Back in the Tribute Center.
Katniss stares at Peeta for a long time without saying a word when finally, "Twins?"
He laughs guiltily, "yeah, sorry. Once I got started, I didn't know how to stop."
"I mean it's a good idea," she admits. "But maybe a little heads up next time."
"Alright."
"Promise?" she squeezes his arm tightly.
"I promise," the look in her eyes is so intense that he gently places one hand over the hand squeezing his arm and the other he places around her shoulders protectively. Then the door opens and Haymitch and Effie waltz in, Haymitch speaks immediately.
"That twins bomb was a stroke of genius," he stops and shrugs. "Unfortunately, the Games are still on."
"We knew they would be," says Katniss bitterly.
Effie steps forward, tears misty in her eyes, and hands a box to Haymitch and then one to Peeta. "Presents," she tries to sound enthusiastic, but it doesn't take a psychologist to see just how sad she is. "For the boys."
"What is this?" Haymitch stares down at the solid gold bracelet.
"It's your token," Effie's voice cracks. "Hair for me, pin for Katniss, and Peeta the medallion we talked about. To show them we are a team. And they can't just-" the tears are now flowing freely from her eyes but she manages to get out one last thing, "You both. You both deserved so much better." Then she breaks into near sobs, hugs Katniss, "I'm so proud of my victors," then hugs Peeta, "so proud," gasping for air, "I am truly sorry," then she turns and hurries from the room.
"Any last advice?" Katniss ponders aloud.
"Yeah," says Haymitch dryly. "Stay alive."
"Thank you Haymitch," Peeta steps forward and embraces him. "For everything."
Once Peeta steps back, Katniss steps forward and throws her arms around Haymitch. "Thank you. For everything."
"Katniss," Haymitch pulls back from her. "In the arena. Just remember who the real enemy is." Katniss nods, not entirely certain what he means by that, but in no hurry to disagree with him this close to the Games. Haymitch gives them a final nod and then departs.
"Peeta," mumbles Katniss. "Effie."
"I know," he wraps her in his arms. "That was hard for me too." For a while they just stand there holding each other, until the baby gives a solid kick at Peeta's stomach and it knocks the wind out of him. "Ahem, well. Maybe we should lay down?" Katniss nods and they head over to the bed. Peeta pulls the covers back and Katniss slips in right in front of him. Her back to his front. He pulls her back towards him and places his arm protectively over her. Katniss burrows her head in the crook of his neck and places her hand over top of his. "I don't know how long I'll be able to protect you, so I'm going to do it right now, for as long as I can."
"I don't think I'll be able to sleep," she mutters.
"You should at the very least, try to sleep," he encourages. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to be right here beside you. You don't have to go through this alone, in fact, I won't let you."
"That's really sweet," she reaches her free hand up to his face and places it gently beside him. "Unrealistic, but sweet." Soon enough she falls asleep, but doesn't stay asleep long because a nightmare wakes her up, and she wakes to find Peeta gone. Screaming at the top of her lungs, "Peeta! Peeta! Peeta where did you go?!"
Out of breath he rushes back into the room. "What!?"
"You were gone...you…" she's whimpering now. "You left...you weren't here...I woke up and you were gone." He rushes over and climbs back into bed with her. She yanks him to her and throws her arms around his neck. "Don't do that again. You can't do that again. Don't do that again!"
"Okay," Peeta says softly. "Shhh, you're okay. I'm right here. You're safe."
"A fat lot of good that'll do us tomorrow," she starts to rub her belly, protectively. "My center of gravity is completely messed up. I can't focus. All I can competently do is shoot an arrow, but who knows what we're going to be faced with in the arena. We don't even know what kind of arena it's going to be! We know nothing." Then the tears come. "I can't protect you. It's unrealistic to think you can completely protect me. I don't know how we're going to make it out of there Peeta, I doubt it's even possible."
"Shhh," he strokes her hair. "It's going to be okay, I can't tell you how because I don't know, but it will be okay. I don't know when, but it's going to be okay. I'm right here so you're not alone, you'll never be alone, I'll always be right here."
"You can't even promise that," she mopes.
"Even if it's not true," he sighs, "let me lie to myself for a while."
"Okay," she says. Within an hour they both manage to fall asleep and sleep peacefully, wrapped up together. They're awoken by a knock on the door, and Katniss' prep team enters. "See you later?" she asks as he sits up.
"See you later," he gives her a kiss and then departs.
