Author's Note: Well I think it's high time we get back to our brave Miss Crane don't you?
Thanks go to EWD and DAK for the reviews
Chapter 69
Fog Lifts
Ari POV
I wake up in district Thirteen's hospital with beeping machine all around me. My chest and back are swathed in a bandage. I have an oxygen mask on but I feel too weak to move it off.
Gale looks up from the chair he is sitting in he looks rumpled like a set of wrinkled clothing, he realizes that my eyes are open and comes fully awake.
"Ari!" he touches my face, "can you hear me?"
I nod, it hurts to breath deeply, but I do so and tears fall from my eyes.
"I'll get the doctor to get you something for the pain" he looks at me concerned, before he goes he lowers the mask to kiss me, "you scared me" he says and I know there is more to this than him being scared
I drift in and out of consciousness for several days, I learn I wasn't the only casualty, Katniss was shot too but her armor protected her she just has a cracked rib, bruising and cracked her spleen. Whereas I who had no armor on had a collapsed lung, nicked vein, broken rib and lost enough blood to warrant transfusions. Some of our men were hit but thankfully their armor kept them safe.
They said I was lucky the bullet didn't hit a major artery. 'A couple of inches taller' Makenzie had said 'and I would have been dead.'
Maverick met his parents moments after I was brought to emergency, I wish I had been there, from what Gale says there was a lot of crying.
Gale mentions I have a note from Peeta and he shows it to me, tears comes to my eyes again, not from pain but because it means somewhere Peeta is coming back to us. Gale helps me to sit up and I write in neat script. "Yes Peeta I am alive, true statement"
In next to no time, which is actually within a couple days, Peeta comes to visit . He is looking slightly better, I had tried to keep my distance because my very presence doesn't compute in his now troubled mind.
He doesn't say much at first, just looks me over. Then takes my hand that is dosing me with morphline by IV, he gives me a worried glance.
"Will you get better?" he asks
"Yes" I reply, my voice quiet and a bit weary, "I'll be fine Peeta" I look at him, "how are you feeling?"
"You died true or false" he looks at me confused
I sigh, "that is a really loaded question Peet" I close my eyes, "it's both because I faked my death, you remember the note? And the notebook?"
He shakes his head as Gale comes in. I look to my boyfriend worried. "Gale is my satchel here?"
"I'll get it, you gonna be okay?" he comes over and brushes hair from my face as I nod, "I'll be back" he kisses my cheek.
"What's in your satchel?" Peeta asks
"The past" I say quietly, I aim to sit up and he helps me even if his hands are cuffed.
"You should stay lying down" he looks at me concerned again, he's seventeen and he worries like an old man.
I wave him off, "I can't stay down for long, not in my nature"
He sits beside me, "I remember bits of everything, like I remember my dad...he was interviewed when you died, but then when I was in hospital after the games that took my leg...you were there but you were supposed to be dead" he grimaces, "the memories aren't shiny so I don't understand"
By that time Gale returns, he gives me a stern look at seeing me sit up but comes and sits on my other side. Passing me my satchel that I open and fish out the notebook Peeta and I shared.
Things slowly click into place, maybe it's because the capital at the time of his torture and memory manipulation didn't feel it necessary for him to forget someone thought dead, or they just didn't know how to twist these innocent images.
"But why did you fake your death?" Peeta asks
Gale takes my unmarred hand as I try and find a way to explain this simply…it's not as easy as I had first thought, true I explained it to Tracer during Peeta's first game, but that's Tracer, fully coherent, (okay pregnant but not addlepated)
"My family was in danger, they had killed Hellen, and Seneca was in the Capitol. I had no choice it was either succumb to what the Capitol wanted me to be, which was a glorified prostitute or disappear" it gets a bit too much for me, I feel myself grow pale and Gale helps me lay back down.
"You need to rest" Peeta says, "can I take this?" he raises the notebook, I nod. I know this will also help him realize he loves Katniss and we need him to remember.
Maverick finally finds my bedside late that evening, I am sleeping when he comes in with his parents.
I wake to three worried faces.
"Hey" Maverick says grasping my hand, "how are you feeling?"
