocks above her.
"I wonder what brought on this storm?" I muse. "I mean, who's the target?"
"Cato and Thresh," she says. "Foxface will be in her den somewhere, and Clove… she cut me and then…" her voice trails off.
"I know Clove's dead. I saw it in the sky last night. Did you kill her?" I ask with no accusation in my voice, but just morbid curiosity.
"No. Thresh broke her skull with a rock," she says and shudders lightly.
Well, now that's a surprise. I hadn't heard from Thresh since the moment I saw him run toward the field of tall grass, opposite from the woods and the lake.
"Lucky he didn't catch you, too." I murmur.
"He did," she says, and a strange shade of green – like the time she drained the puss out of my leg – colors her face. "But he let me go."
She sees the confusion on my face and explains how she had blown up the career's supplies of food, how she had been left deaf form one ear, how she watched Rue – her ally – die, how she killed the boy from District 12, and finally, attempted to explain how Thresh had let her go to pay off the debt he felt to her for having been on Rue's side.
"He let you go because he didn't want to owe you anything?" I ask in disbelief.
"Yes. I don't expect you to understand. You've always had enough. But if you lived in the Seam, I wouldn't have to explain," she says gloomily.
"And don't try," I tell her. "Obviously I'm too dim to get it."
"It's like the bread," she muses. "How I never seem to get over owing you for that."
"The bread?" I ask confused "What? From when we were kids? I think we can let that go. I mean, you just brought me back from the dead."
"But you didn't know me," she insists. "We had never even spoken. Besides, it's the first gift that's always the hardest to pay back. I wouldn't even have been here to do it if you hadn't helped me then" She's silent for a moment but then asks "Why did you, anyway?"
"Why? You know why," I say. If it's not obvious by now that I'm in love with her, then I don't know how else to prove it. She shakes her head lightly. "Haymitch said you it would take a lot of convincing," I muse aloud.
"Haymitch?" she asks confused. "What's he got to do with it?"
"Nothing," I say. It's no use trying to explain right now. "So, Cato and thresh, huh?" I change the subject. "I guess it's too much to hope that they'll simultaneously destroy each other?"
"I think we would like Thresh," she says sounding upset. "I think he'd be our friend back in District 12."
"Then let's hope Cato kill him, so we won't have to," I say grimly.
Tears start to fill her eyes.
"What is it?" I ask in concern. "Are you in a lot of pain?"
"I want to go home, Peeta," she says, and I understand that it's not the physical pain that's afflicting her.
"You will. I promise," I say and bend over to give her a kiss. One way or the other I'll make sure she makes it home.
"I want to go home now."
"Tell you what. You go back to sleep and dream of home. And you'll be there for real before you know it. Okay?"
"Okay," she whispers and a tear escapes her eyes. "Wake me to keep watch."
"I'm good and rested, thanks to you and Haymitch. Besides, who knows how long this will last?" Who know how long I'll be able to watch over you. Who knows how long I have with you.
I let her sleep through the day, but eventually I have to wake her up because the water is starting to drip on her… and also because I'm starving and I don't want to eat alone.
There's not much left. Two pieces of groosling, a small mishmash of roots, and a handful of dried fruit.
"Should we try and ration it?" I ask.
"No, let's just finish it. The groosling's getting old anyway, and the last thing we need is to get sick off spoiled food," she says dividing the food into two equal piles.
We eat slowly, but we're both so hungry we're done in just a few minutes.
"Tomorrow's a hunting day," she announces.
"I won't be much help with that," I say glumly. "I've never hunted before."
"I'll kill and you cook. And you can always gather."
"I wish there was some sort of bread bush out there."
"The bread they sent me from District eleven was still warm," she sighs. "Here, chew these." She hands me a couple of mint leaves and pops a few in her own mouth.
"Where did Thresh go?" she wonders after the anthem played without casualties. "I mean, what's on the far side of the circle?"
"A field. As far as you can see it's full of grasses as high as my shoulders. I don't know, maybe some of them are grain. There are patches of different colors. But there are no paths."
"I bet some of them are grain. I bet Thresh knows which one, too. Did you go in there?"
"No, nobody really wanted to track Thresh down in that grass. It has a sinister feeling to it. Every time I look at that field all I can think of are hidden things. Sakes and rabid animals, and quicksand," I say. "There could be anything in there."
"Maybe there's a bread bush in that field," she says after a long silence. "Maybe that's why Thresh looks better fed now than when we started the Games."
"Either that or he's got very generous sponsors," I say. I would put good money on Thresh if I were them. "I wonder what we'd have to do to get Haymitch to send us some bread," I muse.
She reaches for my hand.
"Well, he probably used up a lot of resources helping me knock you out," she says impishly.
"Yeah, about that," I say entwining my fingers with hers. "Don't try something like that again."
"Or what?" she challenges.
"Or… or…" I can't come up with anything good. "Just give me a minute."
"What's the problem?" she asks with a grin.
"The problem is we're both still alive. Which only reinforces the idea in your mind that you did the right thing," I answer her.
"I did do the right thing"' she says.
"No! Just don't Katniss!" I say angrily. "Don't die for me. You won't be doing me any favors. All right?"
"Maybe I did it for myself, Peeta, did you ever think of that?" she snaps. "Maybe you aren't the only one who… who worries about…what it would be like if…" she trails off staring down.
"If what, Katniss?" I say softly, lifting her chin up so that I can stare into her eyes.
"That's exactly the kind of topic Haymitch told me to stay clear of," she mumbles.
"Then I'll just have to fill in the blanks myself," I whisper and lean in to her.
She doesn't pull back. Her warm, soft lips move with mine in strange patterns. My hear starts hammering almost painfully against my chest. My breathing is becoming faster and hollow, and so is hers. My fingers braid themselves in her hair, while hers gently caresses the back of my neck. I pull back to catch my breath and realize with some annoyance that her wound has opened again. I kiss the tip of her nose lightly and untangle my fingers off her hair.
"I think your wound is bleeding again," I whisper. "Come on, lie down, it's bedtime anyway."
In a way I'm glad for the interruption; I'm just a guy after all, and the fact that I'm desperately in love with her doesn't help. This sort of stuff is too private, and I know the Capital got a good look. Maybe if they weren't watching…
She puts on her socks and gives me back my jacket. The night is so cold that it reaches my bones. She wants to take the first watch, but I won't agree to that unless she's in the bag, too. As we settle in, I pull her head down to use my arm as a pillow, while my other arm rests protectively over her. For a while I marvel at how nature has been created so perfectly balanced. At how the shape of her slender body fits perfectly into the shape of mine…like two puzzle pieces. I pull her closer against my chest, resting my chin on her head, and with the reassuring warmth emanating from her body I slowly drift off into sleep.