3...2...1.. Hi everyone, welcome back to Peeta's Story. I'd like to start off thanking all of you for sticking around for the continuation of this story, even though I haven't been updating regularly. It means so much to me. So, I'm going to let you read on to the story now.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games or its characters.
"Peeta..." a voice whispers from within the surrounding darkness. "Peeta... ," it says. I don't know where I am. I can see nothing. Not my hands. Not the floor or sky, but I can sense that something is there. I search and search, but there isn't anything to find. There's nothing, but black. I call after her until my throat hurts. My mind races a mile a minute. Where is she? Is she okay? Is she hurt? Why is Prim calling for me?
Suddenly, something materializes behind me. I whirl around and see Prim. I stare at her meticulously. Her blonde hair, although slightly tinted by our surroundings, is in two braids just like at the Reaping. She still wears the skirt and ruffled blouse from that day. She appears as if she hasn't changed at all, but there's something different. She seems agitated. Maybe at me...
"How dare you," she says barely over a whisper. "How could you? Why did you do it?"
Her voice has risen to a shout. I have never heard her yell before. I mean, she did cry out at the Reaping, but here she sounds angry, not scared for her sister's life. I'm utterly confused. She is accusing me of something, but I don't know what I did. I open my mouth to ask, but she stops me.
"No," she says through gritted teeth. "I rather not know. You, of all people. I thought you were kind, generous, and gentle, but you're not! I guess your true colors showed the very first day of the games. You lied to the whole country! You're a liar!"
"I didn't lie. I was trying to help her, I swear," I try to reason. "I was -"
"No, you weren't," she exclaims. Tears are now rolling down her cheeks. "You joined the Careers. District Twelve tributes never join them! You helped them get to her, to my sister! She could be dead right now, but you wouldn't know about that because you've been lying useless by a river, covered head-to-toe in mud!"
I think she may be done ..scolding me, but then she says something that I will never be able to unhear.
"I thought you were a good guy," she says barely audible. I have no time to respond because she's swallowed up by the darkness.
What she said begins to sink in. I thought I was a good guy too. Now, I'm not so sure. Everything I did was to help Katniss, but did it really help her? Could I have possibly made it worse for her?
My eyes snap open at a sound I can't quite place. My ears prick up. I can barely hear the sound of a mockingjay. It sounds like its calling my name. Could it have been a hallucination? Simply a figment of my imagination. I had just dismissed it as my mind playing tricks on me when I hear it again. This time followed by the soft muffled sounds of footsteps.
I scan my surroundings. I barely get a glimpse of what I assume is Katniss. I shut my eyes and slow my breathing. Right when I hear her feet fall close to me, I speak as loud as I dare.
"You here to finish me off, sweetheart."
I hear myself speak for the first time in days. I sound hoarse and weak, the very opposite of what I'm used to hearing. I hear her feet swirl in the mud.
"Peeta?" she whispers. "Where are you?"
I listen intently as she comes nearer and nearer.
"Peeta?" she whispers once again. From her voice, I can tell she is dangerously close to me. I think if I stuck out my arm, I would be able to grab her ankle.
"Well, don't step on me."
She jumps back splattering fresh mud onto the side of my face. I allow my eyes to open. She looks frighteningly beautiful at first, but her expression is so ridiculous that I actually laugh. I watch her as she regains her composure.
"Close your eyes again," she orders and I, of course, obey. I can feel her eyes studying the artwork on my body. "I guess all those hours decorating cakes paid off."
My lips turn up in a smile. "Yes, frosting. The final defense of the dying."
"You're not going to die," she tells me. Yes, I am. And ... I'm fine with it. Especially, now that I know she's alive and well. Unless, this is just another hallucination. No, I don't think it is. She's seems pretty real to me.
"Says who?" I ask. My voice is really ragged.
"Says me. We're on the same team now, you know," Katniss says.
I open my eyes again. "So, I heard. Nice of you to find what's left of me."
She reaches into the side of her backpack and pulls out a water bottle. She puts it to my lips and tilting it back I drink the first sip of water I had in days. The water feels good as it spreads over my cracked lips and dry tongue.
"Did Cato cut you?" she asks.
"Left leg. Up high," I inform her.
Her head turns to the stream and then back at me. "Let's get you in the stream, wash you off so I can see what kind of wounds you've got," she says. At least that's what I think she said. My mind is buzzing. I think I may be at a loss of inhibitions.
"Lean down a minute first," I say. "Need to tell you something."
She gives me a weird look before putting her right ear close to my mouth. I whisper to her, causing her to flinch slightly.
"Remember, we're madly in love, so it's all right to kiss me anytime you feel like it."
I'm for sure at a loss of inhibitions. Maybe when you're close to death, you're given false confidence to speak your unspoken thoughts.