After much crying and leaving the room from her prep team, Cinna finally shows up and shoos Venia away who is on the brink of a flood gate as well. "You better not start crying either. I've had about as much of that already as I can stand."
"I won't cry, Katniss," he assures her. "But even if I'm not crying it doesn't mean that I'm not sad about what's going to happen today. I don't like it, but you are going to have to be willing to let something happen to him if you have any hopes of making it out of that arena alive."
"I don't want to know what my life would be like without Peeta, Cinna," she chokes. "I don't ever want to see, or know, or feel it, let alone imagine it. That's not something I can do, it's not something that I'll allow myself to do. I can't. I just can't do that. It's not healthy."
"Alright, Katniss," he nods. "I'll drop it." The rest of the preparation and dressing is quiet, she would be changing into what she would be wearing in the arena soon enough, so what she wore there, didn't matter much to her at all. The hovercraft ride is silent, except for when a Capitol official comes to place the tracker in Katniss' arm, otherwise the ride remains quiet as a tomb.
When Cinna and Katniss finally make it to the tube that will take her into the arena, Katniss changes and once they've managed to get the skin tight outfit over her stomach, she turns to him, "I just wanted to say that the dress, the one for my shower, was one of the most beautiful-"
"No," he says flatly. "We're not doing this Katniss. You are not talking like that now. You have to prepare yourself for whatever is going to happen out there, and since we don't know what that is, it's best that you don't start to have the 'I'm going to die out there' speech with me. Save it for when you're actually dying, then I'll hear whatever you have to say."
Katniss nods. "Well thank you anyway."
"You're welcome," he smiles.
The glass in the tube opens and that's Katniss' cue to enter. As soon as she does and it slides shut Peacekeepers rush in the room and beat Cinna bloody. He's still bleeding when they haul him from the room and she begins to ascend into the arena, in a fit of sobs, she's blinded by the sunlight as she reaches the top. Steadying herself - just barely - she manages to not fall off of the base. The arena is tropical, and the tributes are all standing on silver plates all around the circular arena. The typical Cornucopia is in the center and from what she can see, all of it is weapons. Then noticing that she doesn't notice something she begins to frantically search her field of vision.
"Peeta?" looks to her left, nothing. "Peeta?" looks to her right, nothing.
Peeta is on the other side of the Cornucopia. An unanticipated amount of horror strikes her as she realizes that she will have to swim to the Cornucopia if she has any hopes of taking that bow. Surely someone else will take it if she doesn't reach it first. Knowing she's swam hardly at all since she got pregnant the idea of actually swimming as far a distance as she will be required, and hoisting herself onto the platform, is so daunting that she has to steady her breath. Just in time, too.
Ten
Nine
Eight
Seven
Six
Five
Four
Three
Two
One
And she dives in the water. Not as comfortable as usual, but a good kick to her ribs at least assures her that not only is the baby fine, but angry...not that she blamed it. The water was too cold to her too. To her left, Brutus is plunging into the water and because he's not several months pregnant, he moves faster. Scared for the first time since she entered the arena, and more protective of her yet developing child, Katniss swims faster than she believes is possible. She excuses it on adrenaline.
Surprisingly she makes it to the Cornucopia before Brutus, yanks the quiver of arrows up around herself, and seeing another quiver quickly dons them as well. She's just picked up the bow and turned when she sees Finnick Odair. His arm raised up defensively and Haymitch's bracelet on his wrist. "Good thing we're allies, right?"
"Where did you get that?" she hisses.
"Where do you think?" he asks rhetorically. "Duck."
She doesn't know why she does it, but she does, and then the cannon goes off. Finnick has just saved her life.
"Don't trust 1 and 2," he explains. "You hold them off. I'll go look for Peeta." And he goes around the Cornucopia and out of sight. Katniss, not sure she can trust him is forced to defend herself from the attacking victors. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Finnick comes back around. "He's over here! Mags found him." And she rushes behind Finnick around the Cornucopia, tripping once, Finnick grabs her arm and helps her forward. As they make it around the Cornucopia to see Peeta still stranded on his disk in the middle of the water. Katniss is just about to jump in when Finnick extends his arm in front of her. "I'll get him. You stay here. Cover me."
Finnick dives into the water like a professional, flawlessly entering through the surface of the water, and after getting Peeta down, hauls him over to the side and pushes him up onto the spoke. Katniss flings her arms around him and holds tightly to his neck.
