Katniss Everdeen is busy reblogging squirrel pics (tindernest) wrote in wariscoming, @ 2012-06-04 22:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | katniss everdeen, peeta mellark |
Who: Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, vague mention of rescuers (assumed Isabela, Jamie, and unnamed others), Jenny, and Doreah
When: Tonight, sometime before the sun goes down
Where: Cemetery/crypt where the kidnapped are/complex
What: Rescue! Aaaaangst.
Status: Complete
Warnings: Excessive length.
Tl;dr: It is assumed they all take a van home instead of walking okay? OKAY.
Katniss had been unable, or rather unwilling, to listen to her fellow rescuers since they had arrived at the graveyard, since she’d seen the place that Peeta had most likely been hidden for the past few days. The crypt. She’d let their voices buzz around her, gentle as bumble-bees, while she stared at the crypt wall between herself and Peeta’s body. She had been certain, then, that he was dead. Whoever had taken him had decided he was expendable, not enough of a diversion, and they had left him here to die. Really, she had been certain from the beginning, but had allowed the mad girl and the detective to convince her briefly that there was hope. Then River had disappeared too, maybe swallowed up into her own crypt, maybe waiting on the other side of this wall, still and silent next to Peeta. She had tried to believe the detective’s certainty, but if he was so sure, so right, then how had he not seen this coming?
She stood rooted to the spot and tried not to understand anything that happened around her, to pretend that she had not yet left the apartment to begin their hunt, that at any moment she would hear Prim in the next room, calling to remind her to eat supper.
They seemed to decide on a method for unsealing the grim monument fairly quickly. Katniss was peripherally aware of one of the women illustrating a point with twitches of her small, graceful hands and of the man with the sword nodding gravely before a flurry of activity that she didn’t try to track unfolded in front of her. She stepped back a pace and lowered her gaze to the grass, trying not to imagine what it must have been like for Peeta, who loved light in a way beyond simply needing it to see, who appreciated its facets and shades and gradients like friends, to die in the dark. She tried not to imagine the boy who threw open the windows before he went to sleep every night shut up without a breeze, air growing increasingly stale until finally… she turned and almost ran then, almost let her feet carry her back to the Complex and away from the moment when what was inside the crypt would be revealed and become real. Then, at the last moment, she remembered, I’m the only one who can claim his body, and realized that if it were her he would stay with her even after the end, would make sure it wasn’t a stranger who performed the last things that can be done for anyone you love. Even if she had never been able to match what he felt for her, she could do this final thing for the boy with the bread. She turned back as the stone fell away and bit down hard on her lip as the blackness in the entryway yawned before her, and then plunged into it along with the rest of them.
Inside the crypt it was easier. She heard voices but couldn’t distinguish, between the disorientation of the darkness and the fugue she’d plunged herself into, who they were coming from or what they were saying. Instead she pressed on, darting glances into the swinging beams of the flashlights the others were holding, until she caught a glimpse of an ankle, briefly illuminated and then plunged back into darkness as whoever was behind her moved the light. That was enough, however, when that ankle belonged to someone you’d fought and bled and slept beside for two years. Katniss moved forward in a way so mechanical it might have been called calm, except that her nails were digging into her palms so hard that they broke the skin, blood welling up lazily around them, and her throat was slowly swelling with the effort of keeping her eyes dry. This effort of it was so all-consuming that the others could have been having noisy reunions all around her, could have been setting off bombs, and she would never have noticed.
Finally, she was on her knees next to him, and she reached her hand out, shaking slightly, to brush wordlessly against his.
A few days could have passed, or a week. Peeta had given up trying to keep track when his phone's battery died, forcing the three of them into complete darkness. He wasn't used to hunger or thirst the way he knew Katniss was, having grown up outside the poverty-stricken confines of the Seam. He remembered the feeling only vaguely from the first Games and even then, he'd been too feverish and, if he was honest, dying, to be concerned with the emptiness of his stomach at the time. At least then, he'd had Katniss with him.
There in the darkness, he had Jenny and Doreah, but they were strangers and they didn't have sponsor gifts from Haymitch. He didn't love them. If he was going to die here, he'd told himself, he'd do it alone in a crowded room. So, after a while, he'd given up trying to remain social. He'd gone quiet in a corner. The last fight he'd put up with the walls had taken everything out of him, never mind that he'd been weaker than he'd have liked to begin with given the beating he'd taken from the horde of plastic men. Peeta wondered at the time why they'd picked him. As time passed in the darkened room, he realized it didn't matter. Why him? Why Jenny? Why Doreah? He hadn't seen either of them on the boards, so they were either new or anti-social as far as he could tell. Did either of them have anyone who loved them trying to find them?
When the door finally opened, he was so far gone that he wrote it off as his imagination and made no effort to move. The new sounds were only dully registered because every once in a while, the women with whom he was trapped made their own fruitless efforts at escaping from time to time. But when he felt the touch, Peeta opened his eyes and grabbed the hand. He said nothing at first, certain it was one of the others checking again whether he was alive. Every once in a while, one of them would prod at him when he'd been quiet for too long. It was his way of letting them know that even though he'd given up hope, he hadn't expired just yet. "Go," he croaked, preferring his lonely longing for Katniss, and throwing the hand weakly from his grasp. "Leave me alone. Please."