She jerks her head back laughing. That wasn't the reaction I was expecting, but I actually made her laugh. And I mean really laugh. I like her laugh. "Thanks I'll keep it in mind."
She attempts to help me to the stream, but the slightest movement causes an intense flash of pain. I try my best to not cry out, but the pain is so bad that I can't help it. The more she tries to help me, the more it hurts. She full on tries to drag me, but my weight and the weeds prevent her. She gives tug after tug until I'm free from their clutches. Then, she stops all together. I watch her blurred figure through my tears and keep my teeth gritted in attempt to overcome the pain. Soon enough I feel a warm sticky liquid trickle down the side of my leg.
"Look, Peeta, I'm going to roll you into the stream. It's very shallow here, okay?" she says. I don't know how she's going to manage to do that, but at least she sounds determined.
"Excellent," I manage to say.
She crouches down next to me and places one hand on my shoulder and the other on my hip. "On three." Think light. Think light. "One, two, three!"
We manage one roll before she stops. And I think I know why. She stopped because of the sound I was making. Even I'm surprised by how horrid I sounded.
"Okay, change of plans. I'm not going to put you all the way in," she tells me.
"No more rolling?"
"That's all done. Let's get you cleaned up. Keep an eye on the woods for me, okay?" she says.
"Sounds good," I say breathlessly. That roll really winded me. I alternate from watching the woods to watching Katniss hesitantly pick off the weeds.
Once the weeds are gone and it's just mud, she props two bottles and a water skin against rocks in the stream to fill. She takes one and pours it over the caked mud. She repeats this process over and over again until she reaches my clothes. She looks relieved when she sees them. She seriously didn't think I was naked, did she?
I admit that I get kind of tingly when she unzips my jacket and unbuttons my shirt. I know notice that my undershirt is sticking to my skin. Katniss has to cut it away with her knife and drench me once again. Then, she looks over the wounds on my upper body.
"Okay, let's get you out of this puddle before I treat your wounds," she tells me. I agree. It's kind of pointless to clean up wounds in a muddy puddle.
It takes a lot in me and probably Katniss as well, but we manage to get me sitting against a boulder. My eyes follow her as she walks to the stream to pick up a water bottle. They start to close. After all the tugging of my limbs, I just feel so tired. I barely even notice Katniss as she pours the water over my head with one hand and the other runs through my hair.
I finally start to come back when she rinses off my bare chest. Every spot her fingers touch leaves a burning sensation. My arms get goosebumps and there's this stirring in the pit of my stomach. My heart pounds against my chest.
The first thing she tends to is the tracker jacker stings. They have grown in size. Katniss digs out what I think are the stingers. I wince everytime she gets one out. With them out, the tracker jacker lumps begin to sting with refound pain. But after Katniss applies these mushy leaves that she put in her mouth, the pain instantly vanishes.
"I'll go wash your shirt while you dry off," she says gathering my shirt and jacket in her arms. She doesn't even wait for an answer. She dips them into the stream and beats them against rocks. After that she spreads them across boulders. During the whole time she does that, I try to fight off the drowsiness that's beginning to over take me.
Katniss startles me when she applies a cool cream to my chest. Instantly, I feel relief and the warmth that radiates from beneath her fingertips as they glide over the burn, feels welcoming. The look of concern crosses her face. She begins to look through her first aid kit anxiously. She takes something in her hand and gives it to me.
"Swallow these," she says. I obediently take the pills. "You must be hungry."
"Not really. It's funny, I haven't been hungry for days," I tell her. Honestly, I haven't ate anything and food hasn't even crossed my mind until she brought it up.
"Here. Can you at least try to eat a piece of groosling," she says offering me a piece. My nose wrinkles in disgust and I turn away from it. "Peeta, we need to get some food in you."
"It'll just come right back up," I tell her. Just the smell
of that groosling made me feel nauseous.
Katniss won't take no for an answer, so she hands me dried apples and orders me to eat a little bit of it. She is getting frustrated with me, I can feel it. So I do as she says to make her feel better, even though it makes me even more nauseous than before.
"Thanks. I'm much better, really. Can I sleep now, Katniss?"
"Soon," she promises. "I need to look at your leg, first."
She gently takes off my boots and socks. They're placed off to the side on the flat rock. As she unbuttons my pants, the feeling returns. That natural stirring that just makes me feel funny inside. I force that feeling away as she eases my pants off. The nausea's back at the sight of my own leg. It looks awful.
The whole thigh is swollen and stinks of festering flesh. The cut itself is deep and inflamed oozing both blood and pus. I tear my eyes away from my leg to Katniss. She looks like she wants to be anywhere but here.
"Pretty awful, huh?" I ask.
"So-so," she says trying to sound nonchalant, but ultimately failing. "You should see some of the people they bring my mother from the mines."
