Chapter 17

"Katniss," I say quietly, hoping she'll wake up. "Katniss, can you hear me?"

Katniss's eyes open. I study her face, she looks frightened. Then her face goes back to being emotionless. "Peeta." she says.

I scoot closer. "Hey good to see your eyes again." I say.

Katniss yawns. "How long have I been out?"

"Not sure. I woke up yesterday evening and you were laying next to me in a very scary pool of blood." I say trying not to get angry about what Katniss did. Right now she's weak, but once she's better, she'll hear about the feast. "I think it's stopped finally, but I wouldn't sit up of anything."

Katniss lifts her hand to her wound, I can tell how tiered she is now. I put the water bottle to Katniss's lips and she drinks.

"You better," she asks.

I nod. "Much better. Whatever you shot into my arm did the trick. By this morning, almost all the swelling in my leg was gone."

Katniss smiles. She must think she did the right thing by going to the feast. I stop myself from bringing up the topic.

"Did you eat?" she asks.

I tell her about the groosling, but I add that I'm watching what I'm eating now.

"No, it's good. You need to eat. I'll go hunting soon," she says.

I don't want her hunting anytime soon. But I don't think I should tell her that. "Not too soon alright?" I asks. "You just let me take care of you for a while.

I feed Katniss and make sure she drinks water. We listen to the rain.

"I wonder what brought on this storm? I mean who's the target?" I say.

"Cato and Thresh." says Katniss without hesitation. "Foxface will be in her den somewhere, and Clove... she cut me and then..." I can tell she's uncomfortable with how Clove died.

"I know Clove's dead. I saw her in the sky last night, did you kill her?" I ask.

Katniss shakes her head. "No. Thresh broke her skull with a rock,"

I raise my eyebrows. "Lucky he didn't catch you, too."

Katniss stares at me for a long time. "He did. But he let be go."

"What?" I ask.

Katniss starts to explain how after the Tracker Jacker incident, she made an alliance with the girl from District Eleven, Rue. And then, she tells me about how they blew up the carriers food, and Rue's death. And how she killed Marvel. And then Katniss explains that by letting her go, Thresh was paying a debt.

"He let you go because he didn't want to owe you anything?" I ask in shock.

Katniss nods. "Yes. I don't expect you to understand it. You've always had enough. But if you'd lived in the Seam, I wouldn't have to explain." she says.

"And don't try. Obviously I'm too dim to get it." I say.

Katniss sighs. "It's like the bread. How I never seem to get over owing you for it,"

I stare at Katniss. She does remember about the bread I tossed her. "The bread? What? From when we were kids? I think we can let that go. I mean, you just brought me back from the dead." I say.

Katniss frowns. "But you didn't know me. We had never even spoken. Besides it's the first gift that's always the hardest to pay back. I wouldn't even have been here to do it if you hadn't helped me then, why did you anyway?" asks Katniss.

"Why? You know why?" I say. Katniss shakes her head. "Haymitch said you would take a lot of convincing." I say.

Katniss tilts her head to the side. "Haymitch? What's he got to do with it?"

I sigh. "Nothing," I need to change the topic. "So, Cato and Thresh, huh? I guess it's too much to hope they'll simultaneously destroy each other?" I say.

"I think we would like Thresh. I think he'd be our friend back in District Twelve." she says.

I nod. "Then let's hope Cato kills him, so we don't have to," I watch tears forming in Katniss's eyes. "What is it?" I ask. "Are you in a lot of pain?"

"I want to go home, Peeta." she says, reminding me of a child. But isn't she? She's sixteen.

I'm surprised by these words, but I try to calm her down. "You will. I promise." I will protect Katniss. Even if I did. She'll go back home.

"I want to go home now," she says.

I tell Katniss to go to sleep, and that she'll be home before she knows it. Katniss tells me to wake her up if I need her to keep watch. But I'm not tired, and I don't think I could wake her up if I needed some sleep. She looks peaceful.

Eventually I do wake her up though. She needs to eat. I'm nervous because we're starting to run out of food. "Should we try to ration it?" I ask.