Katniss let out a strangled noise, somewhere between a gasp and a scream, as the lifeless hand she’d brushed against twisted in her grasp and fingers suddenly closed around hers. She started to throw herself backwards instinctively, heart slamming against her ribcage as she scrabbled away from the sensation of being trapped, but she’d hardly had time to move when her hand was tossed aside and a weak voice was sounding nearby. She didn’t pay attention to the words, didn’t even register them, because she recognized that voice, even weak and ravaged by dehydration as it was.
“Peeta!” it took her a moment to recognize her own voice, longer than it had taken to recognize his, as the involuntary cry fought its way up her swollen throat and through her lips. There was still no light (why can’t they shine a damn flashlight this way she thought venomously, forgetting that a moment ago she had been all too happy to be left alone in the dark) but she’d heard him, she’d felt him grip her hand, and that was enough, wasn’t it? Isn’t it?
She was consumed, suddenly, by the fear that she had imagined the whole thing, that she’d finally gone as mad as she’d always half expected herself to after the first Hunger Games. Her lips worked frantically around the shape of his name but all that came out was a sort of choking sound, the beginnings of the kind of sobs that would render her completely useless, and so she threw herself forward instead, her knees scraping against the cement floor in a way that would have been painful if she’d been paying attention. Just be alive, she thought as her hands gripped at his wrists before she realized they were shaking too hard to come up with anything resembling an accurate appraisal of a pulse. Just be alive and I’ll… the thought trailed off into incoherency as she pressed herself against him, her ear at the place where she’d rested her head all those nights on the train, over his heart.
At first the pounding in her temples eclipsed everything and she felt that she hung, suspended, alone in the dark. Then she felt the familiar and steady, if weak, heartbeat beneath her and exhaled another sob, this time of relief, and felt herself jerk slightly against him with the rhythmless motion of her crying. Katniss was a girl who rarely cried, and when she did it was as if her body was trying to make up for lost time, to shove out its allotment of tears before she could close the floodgates again and bottle everything back up. She’d cried once while she had been in Lawrence, not during her sickness or fever dreams, but when she’d read about Prim’s death in those books. That time Peeta had held her, drawing her in like he had in the arena, after the jabberjays, so that she could bury her face in his chest with his arms wrapped around her. Now it was Peeta who needed help, and she tried to force herself to stop crying, to say something comforting, to reach into her pack and get the water she was sure he needed much more than Katniss sobbing over him. Stop crying, she told herself sternly, stop it, you haven’t got any reason to cry, and it isn’t helping.
Still, for a moment, the most she could manage was to curl her fingers into his shirtfront and force out, “I thought you were gone,” in a voice striving so hard for control that its rawness made it sound almost angry.
The gasping was expected. It was dark and it wasn't a new sound to him; not when he would respond when the offender was checking for signs of life they didn't expect to find. But hearing his name, hearing her voice saying it, well Peeta wanted to smile. Instead, as she pressed herself against him, Peeta let out a soft, relieved sigh and let his eyes close again. He was saved. Katniss had come for him just like he'd known she would. She was always saving him, really, now that he thought about it.
Peeta could feel her sobs racking against him and he wrapped an arm lazily around her. He wanted to talk to her. Peeta wanted to tell Katniss that he was okay, but he didn't think he was. He felt a lot like he had when things had gotten really bad in the cave in the first Games. Like every ounce of energy he had was being put into staying alive when his body wanted to shut down. Whether he was really that badly off or if he'd just become so resigned and depressed that it felt that way, Peeta wasn't sure.
"I'm here," he rasped back at her, moving his hand to the back of her head, stroking her hair with a heavier hand than he normally had. It was dead weight, at this point; Peeta had little control over it, but he wanted Katniss to know he was there. He was alive; in spite of how he was feeling, Katniss was crying and it was his job to comfort her. He had made it his job long ago. "I'm here, Katniss," he reassured. "I'm sorry." The last bit was added for his having been unable to let her know where he was or that he'd been okay for a while.
Peeta lolled his head to one side, searching in the broken darkness for his fellow captives. There were so many more people in the room, now, and his vision was blurred. Try as he might, Peeta couldn't identify a single person other than Katniss. He opened his mouth to ask for one of the women, to make sure they were all right, too. He didn't, after all, know how long he'd been out before the door had opened. But sound failed him and his lips, cracked and dry, were moistened with blood for his effort, so Peeta closed his mouth and said nothing to them. Instead, he spoke to Katniss again, quietly and in a voice just for her. "Home?" was all he could manage coherently.
