Who: Katniss Everdeen What: Arriving in Lawrence, coming to the grim conclusion, skulking in a park. When: Early evening on the 22nd Where: The park (it is earth day after all) Status: Narrative, COMPLETE Plutarch Heavensbee had shut her eyes and there was nothing left now except to drift into unconsciousness, to let her body save her if it could, let it pump her blood out onto the hovercraft floor before the Capitol doctors could resuscitate her. The odds were not in her favor, of course. In all the years of Hunger Games she had watched on the small, flickering projector screen in her home (her hands gently working the tangles out of Prim’s hair, talking to her quietly, distracting her from the images on the screen) she had gained a good idea of what Capitol doctors could fix. Internal organs twining like ropes from gaping stomachs were gathered in and untangled so that the victor could sit pretty on a throne, missing eyes were replaced to watch the victory reel, mangled legs replaced so that…
Peeta, I’m sorry. The thought drifted across her pain addled mind, gathered its wandering tangents, united them behind that name, behind the promise that she had made to the boy with the bread. Plutarch Heavensbee had shut her eyes, but she couldn’t let herself drift off, not yet, not before she knew if Peeta had been caught in a similar claw, brought to a similar ship that was ferrying him towards the Capitol even as she lay bleeding out on the floor. If she couldn’t send him home then she had to find a way to save him from what would be done to them there, and in order to do that she had to be alive. Just a few more minutes, she thought, trying and failing to curl her fingers into a fist, just a few more-
She smelled pine trees and dirt and she moved so suddenly, so instinctively, that she only remembered being surprised at her ability to move at all, at the fact that she had apparently been healed, once she was crouched between the shadow of two squat pine trees, concealed from the footpath where she had landed. What is- Voices in the distance cut off even the thought of a question and she went utterly still, controlling even her breathing as the voices drew closer and their owners, two teenage girls, walked past her hiding place. Who-
Then it came to her, they needed a victor. They always needed a victor. If the current tributes looked unlikely to provide it, became too much trouble then what was to stop them taking new ones, especially for a quarter quell? Maybe all Beetee’s force field trick had accomplished was for them to be sent to another arena, with another crop of tributes. It was genius in its way. If they gave her and Peeta a second chance, the masses would think they were merciful. When new, younger, stronger tributes killed them in the new arena it would be tragic but, of course, they would say, they had been given every chance.
It also, however, meant that she had been bought more time. If she could keep Peeta alive through this, they would have to let him go home. A two time Hunger Games winner, and grieving fiancé at that, would be too good to get messy with collateral damage. If Katniss could focus the Capitol’s anger onto herself then Peeta just might escape retribution. She peered around the edge of one of the trees and took a deep breath.