Good news! Well, bad news first. I completely broke my laptop. Like SERIOUSLY broke. But I sent it to the shop and I have it back now. So hooray. Now to the business of thanking everyone for the reviews. They were…amazing, hilarious, sweet, friggin' pee-my-pants-with-laughter, etc. But the part I enjoyed most had to be in almost every single review. You were seriously flipping out about Katniss dying. It was amazing. I couldn't stop laughing (evilly, mind you) for an hour. I feel so mean… You'll find out soon enough, though. :DD Read, read, read!
oOo
Peeta's POV. Still.
When I became conscious again, it was slowly and painfully. Nothing was physically wrong, but having the realization of Katniss' stupid decision crashed down on me so hard it was as if a bowling ball was dropped from fifty feet and landed on my heart, crushing it under the weight. Trying to keep my sanity, I peeled my heavy eyelids over my eyes and forced myself to stare up at the ceiling with dry eyes. I couldn't even cry. This was a bad sign.
I stiffly moved my head to the side and saw the two seats in the corner of my hospital room occupied. Ms. Everdeen and Primrose were seated in the chairs next to one another, arms wrapped around each others' thin bodies. Seeing the grief-stricken tears in their identical blue eyes, I felt the feeling in my heart sink to my bare feet. No, no, no, no… I swallowed loudly.
Apparently it was loud, because Prim's head snapped upwards and she stared at me with a watery look. "Peeta!" She hiccupped and ran from her mothers' arms into mine. This time, I didn't hesitate at all bringing the small body closer to me, our mutual loss forming an unspoken bond.
Ms. Everdeen saw me awake and came over, too. And suddenly, I was enveloped in the arms of my family, them crying, me trying to register what was happening. Katniss just couldn't….she couldn't be gone. She just couldn't.
For a while we were like that, as if it were the most normal thing in the world, even though I wasn't related to either of them. I sat there, letting their tears wet my hair and clothes, wanting to produce some of my own. But none would come.
After a half-hour, they pulled away, hiccupping with red eyes and tears streaking their delicate faces. I didn't know what to say.
"Come on, Peeta." Ms. Everdeen stood up and offered me her hand. It was warm and comforting. "There's something you might need to see."
When I stood up, I was pleased to note I was somewhat stable, but still in a hospital gown. To my surprise, there was an astounding lack of nurses or doctors in sight. Even when I was righted just fine, Prim's mother kept hold of my hand gently, like a real mother would do. Prim just followed, sticking quite close to my side.
We made our way out the door and down an unfamiliar hospital hallway. I had never been here before, but it looked mildly familiar. My eyes flicked up to the sign hanging a ways in front of us on the ceiling; "Critical Care Unit". Ms. Everdeen led us straight past that sign and through a set of double doors. Critical care was good, right? To be honest, I was expecting our visit to lead us to the morgue, but just having that thought in my head made me choke.
For only five more minutes we walked, feet growing more unsteady by the minute, until we finally stopped. There was a door in front of us, and a little piece of paper stuck in a slot next to the door said:
Patient: Katniss Everdeen
Care Provider: Dr. Nadia Kraaling
I swallowed hard and looked towards Ms. Everdeen for a sign that would allow me to go in. Ms. Everdeen reached over and knocked briskly on the door.
We were greeted by a professional-looking doctor with grey hair and chocolate-y brown eyes. She waved us inside. But it was near impossible not to pass out again when I saw the body laying flat on the hospital table behind the glass observation wall.
Katniss was stretched out on the plastic, and looked as if she was sleeping peacefully, but I was not fooled. She was dressed in almost nothing, exposing the horrible state she was in.
Blood seeped through a thick white bandage taped across her stomach, mostly in a certain two-square-inch area that I had no doubt was a gunshot wound.
Nearly all of her body was covered in shiny red burns, and on one part of her arm the skin was eaten away nearly to the bone with scorched brown skin. I nearly vomited.