Katniss was, in essence, more practical than emotional, the kind of girl more inclined to cook a stray cat than to make a pet of it. When she did break down and lose control of herself the episodes were brief and violent, sobbing or shouting coming as uncontrollably as a tidal wave. Like a tidal wave, however, it receded again quickly, and by the time Peeta had rasped out his request to go home (and it was funny, she would think later, how she hadn’t even questioned that he meant the complex rather than District 12) she was already sitting up again with her crying mostly under control.
“Don’t apologize,” she muttered, her hands sweeping quickly over his limbs, checking him for injuries that would mean he shouldn’t be moved and letting out a breath of relief when she came away from her search without anything that would prevent her taking him out of the crypt. “I’m the one who was late,” she added, attempting a joke and then wincing as she realized her voice had come out harsh with regret. “Okay,” she whispered quickly, her hands finishing their inspection as she cupped his cheek for a moment, freed from her normal inhibitions by her relief and the darkness, the similarity of their current circumstances to the Games where this kind of behavior was expected of them, “You’re going to be okay. I’ll get you out of here.”
She reached into her pack and grabbed a tissue, turning away from him slightly to clean herself up before she handled someone with open wounds, though she kept her hand against his cheek and wiped her eyes and nose one-handed. She’d kept herself in the circle of his arm when she’d sat up, and she dropped her hand down now and laid it on top of his as it rested against her hip. One more reminder that he was alive, that she had gotten here in time. It wasn’t as much as she wanted, but even she didn’t exactly know what would be enough, what it was she wanted, and so she shifted their positions so that his arm was around her shoulders, ready for her to lift him to his feet.
“Let’s get you out of here,” she said, and when she spoke most of the hoarseness was gone, the tears she hadn’t shed swallowed again. She sounded like the girl from their first Games now, scared, but so stubbornly determined that it seemed more than your life was worth to call her on it. “We’re just a few steps from the door,” she told him, a bit redundantly since he almost certainly knew the dimensions of his own cell. “Do you want to go now or do you want water first?”
Peeta felt Katniss sit up and he winced slightly as she ran her hands over him. Likely, he thought, she was looking for any outward injuries. He doubted she'd find them, even though they were there. At best, he felt as though he'd been thrown around like a rag doll. He learned, the last time he'd fought the wall unsuccessfully, what the concept of phantom pain was, and even now he felt shooting pains in the leg that had since been replaced with a prosthetic.
A small smile crossed his lips, though it never met his eyes, when Katniss said she was the one who was late. "Knew you'd come though," he murmured in response to it. He felt her hand on his cheek and thought to himself that if there were cameras, she would be kissing him. Memories from the cave flooded into his mind, then. "How about that kiss?" he croaked in a weak attempt to joke back to her; his way of trying to impart that she was right; he would be okay. He hoped it was true.
Feeling her maneuver the two of them in a way similar to the time she'd found him hiding by the river after Cato had stabbed him, Peeta did his best to help her get him to his feet. He hated that he had no choice but to lean heavily on her, just like he had back in the first arena. The idea of getting out of that room was beyond desirable but he needed water even more, so when she mentioned it, Peeta let his head drop down, straining his neck as his chin neared his chest with exhaustion. "Water," he managed. "Jenny," he added, "Doreah. Are they alive?" Jenny, he knew, had been there before him, although how much longer, he hadn't been sure. She'd been the first face he'd been able to make out — even just barely — in the darkness when he'd first woken up in there. Doreah had come later.
“Yeah, well, we’re a team,” Katniss muttered as Peeta rasped out that he’d known she would come. Her hand moved slightly against his cheek and her thumb brushed his lips, chapped and cracked after days in the dry crypt, and she made an involuntary sound low in her throat, remembering the days she had spent circling the city with Jamie’s patrol group and then with Rikki. She’d passed by this cemetery, not close enough to hear struggles from the crypt, but achingly near with her pack full of water and food and supplies for when she found him. I was so close all this time. If I’d known, if I could have… her thoughts were cut off by his voice, an echo of the first joke he’d whispered to her in their first arena, and she laughed, the noise made harsh by surprise and recently shed tears. For a moment, just before they pulled themselves upright, she rested her forehead against his, felt his breath puff weakly against her face, and there was a stretch of seconds that seemed to flash by and slow down all at once when she wanted more than anything to lean in and press her lips against his, even if it had been a joke, even if she’d laughed, even if there were no cameras. Then something shifted behind her, one of the others moving, and she remembered her resolutions and her inhibitions and Gale, lurking like a spectator even now, and she pulled back quickly and moved with him as he did his best to participate in their lurch to standing. There’s no excuse for that here, she told herself sternly, without the cameras you have to be honest. The only problem was that she still had no idea, really, how much of the past two years had been for the benefit of the cameras and how much had been genuine. Maybe it had been a mixture, each kiss initiated for survival but some enjoyed on their own. Either way, it made being honest a complicated proposal.
