EDIT: I posted the right chapter, but the wrong document, so this is the updated chapter with a couple of additions to it. I'd suggest reading through it again. x) Sorry about that, totally my bad!

A/N: Reviews, my lovelies, are so very appreciated! :) You guys make my day.

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About half of you guessed it and most of you were confused about it! So, here's what happened in the Arena from Peeta's POV. Hope it all makes sense (and maybe makes the last chapter make more sense, too).
Notes on Gale: Hmm, give it... maybe 5 or 6 more chapters? That's my estimate before we get a close look at what happened in Katniss' Games and what went down with Gale. (It's a rough estimate, so don't kill me if I'm wrong. T_T)
Thanks so much to all of you guys who have stuck things out with me thus far and to all you new readers, too! I really appreciate it.

CHAPTER 13: IN THE LION'S HEAD

The rain had paused after several long, water-logged hours. Peeta and his new ally, Spencer, had spent most of it inside a hollowed out log that was set at an angle on a low sloping hill. The slope was enough to keep them from drowning—Peeta was more than a little wary of the lower parts of the arena after his near-drowning—and the log was barely enough to keep them from being too obviously spotted by outsiders.

Not that anyone could see anything. Between the weather and the darkness, they all might as well have been blind.

When the rain had slowed to a trickle, they had emerged from their hiding place. Stretching out the kinks earned from awkward sitting arrangements, they started forging ahead.

"I hate this constant night," Peeta whispered to Spencer, mostly because the night made him feel like things were supposed to be quite. And he didn't want anyone else hearing them. "Makes me feel like we're being watched."

He glanced around, but still couldn't see anyone or anything beyond a few feet in front of him. It was hard to even make out the girl walking beside him, although he remembered her from the training center.

She wasn't what Peeta could call 'pretty' exactly. She had frizzy orange-ish colored hair—was the term auburn? Strawberry? Peeta didn't think the girl looked like a strawberry personally—and light brown eyes which seemed to have no lashes at all. Her face was covered in light freckles, there was a dark mole beneath her left eye, and her nose was petite with a wide base. Her lips were too thin and long, as though her smile might take up most of her face. Everything just seemed awkward. But her fingers were long and nimble, her muscles slim, but decidedly there, and she had already proven herself to be agile. She had almost an inch in height on Peeta, tall for a girl.

"I know what you mean," Spencer muttered in a voice that was deeper than it should have been for a girl. "It's like someone's always followin' us or something."

At some point Spencer had taken the lead, swiping at vegetation every now and again with her ax. The weapon should have made Peeta nervous—technically she could turn on him at any time without provocation—but it didn't. He was okay with her having the weapon, because maybe he was starting to trust her. Or maybe he just didn't think he would use it as effectively.

They were even, really. He had saved her life, she had saved his. Or maybe she had saved his twice by killing the boy from Eight...

Regardless, whatever debts might have been incurred were certainly paid now and he shouldn't place too much confidence in his new, capable ally. But he did. And maybe it was more about the idea of having companionship, someone there on his side in the arena, than anything else.

Peeta just didn't want to have to do this alone.

She was pushing forward, swiping through a particularly dense patch when he heard a yelp and she had disappeared. Startled, Peeta rushed forward and nearly fell over the same ledge that Spencer was now dangling from.

"Whoa."

"A little help here," Spencer called up to him in a sing-song voice that belied her panic. Her fingers were losing their grip.

Peeta dropped down to his knees and reached down, grabbing Spencer's arm with both his hands and pulling. Slowly, Peeta managed to pull her back up to safety.

Panting from the shock of nearly falling, Spencer nodded at Peeta, wide-eyed. "Thanks."

"Yeah, sure."

So were they now even? Or was this a new debt? Did it even matter? 'Cause at the rate they were going, Peeta didn't think he could keep up without a score card...

They both turned to where she had just nearly fallen to her doom. The cliff overlooked a large valley, concealed by trees and contained by cliff faces that surrounded the entire area. Off to the side, a river of rain runoff spilled over one of the cliffs and into a basin below. Next to that basin was a tall, ancient structure made of long columns of stones piled one on top of another. The structure was overgrown with plants and vines, nearly blending into the overall terrain.

"Peeta," Spencer said, glancing at him sideways with a grin on her face. "I think we've just found our new base camp."

Peeta wasn't as sure as she seemed to be, but it was as good a plan as either of them had since the start of the Games. Now all they had to do was figure out how the hell they were going to get down there...

They walked the edge of the valley, looking for a starting point to get down into the basin. It was slow going, the darkness making it difficult to find much of anything. Sometimes, it looked as though they had found a good place to begin their descent and they would get on their hands and knees to get a closer look. But every time it was a bust, the path turning out to be nothing more than a trail the runoff from the rain had made during the day.

"Maybe this isn't such a good idea," Peeta said apprehensively. "I mean, shouldn't we want the high ground or something?"

Spencer sent him an irritated look. "You planning on going on the offensive?"

Peeta shook his head.