I have. Everyone has. Not much happens in District Twelve. So, when a group of people surrounding someone, hastily making their way to the Seam leaving a trail of coal dust and blood, people are going to pay attention.
"The first thing is to clean it well."
Katniss manages to slide a plastic square beneath me. She then pours water over my lower body, but as the water washes over the wound, it appears worse. She quickly takes care of the tracker jacker sting and a few burns, but she stares unsure at cut.
"Why don't we give it some air and then ... " she says trailing off.
"And then you'll patch it up?" I ask. Katniss is staring down at my leg while chewing on her bottom lip. This is the first time I see her not knowing what to do. Her weary, nervous expression unsettles me. She shouldn't have to deal with me. I'm a lost cause. She should be out there trying to win this.
"That's right," she says. "In the meantime, you eat these."
She puts dried pear halves in my hand and goes to wash the rest of my clothes. To pass time, I study the pear halves. I try to imagine what I'd be like to pain them. By the time I've memorized them, Katniss had laid my clothes to dry and is currently rummaging through that first-aid kit of hers. I wonder where she got it. Possibly Haymitch sent it to her.
"We're going to have to experiment some," she admits. She starts with chewed-up green leaves of some sort. Within minutes, pus begins to run down the side of my leg.
To keep myself from throwing up the dried fruit, I keep my eyes on anything but the wound. Eventually, my eyes land on Katniss. She's chewing on the inside of her cheek and turning slightly green. She needs a distraction.
"Katniss?" I ask. Her eyes meet mine. Say something, Peeta. Distract her from your horrendous leg. Come on, say something. "How about that kiss?" I mouth.
She bursts out laughing almost immediately. Is the idea of kissing me that ridiculous? This is just like those scenarios that I make up in my head whenever I push myself to try to talk to her. It's normally the same scenario in my head. I go over to her and try talking , but Gale strolls over and makes a comment about my insecurities. Then, they both laugh in my face and I walk away with my head down.
But this time, its real. This is real. Normally, everything in your mind is an exaggeration of reality, but she really did just burst out laughing. Why would she laugh at me like that? What did I do wrong?
"Something wrong?" I ask her.
"I ... I'm no good at this. I'm not my mother. I've no idea what I'm doing and I hate pus," Katniss says. "Euh!" She let's out a groan as she rinses away the leaves and applies a fresh batch of them. "Euuuh!"
I feel a smile creeping on face. "How do you hunt?" I ask. I hope the audience doesn't pick on the idea that she hunts illegally. I don't want her to get in trouble.
"Trust me. Killing things is much easier than this," she says with the hint of a smirk. "Although for all I know, I am killing you."
"Can you speed it up a little?" I joke.
"No. Shut up and eat your pears."
I do as she says because this time she's watching me. Well, I didn't get a kiss, but I did get something else. And I'm not talking about the pears. Katniss admitted weakness. She admitted to me that she didn't know what she was doing. To anyone else this wouldn't mean anything, but to me it means she's starting to trust me. Her trust is something I've always wanted.
After three applications of chewed leaves and a lot of pus, it doesn't look so bad. Well, it does look bad. I mean, I can see the bone, but at least the swelling has gone down.
"What next, Dr. Everdeen?"
"Maybe I'll put some of the burn ointment on it. I think it helps with infection anyway. And wrap it up?" she says. She does exactly that. Then, Katniss tilts her head to the side glancing between my undershorts and the bandage. She reaches for a backpack. "Here, cover yourself with this and I'll wash your shorts."
"Oh, I don't care if you see me," I say. Nudity doesn't have much of an impact on me.
"You're just like the rest of my family," she says. "I care, all right?" She turns her back to me. So, the lethal hunter is uncomfortable when it comes to nudity. I would have never guessed. I cover myself with the backpack as I slowly pull off the shorts. Hopefully, if I did this correctly, I didn't expose myself to the cameras. I grip the shorts in one hand and throw them toward the stream.
"You know, you're kind of squeamish for such a lethal person," I say. "I wish I'd let you give Haymitch a shower after all."
Her nose wrinkles in disgust. "What's he sent you so far?"
"Not a thing," I respond. Then, it hits me. The question sounded as if she had gotten something and is just curious to know if I had gotten something as well. "Why, did you get something?"
She stops what she's doing and looks over at me. Her cheeks turn a little red with guilt. "Burn medicine," she says a bit sheepishly. "Oh, and some bread."
I give a knowing smile. "I always knew you were his favorite."
"Please, he can't stand being in the same room with me."
"Because you're just alike," I mutter.
With occasional small talk, I eventually doze off. It isn't long until Katniss wakes me.
Again, I apologize for not updating lately. I hope this long chapter makes up for it. Until next time (which I promise will be soon), my awesome readers.
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