Peeta’s request for water broke through her confusion and she nodded, “Probably a good idea,” she said, trying to keep her tone light and no-nonsense, to say it how her mother or Prim would have. “I’m going to lean you against this column, okay?” she added, maneuvering him gently backwards a step towards one of the stone columns that supported the roof and steadying him against it before she reached into the backpack she’d slung down over one arm and uncapped one of the water bottles she’d brought with her, packed almost superstitiously into her bag that morning as if willing the universe to return her friend to her alive so as not to disrupt her preparations. She handed him the bottle, but kept her hand on it as well as he raised it towards his lips in case he turned out to be too weakened to complete the motion. “Small sips,” she reminded him, furrowing a line between her eyebrows as she concentrated on tracking his movements in the half-light of the crypt.
When he asked about the others Katniss started slightly in surprise, she’d forgotten the other two prisoners, first in her grief at thinking she’d been too late to save Peeta and then in her relief at finding him still alive. She jerked a glance over her shoulder at the people moving around in the darkness behind them. Their voices were faint but she didn’t detect any notes of alarm and she thought she saw two figures being helped towards the entrance. “They look okay,” she said, about to dismiss it from her mind when she remembered that Peeta had never been as good as her at dismissing the people who weren’t personally important to him, that he tended to like everyone rather than simply a select few people he’d taken years to make up his mind about. “We’ll be able to see better once we get you outside,” she added, raising the water bottle one more time before starting to move herself under his arm again, preparing to take the brunt of his weight. “Ready to go home?”
Knowing that he and Katniss relied on one another in this strange place and hearing her say out loud, rather than over the boards, that they were a team were very different things. Peeta closed his eyes and smiled weakly again. He knew she'd never have the same feelings for him that he had for her — one thing he was certain their author had gotten wrong — but knowing that she cared was good enough for him, for now.
Her laughter, however rough, was music to his ears. It meant to Peeta that she understood what he was trying to do with the joke. Her forehead pressed to his and for a moment, he almost thought she'd taken him seriously and he wasn't sure he wanted a pity kiss again from her. The sensation of her breath soft and warm against his face, though, set his stomach to flutter, anyway. She pulled away, though, after a few seconds that seemed to stretch out forever for Peeta and his stomach dropped with the sort of disappointment he'd never share with anyone, ever. The part of him that hadn't wanted her to kiss him just because he was hurt and she was glad he was alive or because he'd cracked a joke about it had momentarily been overridden by the part of him that wanted nothing more than to feel Katniss's lips against his again. The opportunity to allow himself to pretend, just for a minute, that she loved him, too; he forced it to pass as quickly as she pulled away to help him up.
When Katniss told him her plan to keep him upright, he grunted a quiet affirmation and attempted to weakly nod his agreement. He took the bottle in one hand and was glad to have Katniss help, because he wasn't sure he could do it himself; he was exhausted and even standing made him uncomfortable, aggravating his pain and fatigue even more than just being awake did. "I know," he replied when she reminded him that he should be taking small sips. No part of him was all right with it, but he knew she was right. For a few moments he allowed himself to enjoy the cool moisture in his mouth again; it had been a long time since he had been that parched. Even in the last arena, they'd had the spile to acquire fresh water. He hadn't gone this long without it at the very least in over a year.
Finally, he lowered the water bottle when she spoke again and he knit his brow. It was just like her to concentrate on him because she didn't know the other two. To be fair, he understood where she was coming from; they didn't matter to her like he did. But he'd spent however long trapped with them, hearing their voices and trying, for a little while, to make friends so that he wouldn't die alone. That was, of course, before he'd changed his mind about his potential expiration. Then Katniss said they'd be able to tell better outside and Peeta decided that was fair, taking one more drink when offered.
He could feel Katniss readying to move him again and he braced himself against the pain of impending movement. He'd never been more ready for anything, he thought miserably to himself. Even in the arenas, he'd been prepared to die. This time, he'd been blind-sided and hadn't wanted to. If he wasn't dying to keep Katniss alive, there was no point...he'd just run out of the energy to fight. "Yes," he said quietly. He caught her eye then and held her gaze for a moment. "Katniss...don't leave me, okay?" he asked. He didn't want to rely on her the way he wanted her to rely on him, but a small, loud part of him was at least willing to admit that he was afraid for her to leave his sight. At least for today. Tonight, maybe. Whenever in the day it was, he supposed. He'd spent what felt like an eternity alone in a corner of the room trying to die with quiet dignity. Now that he was going to live, he didn't want to have to be alone with his thoughts and the nightmares he'd suffered in silence while trapped with Jenny and Doreah. "Please," he tacked on in a whisper as an afterthought.
Katniss bristled a little at the disappointment she could practically feel radiating from Peeta as she dismissed the other two. Their friends are taking care of them. I’m taking care of you. That’s how it works, Peeta, she protested internally, against what she took as a silent accusation that she was being heartless. ”Katniss will choose whoever she thinks she can’t survive without” she’d read another version, a future version, of Gale say in her books. Maybe I am heartless, she conceded, the indignation fading into that old, gnawing worry that had been present since the first Hunger Games, since she had been willing to kill without hesitation for the first time. Still, it was a worry so old as to be familiar, almost untroubling, and her indignation faded away into it as quickly as it had come, not interfering with what she had to do next.
