CHAPTER 6: JAWBONE
The last thing he wanted was to pick another fight with Katniss. After the previous night something had... changed between them. He wasn't so naïve to think that it was that she had finally realized just how madly in love with him she was, but there was definitely something now. Maybe it was false hope breeding in his desperate heart, but she seemed to consider him as a person now, instead of just a tribute that she was striving to keep alive.
A step in the right direction if one had ever been taken.
He didn't want to disrupt that now that it had begun, but he couldn't help it. Everytime he saw the hurt reflecting in Katniss' eyes as she watched Madge struggle again and again... All he wanted to do was to make that hurt go away. He couldn't make that hurt be for him. He couldn't take back Madge's name being drawn out of that glass bowl. He couldn't make Haymitch a better mentor.
But he could offer Madge a little help. He could give her a better chance to win. He could convince Katniss who was worthier of winning...
"Would it be so bad for Madge to win?" Peeta whispered to her softly.
They had already had this discussion, this argument, and it was obviously tiring her out. She closed her eyes as though it might shut out him and the rest of the world. As though it might be enough to keep her from having to answer his question. But her luck had never been that good and Peeta was unwilling to let it drop.
With a sigh, she shook her head. "I just can't afford to think like that."
"And what if it's what I want?"
Her eyes snapped open, blazing with anger. Apparently, not the right thing to say...
"You want to die?" she demanded. "Is that what I get? A tribute who wants to die before he even tries?"
Peeta ran a nervous hand through his blonde curls, the gel feeling weird, but pliable through his fingers. It wasn't like that. Of course, he didn't want to die. He just knew it was more than just a slim possibility, and he didn't want...
"I just think it would be easier," he finally told her around the lump in his throat. "If we all worked together to get one of us home."
"And who makes that decision?"
Peeta frowned. "It's my life. It's my choice."
"Because Madge doesn't get a say, does she?"
Peeta opened his mouth to respond, but closed it almost immediately. He didn't know what to say to that. Surely Madge didn't want to die. And she had a family back home, a mother barely clinging to sanity. She was a sweet, kind girl. Her life was worth more than his... Wasn't it? And even if this was to be done by committee, he was willing to do his best to help her... That made it his choice, right?
Right?
Katniss was still incredibly pissed, shaking her head angrily. "I won't do to Madge what Haymitch and... What they did to me, so you're just going to have to suck it up and try until I tell you to stop."
…
The rest of the day was harsh for Peeta. Katniss gave him no reprieve, no breathers. Nothing long enough that he might have time to think once again about self-sacrifice. Or about helping Madge. Or about Katniss' words from earlier.
What they did to me.
Which, he was sure, was not an accident. She was trying to keep him busy. They spoke very little—especially considering what little time he got that wasn't spent running laps around the lower gym or up the twelve flights of stairs was spent panting heavily—and every time he thought about trying to start a conversation again, Katniss just made them get up and start it all over again.
Oh yes, she was definitely keeping him busy.
But at least he didn't have any time to worry about the fact that the next day would be their individual scoring. Peeta would go into a room—last save Madge—and perform some amazing feat to convince the Game Makers to give him a decent score so that sponsors could be persuaded to send him things in the arena.
Important things.
Peeta didn't even have time to worry about what he was going to do to impress the Game Makers, much less what Madge was going to do...
…
She didn't talk about Gale Hawthorne, the male tribute from her own Games, often. No one could really blame her; talking about the dead was hard enough when you didn't know them. But it was no secret that years ago, Gale and Katniss had been as close as family.
Now he was dead and she wasn't.
Here, in the context of the Quarter Quell, she spoke of Gale, her dead friend. "Gale..." it hurt her to say his name. The pain was laced in her voice, inextricable from it. "He had a lot of the same skills as I did. I assumed he did the same thing I had."
She hesitated. There was more, a secret. Gale's score had been a measly six. They couldn't have done the same thing...
"I was angry that they weren't paying attention to me," she confessed. "Angry that here I was, about to die for their goddamn entertainment and they couldn't be bothered to even look at me longer than a couple of seconds. So I behaved... irrationally. Gale—," she stopped, nearly choking on his name. "My fellow tribute had already gone; everyone had already gone and it was just me, alone in that room with a bunch of half-drunk, frivolous, lazy bastards who didn't seem to understand that I was going to die."
Anger saturated her words and Peeta couldn't help but be grateful that there was still enough inside of her to muster up the indignant anger at the unfairness of it all. It gave him hope.
"I shot an arrow at them."
Shock registered on Peeta's face.
She smirked without humor. "Speared the apple in the mouth of their stupid pig. One of the Game Makers fellow over, spilling his wine all over himself. Needless to say, I made an impression."
Peeta remembered her score from the Games. An eleven. And now he knew why.
"Don't do what I did," she told him seriously. "Don't let them see your anger, your resentment. Don't let them get to you. You don't need to be memorable. Just likeable. Just well enough. I can get you a sponsor with a well enough score."
…
Katniss dropped Peeta at his door once again. She didn't stay and he couldn't muster up the courage to ask her to do so before she had turned and walked down the hall. He watched her go, disappearing around the corner and to her room.
Desperately, he wanted her back again. If he had been able to change the emotions stirring up inside of him, presumably he would. But it was such that the love he felt for her was so complete, he couldn't even make himself want to change it.
He just wanted the chance to have her know that it was there.
Placing his hand on the door handle, he paused. Beyond that door was a room—all his own—waiting for him to stumble in groggily. To strip and trip into the shower, fumbling with dozens of setting as he struggled to find the mildest, least fruity setting. To collapse heavily, achingly onto a bed that was too comfortable, too inviting to ever allow for proper sleep. To drift off... and dream of Katniss in the arena with him. Of the two of them pitted against each other as opponents. Of her raising an arrow at him. An arrow that would pierce his heart, but wouldn't kill him.
No, it would only make him stop loving her just long enough to be the one to kill her...
It made him terrified to win the Games.
Shaking his head, he stepped back from the door.
"S'matter, kid? 'Fraid of the nightmares?"
Peeta turned his head quickly to his right to face Haymitch. The man was walking relatively straight thanks to the wall his hand was firmly tracing. His other hand clutched a bottle of clear liquid.
His eyes were only a little glassy, only slightly unfocused.
Gray eyes. Like Katniss'. Like Gale's. But Madge's were a bright blue, like Peeta's. The Seam versus the Merchants. And in the end, they were all victims.
Haymitch was almost enough to make Peeta step back to his door and go inside. The man made him degrees of angry, and Peeta was really too damn tired to be angry just then.
Still, he hesitated.
There was a question that was burning the back of his throat still.
"What was the deal you made?" Peeta blurted before he could consider its wisdom. "I mean, the one... with Katniss and..." He trailed off, not even sure why he was asking anymore.
Haymitch barked out a laugh when Peeta mentioned it, startling the boy. "Still pissed at that, is she?" He seemed more amused about it than concerned. "Always did have trouble lettin' things go."
He took a swig of the clear liquid in its clear bottle making Peeta frown. For a moment he let himself worry for Madge. The poor girl had it pretty bad with Haymitch... A tickle of fire hit the back of his throat and he was surprised to discover that it was anger. At Katniss. For abandoning Madge.
"Stupid really," Haymitch slurred. "Damn kid backed out in the end anyway."
Peeta's frown deepened. What had Gale Hawthorne backed out of? What deal would make Katniss forget Madge so completely?
A/N: There was another part to this, but I decided it should be part of the next chapter. Mostly because I didn't want to add in another connector scene. XP