"Then I'm more interested in finding a good hiding place," she told him. "And that." She pointed at the old, overgrown structure by the river of runoff. "Looks like a pretty damn good hiding place to me."

With a sigh, Peeta nodded his head. That seemed true anyway. The structure looked large in relation to everything else, but the green vegetation crawling up it's sides and roof made it blend. Probably, there were lots of places to hide in there. And shelter, which was a good idea any way you slice it.

"Right. Okay."

They continued their search. Nearly halfway around the rim of the cliff face, they came across a narrow, steep path that sloped downward. It wouldn't be an easy trail to follow, but it looked like it lead all the way to the bottom of the valley. After that, they would just have to navigate their way to the ruins.

…

If either of them had kept track of the number of times they had slipped and nearly fallen down that slope to their death, it would have been close to fifty between them. So when they finally reached the bottom, it was a sweet relief.

Of course, as soon as they did, Peeta couldn't help the feeling of being trapped. Of having eyes above him, watching, waiting. It was probably paranoia. Spencer and himself were little more than specks of red and gold at the base of a cliff. But he still couldn't shake his unease.

He'd been feeling it all day.

Although he didn't want to remain there, because of said unease, he couldn't force himself to move immediately. It had been a long trek through the forest, a short near-death experience, followed by a laborious trip down into the valley. They needed to rest.

Apparently thinking the exact same thing, Spencer arbitrarily picked a spot on the ground and proceeded to plop heavily down upon it. Peeta had showed her his makeshift water canteen earlier and she had mimicked the idea. Now, she untied it from her waist—about half of it had spilled during the climb down—and she took several large gulps.

Peeta followed suit, untying his hood and taking several drinks, until it was nearly empty. Now that the rain had mostly stopped, they would want to refill with the runoff while it lasted. He sank down beside Spencer and tried to keep his eyes from drooping.

There were several moments of silence as the pair just rested.

"Is Five anything like this?" Peeta interrupted, not looking at her. He just didn't want to listen to silence anymore. His nerves were too taut to allow for it.

"Like this? Oh yeah, sure, my friends and I always try to kill each other while climbing cliff faces under a constant cover of night."

Peeta lolled his head over to look at her. She was staring at him pointedly with an expression that said, "Seriously?" He let out a small laugh.

"I mean, like, trees and humidity and—"

"I know what you meant." She sighed heavily. "No, Five isn't really anything like this. It's all buildings and hardware and cold weather. Even the ground is different here. This place," she gestured to the arena surrounding them. "it's nothing like home."

Peeta nodded. "Yeah, Twelve isn't really like this either. We've got trees, beyond the fence, but we don't go outside the fence." Not unless you were Katniss Everdeen.

"You miss it." She didn't ask it like a question.

"Yes," Peeta admitted. "Not the poverty or how we're all so busy trying to survive we don't even talk to each other." Not that he was thinking of Katniss or anything. "But I miss home, and baking with my dad and my brothers." He didn't mention his mom. "I miss my friends."

"Yeah, well, I don't miss it."

Peeta's eyes grew wide and he stared incredulously. Ignoring his expression, she continued.

"I don't miss how everyone's got their nose pressed against cold metal, working on tiny little things, so busy with themselves that they never notice what's staring them in the face." She said it with anger, clearly thinking of someone specific. "I don't miss how you can't help but feel alone there."

Peeta didn't say anything in response. Although things were always hard in Twelve, he had never spent his days there really alone. He had friends—Madge was one of them unfortunately—and brothers, his dad, and even the other people in the District. He didn't know them all by name, but since his dad owned a business, he interacted with a lot of them.

But what really worried Peeta was that Spencer was voicing this in the first place. In the Games, you didn't badmouth your own district. Not if you ever thought you were going to see it again...

They fell into silence once more. Spencer was the one to break it this time.

"I haven't heard a cannon for a while." Worry laced through her deep voice.

Peeta thought about it. She was right; he hadn't heard one for a while either. Not since Monigan, the boy tribute from Eight that Spencer had killed. Peeta didn't bring this up. "Maybe we missed it during the rain?"

He didn't mean to sound so hopeful. It wasn't that he exactly wanted to know that someone else out there was dead. But they both knew what would happen if more killing didn't start happening. Soon.

"Yeah, maybe," Spencer muttered.

Suddenly not feeling like they should linger, the two of them heaved themselves back onto their feet.

Frowning, Spencer pointed vaguely at a diagonal to their right. "I think it was that way?"

She formed it at as question. Peeta just shrugged. "As good a guess as any," he replied.

"Right," Spencer sighed.

They were both still exhausted, but they moved anyway.

…

They stood on the far side of the dwindling river, filling up their hoods and trying to avoid getting any mud in there. It probably wasn't clean and safe like it was when it came in the form of rain, but it would have to do for now. Later, they could figure out a more permanent container to house a larger quantity of water. Really, they should have been doing that right then and there, before the river stopped moving altogether and became stagnant and completely undrinkable.