She had herself just about squared away to take his weight, never easy even when he was starved and weak since he would always have more than a few pounds on her, when he suddenly caught her eye so urgently that she froze in place, as unable to move or look away as if he’d grabbed her physically. “Leave you?” she echoed, confusion answering his shamefaced desperation. She opened her mouth again to make a joke about how if he thought he was ever going anywhere again without her after this he was living in a morphling dream, but the look on his face stopped her. It was familiar in a way she couldn’t place, since she was sure that she had never seen Peeta look at her like this before, not with love or affection but with need, not even when he had been dying of blood poisoning. Then it hit her, this must be what she looked like, that day she’d come back over the fence and broken her heel, when her mother had given her the sleep syrup and she’d clung to Peeta’s hand and begged him to stay with her, what she must have looked like all those nights on the train when he’d held her after her nightmares. It was only that Peeta didn’t have to be drugged and half out of his mind to ask for what he needed.
His whispered “please” brought an end to her trail of thought and she tightened the arm she had wrapped around his waist, momentarily forgetting that it might aggravate the bruises that she knew must be dappling his skin like shadows. “I’m not going to leave you,” she promised, her voice still rough and the words coming out almost fierce, as if she was overriding someone’s protestations instead of simply agreeing, “I promise.” She held his gaze for a moment more before she dropped it again, embarrassed by the emotional moment and uncertain of just what she’d conveyed when she’d locked eyes with him.
“Besides,” she added, as she started them towards the door again, “you’re coming to stay with me whether you like it or not since I doubt you’ll be allowed out of my apartment for a couple days, no matter what I say. Prim’s here now,” she took a breath, as if the enormity of those words with all their attendant joy and responsibility and regret for what had happened to her little sister just before the seal had brought her to Kansas, was still too much to be taken for granted, “and she’s been both very worried about you and indignant that everyone thinks she’s too young to be a doctor. She’ll have you weighing three hundred pounds by next week,” Katniss informed him as they approached the doorway, trying to keep her tone light for his sake.
A moment later they were at the threshold and she tightened her grip around his waist again, more carefully this time, muttering, “Watch the step,” as they crossed a slightly uneven patch of ground and emerged into the sunlight. Katniss sucked in a breath of fresh air, a few minutes in that crypt enough to make her almost painfully relieved to see the sun and feel an actual breeze again. There was a bench a few paces away and she guided Peeta towards it, murmuring an explanation, “We’ll just sit here, there’s a bench, and we’ll wait for them to figure out how they’re getting us all back,” not sure if he’d even be able to see in this much sunlight after so long in the dark. When she’d finished lowering him gingerly onto the bench, she sat down next to him, pressed against his side, ostensibly for his benefit but also to reassure herself, and offered him the water bottle again.
Peeta hissed ever so slightly and winced when Katniss tightened her grip around his waist. He could tell it was her way of connecting an action with her words to reassure him, but it ached all the same when she did it. She promised not to leave him and stared back at him as if to let him know she really meant it. A second less and he might've doubted it; a second longer and he'd have gotten the wrong message. "Thank you," he whispered, sounding as ashamed as he felt for the necessity of her presence.
It took a lot of effort for Peeta to move along with Katniss, limping with the weight on his false leg because the good one hurt too much. He looked up at her uncertainly in the darkness when she stated rather than asked that he stay with her. At least she'd saved him the indignity of having to invite himself, he supposed. But Prim's name caught his attention. "Prim's here?" he asked. "Since when...?"
He didn't remember Prim as being the healing type, really. He knew she helped their mother a bit, but it seemed strange to think of her as indignant about anything, most especially that. Peeta said nothing, though, of it as they continued to move toward the mouth of the crypt. He could see the sunlight already and squinted against it in preparation.
The moment they were outside, Peeta had to close his eyes against the blinding light but he took the opportunity to take a deep breath of fresh air, allowing Katniss to navigate him wherever it was she was taking him, since he couldn't see a thing save the angry red of the insides of his eyelids. "Okay," he agreed easily. He trusted her. Peeta made no attempt to argue that he didn't need or want anyone else's help, because he knew he couldn't do it on his own and asking Katniss to bear his weight all the way home would be asking too much of her; Peeta knew that.
She sat him down and he felt her pressing the water bottle into his hand again, so he took a sip and attempted to open his eyes very slowly, squinting heavily. "Katniss, I don't want to see anyone," he admitted in a rough, gravelly voice. "Once we're back, I mean. Just you. And Prim, I guess." Peeta didn't want his new friends asking questions or welcoming him back. He wondered if River had felt his pain; he knew she could do that. He also knew he wouldn't have the patience or the heart to try to decipher whatever she might have to say to him. Peeta felt like it was important to impart this information to Katniss because this included Cindy and he knew that, even if no one else did, Cindy would ask after him. "Okay?"