I raise my hand with the morphline drip, "pain killers" I respond drawing out the words like a zombie would.
Mr. Letorch chuckles, "I guess I should thank you for saving me, and Maverick, and my wife"
I shake my head, "no, its really not needed"
Mrs. Letorch just wraps her arms around me as I'm laying down, "we were so worried, we saw how pale you were and..."
I wrap my arms around her, it hurts but the drugs dull most of it and it allows me to hug her back, "I'm sorry I scared you" I whisper to her
They are almost like parents to me so when Mr. Letorch sits on my bed and asks how I am really doing I am honest
"Shaken, tired and I feel kinda weak" I reply
"That's understandable" Mrs. Letorch says, "you were shot Ariana, if you got up and walked away from that it would be more worrying" she starts fussing with my pillow fluffing them and helps me into a semi sitting position, it actually helps.
"I hear you have a boy friend" Mr. Letorch teases me, his smile disappears behind his graying moustache.
"Maaav!" I groan
"I had to tell them! They threatened to put me in a regular chair so I couldn't come with them!" he defends comically
"His name?" Mr. Letorch asks, some small part of my brain wonders if dad would have been like this…yeah he probably would have.
"Gale Hawthorne" I reply closing my eyes
"Age?"
"Same as me"
"Occupation?"
"Soldier right now"
"Is he treating you right?"
"I should hope so!" comes from the doorway Gale is leaning in the frame smirking, "parents?"
"More by proxy" I reply nosing Maverick.
"Right!" Gale puts out his hand that Mr. Letorch gets off the bed to shakes it, "just wanted to check up on my girl"
"Your girl?" Mrs. Letorch looks a bit annoyed, apparently she doesn't like Gale denoting in a term that lessens me. I know he isn't but she doesn't.
"I think she could call me her 'guy' or 'boy' equally" Gale smiles disarmingly, he comes over and kisses me forgetting that my surrogate family is watching. What blood I have fills my cheeks. "Coin wants to see you" he says which is a complete turn off.
"Let that crone wait" I mutter, "I was shot not her."
Gale gives me a look, he knows as well as I do that telling the grey haired witch to wait is just delaying the inevitable.
"If I go you'll come with me?" I ask
"In a heartbeat" he replies
"We all will" Mr. Letorch says
I have to be wheeled in, I'm not cleared to walk anywhere yet so Gale steers us to Coin's office. "I don't think it's anything bad" Gale remarks
"Every time I have entered her office it's because she wants to make open threats" I reply, "and right now I don't have the energy to fight her not with how I am now" I feel myself tire already as we enter her office.
"Still alive?" she asks non pelused
"You know I practically have nine lives" I reply, "but Dr. Makenzie wants me back in my room within the hour so..."
"Congratulations for the low body count at Two first of all, even if Everdeen was a bit foolish" she says
"Katniss was trying to diffuse a hostile situation" I remark, "not her fault I got shot"
"Always jumping to someone's defense aren't you" Coin looks up from her papers, "some how trying to make up for not protecting those in your games?"
"I'm doing what is right" I snap, "not like you know anything about preserving life"
"I'm trying to win a war here girl" she finally stands, "and you are stopping us, delaying by not opening the files, you have codes for the capital defenses but you encoded them"
"And you want me to tell you how?" I sneer, "why not try a different tactic because buttering me up with compliments doesn't become you"
She gets in front of my chair and hold it down by the armrests, "don't be a fool Crane! They won't listen to negotiations"
"You just want open war! When has that solved anything?" I reply
"It's the only choice we have!" Coin's voice reaches that frequency that makes my hair stand on end
"Fine you want the key? It's the common denominator of PMGHCS" I snap back
"What?" Coin stops mid tirade
"That's your only clue Coin you have one week, you don't solve it, and I mean without Beetee and Ziggy or you get squat"
"I can't solve it " she looks close to explosion.
"Not my problem" I reply as I feel exhaustion take over; I think Gale realizes this because he steers me out
"One last thing!" Coin calls but we are out of earshot
"Common denominator?" Gale asks
"No more clues" I reply completely worn out
A/N no. 2: Oh! A riddle! Can you figure it out? the answer will be in next week's chapter entitled "riddles riddles riddles"