"Um, Katniss," he lightly hugs her back and then pokes her shoulder. "Arena. Out in the open. Pregnant. We need to move!"
"Oh, right!" she gets ahold of herself, lets go of Peeta and takes off in the direction of the jungle. After falling several times they make it a far enough distance that they can stop for a few moments. On deciding the best way to move through the jungle it's agreed that Peeta will be at the front to cut through the terrain, Finnick will carry Mags, and Katniss will watch their backs, and her front.
"We need to know more about this arena," states Finnick.
"We should make camp," says Peeta forcefully, "is what we should do."
Katniss and Finnick stare intently at one another for long enough that Peeta gets uncomfortable and protective. He steps in between the two of them. "So how many are dead?"
"Hard to say," she starts. "At least six, I think. And they're still fighting."
"Let's keep moving a little longer," says Finnick picking Mags back up. "We still need to find water, because some of us," he raises his eyebrows at Katniss, "need it for more than just themselves. Especially with how much energy you're going to be exerting in here just by walking around." It's only now that Finnick mentions it that Katniss begins to realize just how thirsty she actually is.
"He's right," she agrees. "We need to find fresh water."
As they continue to walk, in hopes of finding a water supply, Katniss just catches the glint of something in the jungle ahead of them. As soon as the realization hits her she screams, "Peeta, no!" But it's too late, Peeta has just taken a slice at the force field and been hurled back into the air, knocking both Finnick and Mags down in the process. Katniss, who was also knocked over, frantically crawls forward to Peeta "Peeta?" she lowers her ear to his chest where his heart should be beating and hears nothing. Silence. "Peeta!" Katniss screams shaking him and slapping him, "Peeta!"
Finnick sets Mags up against a tree and comes over to them, "Let me." In the horror of seeing him die Katniss automatically assumes that Finnick is going to kill Peeta when he starts to do something that she had only seen a handful of times. Something her mother might do on occasion, but it didn't always work. Though Finnick seemed to know what to do. After what felt like forever, Peeta gives a slight cough, and Katniss shoves Finnick aside.
"Peeta," Katniss sobs over top of him.
"Careful, there's a force field ahead," he jokes weakly.
Katniss laughs but immediately starts crying harder, "You were dead! Your heart stopped!" She slaps her hands over her mouth and sits back on her feet and cries harder and starts to inhale sharply, making choking noises, everything that happens when she sobs.
"I'm all right, though." He says reassuringly. "It's working now." The sobs don't stop. "It's all right, Katniss." She nods but the crying continues. "Katniss?" Peeta stares at her in concern.
"It's okay," says Finnick. "It's just the hormones from the baby."
"No it's not-" she can't finish, and an even more hysterical type of crying overtakes her.
Finnick gives a cautionary glance from Peeta to Katniss, and back again. "How are you?" he asks Peeta. "Do you think you can move on?"
"No, he has to rest," Katniss says as she sniffles through the tears. Mags grabs some nearby moss and Katniss blows her nose until it's red. Wiping the tears from her eyes she takes a deep breath in an effort to calm herself.
"You want us to make camp here, then?" Finnick asks.
"I don't think that's an option," Peeta answers. "Staying here. With no water. No protection. I feel all right, really. If we could just go slowly."
"Slowly would be better than not at all." Finnick helps Peeta get to his feet. Katniss squeezes the last bits of tears from her eyes and takes a few deep breaths before attempting to stand again. With what she'd gone through so far, seeing Cinna beaten to a pulp, landed in another arena, and seeing Peeta die. It proves more difficult than she anticipated to get to her feet. Finnick helps her when she teeters to the side.
"I'll take the lead," Katniss says.
"Katniss I don't think-" Peeta starts before being interrupted.
"No, let her do it," he nods forward. "You knew about the force field just before he hit it. Might be good to have you in the front."
"I don't fully agree with that," says Peeta through gritted teeth. "She's not steady enough."
"Well, neither are you," Finnick shakes his head, "But if she can prevent anyone else from dying for lack of - if we can prevent any other deaths, I think that would be better than whatever we've got going on right now. It's fine. Let Katniss lead." Peeta begins to object again when Finnick cuts him off, "If she needs to rest then we'll rest, otherwise we need to get moving. We need water and we're clearly not going to get any from here. So, let's go."
The decision is made and the group starts moving again, but because the pace is so slow Mags opts to walk as well. Finnick being the resourceful person that he is, fashion a cane for Mags and a staff for Peeta to help with their walking, because despite his strong exterior, it's obvious that the only thing Peeta wants to do is lie down and go to sleep.