He was growing impatient waiting for the others. Part of it was because he wondered if their slower pace was because one of his fellow captives — or both — were dead or too far gone to move at all, but mostly it was because all he wanted to do was take a shower, eat, and sleep. If Peeta could sleep forever after this, he would be more than happy to, even if he knew that no one, not even Katniss, would let him get away with it. “Can we go? Are they coming?” he asked, frowning as he finally managed to get his eyes to open the rest of the way, however much it hurt.
Though she was stronger than she had been in the arena, and though Peeta was almost back down to his Games weight after so long in crypt, Katniss still had to use most of her strength and all of her concentration to guide him towards the bench. She bit her lip, irrationally angry that it had been so easy for Peeta to carry her back to the Complex during the episode with the Horseman, and that she couldn’t just do the same now, just get them home. Because she’d been concentrating, she waited to answer his questions about Prim until they were settled on the bench and he’d a couple more small sips of the water.
“She came a couple days after you went missing,” she told him, and, careful not to accidentally hurt him again, moved closer against his side, as if the memory of that time, of Prim showing up in those circumstances, was a physical chill. “She’s fourteen now, Peeta, and she’s so grown up now it’s…” she trailed off, realizing that this wasn’t the time, that there were more immediate things to talk about, “well you’ll see,” she finished, and allowed herself a slight smile. Peeta was safe now, so was Prim, and she could finally sleep again, could have confidence in Peeta being nearby to stop her before she upset Prim if she started screaming in her sleep, could help him through his own nightmares. They were all safe now, and she finally had some bit of confidence that she could keep them that way, that they could all be a team. That was a safe word, a safe idea, she could take care of her sister and of Peeta when he needed it without the feelings from that kiss during the second Games or that moment in the crypt when she’d wanted to kiss him getting involved.
Then Peeta was speaking again, halting and gravelly, saying he didn’t want to see anyone but her, and she looked over at him sharply, her brows drawing down in sudden, renewed worry. You want to be alone? she almost asked in disbelief. If it had been her stuck in the crypt the request would have been natural, at the best of times there were really only about five or ten people she genuinely enjoyed being around, but coming from Peeta who seemed to thrive off of being around other people the way plants thrived on sunlight, and when combined with the tone of shame she’d tried to convince herself she was imagining earlier, she was suddenly at a loss for what to do or say next.
“Yeah,” she said, because she had to say something, “of course, if that’s what you want.” She frowned down at her hands for a moment, feeling lost and inadequate and irrationally irritated, not at him, but at her own ineptitude when faced with their sudden role reversal. Peeta was always the steady one, maybe not as good at tracking or fighting or surviving, but armed with what had always seemed like inexhaustible emotional stability and patience, a solid presence that it was easy to take for granted. She remembered the chapters in their books when he’d been brainwashed by the Capitol, the way the Katniss of those books, of her future if she believed it, had been blindsided by the loss of that presence. If something about this ordeal had broken him, Katniss wasn’t sure that she was the one to bring him back, to do anything but make things worse. She remembered the way her mother had slowly faded away after their father’s death, refusing to see her friends, eventually becoming locked inside herself, inaccessible to her children, and how she’d been unable to stop it. Peeta’s not like that, she reminded herself, he’s asking for some time to recover from being locked in a crypt, not your permission to leave you. “Just stop talking like you’re embarrassed to need my help,” she muttered, too sullen for the gentleness the words would have held if it had been Peeta saying them to her, “I-“ ”owe you” she had been about to say, but she remembered how he had reacted to that statement before and changed course mid-sentence, “I mean, we’re not just a team when I’m the one who needs you.”
“They’re out,” she answered his next question, motioning to the figures being helped to similar benches that dotted the cemetery. “We’re just waiting for a van. It’s a couple miles back to the Complex and those things are still out there. I think we’ll need reinforcements to get back with injured, but it shouldn’t be long. We’ll be home soon, I promise.”
The way Katniss sat so close to him, making sure she was touching him, was a welcome sensation. As alone in his own mind as he felt, he appreciated knowing that she was right there with him, that she wasn't going anywhere. He listened lethargically as she told him about Prim. The younger Everdeen was older than he remembered, Katniss told him, and he wondered what exactly it was Katniss was about to say before she'd trailed off, but he didn't ask. Instead, he nodded. "Good," was all he could come up with at first. After a short pause, he added, "now she's with you." He wanted to say now she's safe but Peeta's idolization about Kansas had changed. It wasn't safe here just because there were no Hunger Games. Prim was in just as much danger here as she had been back in Panem, he thought miserably, only it was a different sort of danger; one with which neither he nor Katniss were familiar.
In retrospect, that was the point at which Peeta decided that, once he'd recovered and was back to his normal self, he'd talk to Cindy about the role she played here. He'd train with her. He would fight their war. For Katniss and Prim, he would learn how to join the battle against evil in this place and he'd make it safe. Peeta would hunt, too.