Katniss shakes her head. "No, let's just finish it." I look at her, shocked. "The groosling's getting old anyway, and the last thing we need is to get sick off spoiled food." She divides the food equaly and we eat.

"Tomorrow's hunting day." she says after we've eaten everything.

"I wont be much help with that," I say. "I've never hunted before."

Katniss smiles. "I'll kill and you cook, and you can always gather."

Katniss and I start to talk about Thresh, I tell her where he's hiding. The carriers and I had past the field he hides in. Cato told me he saw Thresh go in there after the blood bath. The field really scares me. "There could be anything in there." I say.

"Maybe there is a bread bush in that field," she says, referring to something I said earlier. "Maybe that's why Thresh's better fed than when we started the Games."

"Either that of he's got very generous sponsors, I wonder what we'd have to do to get Haymitch to send us some bread." I say.

Katniss raises her eyebrow as if it's obvious. Katniss takes my hand. "Well, he probably used a lot of resources helping me knock you out." she says.

Well, she brought it up, now I have to call her out for her stupidity. "Yeah, about that, don't try something like that again." I say.

"Or what?" she asks.

"Or... or..." I can't find the right words. "Just give me a minute."

"What's the problem?" she asks.

"The problem is we're both still alive. Which only reinforces the idea in your mind that you did the right thing." I say.

Katniss's face get's red. "I did do the right thing," she says.

"No! Just don't Katniss! Don't die for me. You won't be doing me any favors. All right?" I say.

Katniss stares at me blankly. "Maybe I did it for myself, Peeta, did you ever think of that? Maybe you aren't the only one who... who worries about... what it would be like if..." Katniss trails off, and I swallow. Does she care for me like I care for her?

"If what, Katniss?" I say quietly.

"That's exactly the kind of topic Haymitch told me to steer clear of." she says.

I knew she was stubborn, so stubborn she can't tell me her feelings. But that doesn't matter, I have enough information to know what she would have said. "Then I'll just have to fill in the blanks myself," I say and lean in. It's the first real kiss Katniss and I have shared. When I feel Katniss's blood slid down her face, I pull away. "I think your wound is bleeding again. Come on, lie down, it's bed time anyway."

Katniss volunteers to take the first watch. But I make Katniss get in the sleeping bag with me. I pull her head down to my arm, and wrap my other arm around her. I let sleep take me.

Katniss wakes me up to take watch. "Tomorrow, when it's dry, I'll find a place so high in the trees we can both sleep in peace." she says, and her eyes close. The thought is nice, but I couldn't climb a tree before my leg was injured.

In the morning, the weather isn't better. I consider going out in the storm to look for food, but Katniss tells me it's pointless. Our only hope is that Haymitch finds us good sponsors, it's evening and we're still in the sleeping bag.

"Peeta," says Katniss. I look at her. "You said at the interview you'd had a crush on me forever. When did forever start?"

I tell Katniss the story about the first day of school, when my dad pointed her out to me. Katniss comments on parts of it. I end the story by telling her that every bird stopped to listen to her.

"Oh, please," she says.

"No it happened. And right when your song ended, I knew- just like your mother- I was a goner. Then the next eleven years, I tried to work up the nerve to talk to you." I say.

Katniss laughs. "Without success."

I nod. "Without success. So, in a way, my name being drawn in the Reaping was a real piece of luck." I say.

Katniss smiles. "You have a... remarkable memory,"

"I remember everything about you," I say as I tuck a lose strand of hair behind Katniss's ear. "You're the one who wasn't paying attention."

"I am now," she says.

"Well, I don't have much competition here," I say with a sigh.

Katniss stares at me for a moment. "You don't have much competition anywhere."

Our lips touch when I hear something hit the rocks outside of the cave. I dash out to see what the noise was. Sponsors. And it's filled with food. I take it in to Katniss. "I guess Haymitch finally got tired of watching us starve." I say.

Katniss nods. "I guess so."