After walking around a while longer, with no water in sight, Katniss convinces them to let her go hunt something. Peeta is absolutely against it, but he also knows they need food, and he's too loud to go with her. Eventually she comes back with a creature of some sort that she found, it goes down all right, but eating has made them even more thirsty than they already were.
And that's when a silver parachute comes into view.
"What is that?" Finnick asks jumping forward towards it.
"I don't know," Katniss shakes her head and comes to stand beside him.
Finnick picks it up and opens the parachute, "what is that?"
"I don't know," Katniss glances at Peeta who doesn't know either.
"Not very helpful, are we?" Finnick jests.
"I don't know," she glares at Finnick. "Do you know what that thing is?"
"No," he shrugs.
"Well, it's from Haymitch," suggests Peeta. "So it must have some kind of importance."
"And what would that be?" Finnick shifts his weight to his other leg and pulls the cylinder object out of the parachute. "Maybe if we sleep on it, we'll figure it out. I'll take the first watch, you should all get some rest."
"Not a chance," Katniss folds her arms over her chest.
"Well you of all people," he throws his hands up in the air, "should get some sleep. Especially with the lack of water. You need to keep up your energy, which is already reduced from you being pregnant and all."
"No," she insists.
"Fine," grumbles. "Don't trust me. But we'd be safer with our backs protected, and you know that thing I did back there, for Peeta? That was called saving his life. If I wanted to kill either of you, I would have done it by now." Katniss looks guiltily at the ground, another thing she would owe him, and she hated owing people.
Katniss sits down, and sensing how tense she was, Peeta begins to rub her shoulders and back, to try and alleviate some of that tension. "We'll figure it out," he encourages. "I know we'll figure it out, it might take us a while, but we'll get it."
After what felt like forever, and thinking of the woods and the river, and back home…
"It's a spile!" shouts Katniss, temporarily forgetting where she was and clasping her hands over her mouth.
"A what?" asks Finnick.
Reaching forward on the ground to where it lay in frustration she pulls it into her hands, wiping the dirt from it. "It's a spile," she explains, "sort of like a faucet. You put it in a tree and sap comes out. Well, the right sort of tree."
"Sap?" wonders Finnick.
"To make syrup," getting to her feet, haphazardly, "but if we got it, there must be something else in these trees." Everyone else gets to their feet quickly, Finnick swipes the spile from her hand and goes to hammer it into a nearby tree. "Wait!" shouts Katniss involuntarily. "You might damage it. We should drill a hole first."
Once the hole is made and the spile is inserted, the whole group drinks the water that comes gushing from the center of the tree. After the group has had their fill of water, Katniss removes the spile from the tree, de-leaves a bit of vine, and ties the spile to her belt. Finnick offers to take the first watch, and this time Katniss does not object.
Laying on the ground beside Peeta, "I'm just really glad you aren't dead," she mutters to him.
"Well, I'm not going anywhere," he sighs. "If I can help it."
"Good," she nods snuggling up beside him to sleep. Not knowing how long she'd been asleep a loud Bong! sound wakes her sending her bolt upright. Both Peeta and Mags sleep through it, but Katniss makes eye contact with Finnick and counts.
"I count twelve," he says.
"Mean anything to you?" she shrugs.
"No idea," he shakes his head.
They sit in wait for something, anything, a message. But nothing happens. Looking around at the sleeping group Katniss slowly gets to her feet. "Get some sleep Finnick."
"You sure you're okay to watch?" he checks.
"I'll be fine," she nods. "Just don't tell Peeta."
He laughs and agrees, laying down to sleep. Katniss sits in wait. Ready to defend this group of allies she never thought she had, but eternally grateful for them now, and Peeta who was sleeping soundly. The events of the day and dying, surely took their toll on him.
Looking into the distance a fog appears, but it's too uniform, too together. There is nothing natural about the way that it looks, and they're in an arena, everything seems to be out to get them, you can never trust anything in an arena, much like the fireballs the past year. Just as she's beginning to consider waking the others, the smell reaches her nose. Reaching her hand out to touch it causes searing pain and blisters form all over her hand.
"Run!" she screams to the group, Finnick jumps up instantly and hauls her off the ground and rounding to grab Mags. Peeta is on his feet and they are running. Peeta and Katniss are quite the pair. One with an artificial leg, one pregnant, not two people who should be running for their lives, yet here they were. Running.