Katniss agreed that he wouldn't have to see anyone and Peeta nodded silently again, but then she added that he needed to stop talking as though he were embarrassed to need her. I am, he wanted to say, frowning even as he thought it. He'd been the one to idealize Kansas. He'd worked so hard to convince her that this place was different — better — than Panem and it was humiliating to be so wrong. "I know," he said quietly when she reminded him that they were a team even when he needed her. Admitting to her out loud that he'd been mistaken about this place was more than Peeta could bear at that particular moment, so he looked down at his feet and said nothing more about it. "Thank you," he added.
Her movement went unseen at first, but Peeta felt it and he followed the sensation with his eyes. It was hard to pinpoint who was who, but a flash of blonde caught his eye and he identified it as Jenny. Doreah had come last; he was admittedly not as worried about her as he had been about Jenny. So, satisfied that she wasn't dead, he returned his gaze to the grass below his feet. "Don't take me to the med bay," he whispered more to himself than to Katniss. It felt hypocritical, really, because he'd been so insistent that she go when she'd been stricken ill by Pestilence, but that, he rationalized, was different. She'd been dying. He was injured and dehydrated, but he wasn't ill like she'd been. Water, food, and rest would cure him. "Or if you do, I only want River's brother," he added stubbornly. He had no connection to the other man other than River herself, but that was enough for him. Knowing what he did about River, he reasoned that her brother would be best equipped to handle Peeta's state of mind.
After a short wait that seemed endless to Peeta, he heard the rumble of an engine and hoped it was their transport. "I'm sorry I was wrong about this place," he said in a dull voice that would have been angry if he'd had the energy. Without that, the words carried a tinge of bitterness but he couldn't muster anything more, even though he felt it. He almost added that he wished he was back home, because at least there he was familiar with the threats that surrounded him. He refrained only because he had kept his promise and hadn't read their books...Katniss knew more about his future than he did and it would've been a slap in the face to her, he thought, to say that after the breakdown she'd had reading that last one. But even without saying it, the feeling was still there.
Katniss looked sharply at Peeta, her frown not lifting even as he acknowledged her rebuke about being ashamed to need her help. You don’t mean a word of that, she thought, and dropped her gaze back down to her hands. She started to clench them into fists to relieve some of the tension, then hissed softly in surprised pain as her fingers encountered the places where her nails had dug through her palms and drawn blood when she’d been walking into the crypt, thinking Peeta was dead. Stupid, she told herself, you don’t let your hands get injured like that for something that wouldn’t have helped anyway. What if that had interfered with holding your bow?
It occurred to her, suddenly, that maybe Peeta’s shame wasn’t just tied to the fact that he was depending on her for more than physical protection and food. Maybe it was the kind of help he needed, the emotional support, that he disdained. Maybe every time he’s gotten into bed with me after a nightmare he’s been thinking I was weak. The thought flashed across her mind sharp and venomous as a poisoned knife, and she hunched her shoulders slightly as if against a sudden, harsh wind. He wouldn’t love me if he thought I was weak, she told herself, but the suspicion seemed primed to take root and grow within her anyway, when Peeta suddenly distracted her from it again by coming out with his request not to be taken to the med lab, to only be treated by Dr. Tam if he had to be.
For a moment, Katniss considered not telling him that Dr. Tam had been missing nearly as long as he had, that River had gone out after him and never come back. She’d promised though, after the victory tour, that neither of them would keep things from the other again, and she still had a debt to work off in that regard for making her plan with Haymitch to send Peeta home again from the Quarter Quell against his wishes. So she looked up at him, not letting herself flinch away from delivering the news, and told him, “River’s brother went missing a couple days after you. We haven’t found him yet. River went out looking before anyone could stop her, and no one’s heard from her since.” She moved her hand, dried blood and all, over his as if she hoped the gesture could soften the news, and then went on, “There’s a Dr. Moore though, she’s good, and we might be able to get her to come to you at my apartment. You probably don’t know her but…” Katniss cast around for a moment, looking for the words to describe the impression she’d gotten of the older woman, the hints of the same kindness and openness that she saw in Peeta, “well, I trust her enough that I left Prim with her while I looked for you,” she finished, deciding that was the best recommendation of all.
Then the van was there, and she was so concentrated on getting everything together quickly without jostling Peeta that she almost missed his quiet apology, and did miss the bitterness in it. “It’s fine,” she said easily, “there’s war everywhere, in the end, isn’t there? At least here Prim has another chance to grow up and you’ll never have to go through what happens to you in the Capitol. At least the people on the same side as us don’t have to weigh up the fact that they’re supposed to kill us.” She smiled, not without her own tinge of bitterness, “At this point, I’m just relieved not to be the main target.”
That said, she positioned herself under Peeta’s arm again and began to maneuver them carefully up and towards the van.
At the news that Dr. Tam and River were missing, Peeta flinched and frowned. Of course River was missing. That just figured; as if the poor girl didn’t have enough problems, now she was going to have to feel her own pain on top of everyone else’s. That frustrated Peeta and it was even more frustrating knowing that even though he was free, he was in no shape to go looking for his friend. Katniss’s gesture was jarring at first because he was lost in his thoughts and Peeta startled slightly before looking over at her and giving her a weak sort of smile that didn’t reach his eyes: his attempt at showing his gratitude for her attempt to comfort him.