But they were tired. As in, they were going to drop any second now and they didn't want to do it on the far side of the river in relative openness. They had left the tree line about ten paces back.

They were trying to not make it easy for the other tributes.

So with what little water they could carry, they crossed the flowing water towards the forest on the other side.

When they hit the treeline, it happened.

It came without warning. Suddenly, out of nowhere, it was just there. A blinding light that captured the entire arena. They had spent so long in the darkness that they had to squint against the brightness, shielding their eyes with their hands.

In this new light, the trees had a bright, green color, with a darker moss covering the deep brown of their trunks. The mud near the river looked like a fair-colored sand, almost white, and the water looked so clear it almost didn't have any color at all. The cliff faces were stripped with all different shades of red and brown, looking like a strange flag for a foreign country. Up farther, from where Peeta and Spencer had come from, the trees were a darker green and contrasted against the baby-blue sky.

It was the clearest blue Peeta had ever seen.

It lasted maybe fifteen minutes, and then just as suddenly as it had arrived, it vanished. Darkness returned, darker than before, because no one was prepared for it.

But every tribute left in the Game had seen that blinding fifteen minutes of light, and if any of them had been on the edge of that cliff looking down...

"We should head inside," Peeta whispered.

"Yeah, we really should," Spencer replied.

Together, they half-felt their way through the trees and farther into the ruins of their newest camp. After maybe ten minutes of wandering the premise, they finally just picked a spot down a hallway that was a dead end and put their backs against the wall, slipping down to the floor.

Still humming with the excitement of light, they both kept their eyes open for a long time, despite their exhaustion. They were both hoping that, somehow, the light would come back and it would race down the hallways to them.

They fell asleep waiting for it.

…

When he awoke, Spencer was dead, her skull crushed in, leaking a dark, dark red that had already started to dry. Sometime in the night, another tribute had died, his ally, and somehow exhaustion had let him sleep not only through the murder, but the cannon that sounded her last breath.

On shaky legs, he stood. He had had just enough time to grow attached to Spencer. Enough time to develop a strange friendship of mutual dependence. And now she was dead.

What had Katniss told him about making allies he would be hesitant to lose?

Although at the time, he had been sure she was referring to Peeta not being able to kill whosoever he happened to ally with—his stomach churned at the idea of killing Madge—but maybe she had been talking about something a little more fundamental. Maybe she had meant that it would hurt too much when the time came to lose them, no matter if they died by his hand or another's.

Dead was dead.

Numbly, Peeta moved away from the dead body of District Five's female tribute. Breathing uneven, he shuffled backward. How would they remove the body? His mind wondered of its own accord. Would the hover craft have to fly in through an entrance? Would it just crash through the ceiling and make its own opening?

He tripped, stumbling back into a wall where he finally turned away and ran. Down the hallways, about half-certain where he was going, until he hit the opening that they had entered through together. There, he paused, taking in deep gulps of air. His eyes were clenched shut, his hand reached out to lean on a wall for support.

When he opened them, he saw it.

The little parachute was nearly invisible, just a strange bright dot in an otherwise dark sky. It floated down to the ground at the entrance to the ruins not five feet from where Peeta stood. There was no one else around, so it was for either him or Spencer.

Spencer was dead.

Peeta took a deep breath. He had sense enough to glance around at the general area before emerging from his 'camp' and heading down to the silver container. With another quick check of his surroundings, he headed back inside. Walking down the stone corridors, he found where he and Spencer had fallen asleep.

Spencer's body was no longer there.

Gathering what little he had—the ax that had belonged to his short-lived ally—Peeta headed back and made a left at the last fork in the corridor. He wasn't spending another night in the same spot he had been before. Sliding down against the wall, he stared at the container in his hand.

Katniss had gotten him a sponsor.

He didn't open it immediately—he didn't know what exactly he needed a sponsor for right then—and just kept staring at it thinking of Katniss and Madge and Spencer and his family and District 12 and how Spencer hadn't missed her home anyway. To his credit, he didn't cry. But he wanted to.

Leaning his head back against the wall, he scrunched up his eyes and reminded himself to breathe. This was what the Games were. They were death and loss. It shouldn't have surprised him. It shouldn't have mattered. He didn't even know the awkward, strange girl from Five that well anyway. She shouldn't have mattered to him.

But she did. And it hurt him that she was gone now. Even if it meant he had a stronger chance to win.

Opening his eyes, he looked back down at the container. He opened it, because he didn't know what else to do.

Unbelievably, he cracked a smile.

Inside was a loaf of fresh baked bread. Raisin nut. He had made it a thousand times at the bakery with his father. The smell was delicious and overpowering and not just because he was hungry.

It wasn't the most practical gift. Certainly it wasn't the best use of a sponsor's generosity. But right then, Katniss proved she was more perceptive than people gave her credit for, because it was exactly what Peeta needed.

To him, it was Katniss' reminder to come home.

'You don't die, until I tell you to die.'

A/N: This. Just. Kept. Getting. LONGER. Yeesh, lol. Hope you enjoyed! Stay tuned for the next installment!