We decide not to inhale all the food at once. I suggest if the storm goes down within an hour, we'll have another serving.

"Agreed, it's going to be a long hour." says Katniss.

"Maybe not that long, what was it that you were saying just before the food arrived? Something about me... no competition... best thing that ever happened to you." I say.

Katniss laughs. "I don't remember the last part."

I grin. "Oh, that's right. That's what I was thinking. Scoot over, I'm freezing."

Katniss makes room for me in the sleeping bag, and I slid in. Katniss rests her head on my shoulder. "So, since we were five, you never even noticed any other girls?" she asks.

I shake my head. "No, I noticed just about every girl, but none of them made a lasting impression but you."

"I'm sure that would thrill your parents, you liking a girl from the Seam." she says.

I frown. "Hardly. But I couldn't care less. Anyway, if we make it back, you won't be a girl from the Seam, you'll be a girl from the Victor's Village."

Katniss wrinkles her nose. "But then, our only neighbor will by Haymitch!"

"Ah, that'll be nice. You and me and Haymitch. Very cozy. Picnics, birthdays, long winter nights around the fire retelling old Hunger Games tales." I say.

Katniss starts laughing. "I told you, he hates me!"

"Only sometimes. When he's sober, I've never heard him say one negative thing about you," I say.

"He's never sober!" Katniss protests.

I laugh. "That's right. Who am I thinking of? Oh, I know. It's Cinna who likes you. But that's mainly because you didn't try to run when he set you on fire. On the other hand, Haymitch... well, if I were you, I'd avoid Haymitch completely. He hates you." I say.

"I thought you said I was his favorite," says Katniss.

"He hates me more, I don't think people in general are his sort of thing." I say.

Katniss looks at me. "How do you think he did it?"

"Who? Did what?" I ask.

"Haymitch. How do you think he won his Games?" she asks me.

I think about it. "He outsmarted the others." I say.

Katniss nods, she tells me we should eat again. The anthem starts, I walk to the opening. I see his picture. Thresh.

"There won't be anything to see tonight. Nothing's happened or we would've heard a cannon." she tells me.

I try to speak. "Katniss,"

"What should we split another roll too?" she asks.

"Katniss," I say again.

"I'm going to split one. But I'll save the cheese for tomorrow." says Katniss. I look at Katniss. "What?" she asks me.

"Thresh is dead." I say.

"He can't be," she said dismissively.

"They must have fired the cannon during the thunder and we missed it." I say.

"Are you sure? I mean, it's pouring buckets out there. I don't know how you can see anything," she says. She pushes me so she can see, when she does, she slumps against the rocks.

"You alright?" I ask.

Katniss shrugs. "It's just... if we didn't win... I wanted Thresh to. Because he let me go. And because of Rue."

"Yeah, I know... But this means we're one step closer to District Twelve." I put a plate of food in her hands. "Eat, it's still warm."

Katniss takes a bite. "It also means Cato will be back to hunting us."

"And he's got supplies again." I say.

Katniss nods. "He'll be wounded, I bet."

"What makes you say that." I ask.

"Because Thresh would have never gone down without a fight. He's so strong, I mean he was. And they were in his territory." she says.

"Good, the more wounded Cato is the better. I wonder how Foxface is making out." I say.

"Oh, she's fine." says Katniss. "Probably be easier to catch Cato than her."

"Maybe they'll catch each other and we can just go home." I say. "But we better be extra careful about the watches. I dozed off a few times."

"Me too. But not tonight." she says.

I offer to take the first watch. I get hungry and eat half a loaf of bread with cheese and apples on it. I wake Katniss up.

"Don't be mad, I had to eat again. Here's your half." I say.

Katniss smiles. "Oh, good." she takes her half and eats a giant bite of it.

"We make a goat cheese and apple tart at the bakery." I say.

"Bet that's expensive." she says.

I nod. "Too expensive for my family to eat. Unless it's gone very stale. Of course, practically everything we eat is stale." I say and get embarrassed, I pull the sleeping bag around me and fall asleep.