A bandage was wrapped thickly around one of her hands, except I could help but see the finger—or lack thereof—bleeding through. But along with the bandage was a cast from the elbow down to her remaining fingers.
A row of stitches stretched over one side of her ribs, covered in black bruises that obviously told us that Katniss' ribs had been crushed.
Her right leg, from the knee down was off-white casting, discoloration visible under the edges of the cast.
But was disgusted me the most was a large patch of skin completely off on her torso. There were two doctors hovering over Katniss' body, attempting to graft a piece of synthetic membrane of the meaty patch. Stitches fingered nearly every part of her body, some long, some barely an inch short. The sight sped my heart up, and I had to lean heavily against the wall in order not to crumple to the ground.
Ms. Everdeen looked sympathetic. "She's been in here for a week."
A week? I couldn't help but feel puzzled. "I wasn't actually out that long, was I?"
It was their turn to look confused. "Peeta, you woke up several times and walked around. You don't…?"
I shook my head, but dropped the subject on purpose, my attention turning back to Katniss. "But she's…alive?"
This time, it was the nice lady nurse with us on the other side of glass' turn to step forward. "For now yes, Mr. Mellark."
My heart felt like it thudded to a stop. "For now?"
The nurse blinked sadly and opened the door. "We should talk about that."
As we walked out of the small room, Primrose started crying again and clung to me and her mother. We stopped outside and closed the door behind us.
"I'm afraid…" The nurse sighed and crossed her arms over the clipboard in her hands, a clear not-good sign I had come to learn. But then she sighed a second time and started over. "Miss Everdeen has been stabilized as well as possible, but I am afraid she is not going to last long. Her injuries are far too great and life-threatening to expect any different."
Primrose sobbed even louder and put her face in her hands. I wasn't sure what to do. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs and cry and smash valuable things, and run far away from District 13, from everything. I wanted to shout to the nurse that she's lying, I wanted to run back into the room and hold my girl tightly to my chest, and to never, ever let go. I wanted her to live.
"I really am sorry." The nurse looked sorrowfully from me, to Ms. Everdeen, to Prim. "The doctors are doing everything they can, but there is only so much we can do. If the amount of blood loss doesn't kill her first, there are a number of other life-threatening injuries that needed to be tended to."
Ms. Everdeen, who had tears pouring down her face, swallowed hard. "Like what?" Her voice was nearly inaudible.
The nurse checked her clipboard. "She suffered a gunshot wound to her stomach, severe burns which cause synthetic skin needed to be grafted on and a finger was completely burnt off. She had a concussion, three ribs shattered, the entirety of one of her legs down from the knee being completely crushed, dislocated shoulder, her wrist was snapped, several vertebrae were splintered, there was an astounding loss of blood and…" She flicked to the last page of her clipboard and scanned the paper. "…she needed a total of ninety-four stitches on her body."
My mouth fell open and again, I nearly fell to the floor. That was too many injuries for…for her survival. There was no way…
I took my hand back from Ms. Everdeen and left the little group. On shaky legs, I walked back through the halls of the critical care unit, and back to my little room in the corner. I slid my legs under the covers and cried. I cried and cried until my lungs burned, then I cried some more. For an hour this went on, my wetting the pillow with heartbroken tears, until my sobs just turned into ragged breaths.
So this is how it was going to be. I was going to spend the rest of my life alone, always feeling the ach, the missing spot in my chest. I wouldn't even be Peeta anymore. It was impossible without my Girl on Fire.
oOo
That chapter was unbelievably hard to write. I didn't know what to. I have in my mind what roughly is going to happen, but what in between? I can't just switch over to Katniss' POV when she wakes up. That would be too fast. And yes, I just gave away a major part of my story. Oh well. But yes, your homework: Give me ideas of what to put next. What do you want to hear? I need things to put in between the chapter when Katniss wakes up and this one. Anything. Let me know, okay? :DD Thanks!