Katniss went on to tell him about a Dr. Moore who she thought might make a house call for him. It still hadn’t quite sunken in that Katniss wasn’t going to waver on the notion of him staying with her. He was thankful for it, but he was also confused. Katniss liked her space and her independence. The idea that she was proactively offering seemed strange to Peeta. He supposed, though, that if he were in his regular state of mind, it would make more sense to him. He was willing to give himself at least that much benefit of the doubt. When Katniss went on to say that she’d trusted the other woman enough to leave Prim with her, Peeta’s face registered a flash of surprise. It was weird to think of Katniss trusting anyone other than himself and maybe Cindy here, especially where Prim was concerned. “Who is she?” he asked quietly. “How did you meet her, I mean, to trust her with Prim?” He couldn’t help the curiosity that gnawed at him over it enough to refrain from asking. Either way, the fact that she’d left her little sister with the woman spoke highly enough of her that Peeta supposed he had no reason to deny her care should it be decided that he needed it.
The response he received to his apology was the kind that only Katniss could give. She, too, was bitter about it. Peeta figured that was fair, especially after he’d built the town up on a pedestal from which it had fallen far and hard. “There’s that,” he agreed with her quietly as she maneuvered him to his feet and toward the van waiting for them. He was certain that the ride would be uncomfortable at best, being jostled around, but it certainly was better than Katniss having to haul him back on her own. They’d have to take frequent breaks and he’d have to work harder. Once he was loaded in, Peeta leaned his head to the side, resting it on the window and staring at the back of the seat in front of him, hands in his lap and mouth drawn downward in a frown. There were a lot of things on his mind just then, none of which he actually wanted to discuss.
As the van began to move after being fully loaded, Peeta was willing to at least acknowledge the different courses his trains of thought were taking. He was in a lot of pain, for one. Specifically, his ribs ached from being beaten by the plastic men; that was where he hurt the most. There was, too, the bump that had risen on the back of his head from being knocked out and the pounding sensation it still held after he’d hit his head on the wall scrambling back instinctively when Doreah had been tossed into the crypt. The skin of his knees was torn and itchy, never mind the similar damage to his now swollen knuckles from unsuccessfully attempting brute strength against a concrete wall. It hadn’t been his proudest moment or the best idea, but it had been all he could think of at the time.
In addition, his mind wandered to the torn feelings he had toward Prim being in Kansas. It meant that Katniss could relax a little and be happier; that Prim would be safer than her apparent fate according to their author, but it also meant one more mouth to feed on his mediocre salary at Stark Industries. There wasn’t a lot of area to hunt in around Lawrence, he’d heard, so he’d been going out of his way to make it look as though the food he was providing for Katniss when needed was coming from the complex kitchen when that hadn’t ever really been the case. It meant one more person to fight for; one more person to worry about. It meant, Peeta worried, one more reason for Katniss to pull away from him here, as if the other archers weren’t enough.
The van stopped and Peeta could see the complex. Getting back out of the van was going to be as painful as getting in had been, Peeta knew that. With a soft sigh, Peeta lifted his head away from the window and looked back over at Katniss, waiting for his turn to be moved again. “Thank you for finding me,” he said quietly and seriously. As the other rescuers hustled Jenny and Doreah out of the van, Peeta’s eyes moved down to his lap. “I didn’t think I would ever see you again,” he admitted almost inaudibly.
Katniss waited until they were in the van to answer Peeta’s questions about Dr.Moore, shrugging slightly as she handed him the water bottle again for another few sips. “I couldn’t be home with her and looking for you, and Cindy’s been out with us too. One of the hunters, Pete, suggested I meet his girlfriend and decide if I felt comfortable leaving Prim with her. She’s a healer and Prim was excited about it, spent the whole time asking her a million questions about what it takes to be a doctor here. Dr.Moore seemed…” Katniss made the sort of frustrated, helpless face she always fell into when she was trying to describe her quick, instinctive impressions of people who struck her as particularly trustworthy or untrustworthy. “I didn’t want to just leave her alone in the apartment all day and it seemed like the best option.”
The van lurched into motion and Katniss peered around Peeta, out the window, a little regretful that she’d allowed him to get in first and take the window seat. If they ran into any more of those things and they were cornered somehow, if they attacked the van and started to break through, she was the one in better condition to fight them off. Thoughts of what condition Peeta was in pulled her glance back to him, and, now that she had the chance to study him, she took a careful inventory of the injuries she could see. There were the expected bruises and scrapes, but there was a knot at the back of his head that looked fresh and swollen knuckles that were clearly the result of an escape attempt. Katniss’s gaze held the last two injuries, fixing them in her mind, wondering what part of the city she’d been wandering through when he’d gotten them. Not helpful, she reminded herself, and held out the bottle of water again.
It was then that she realized that she couldn’t do this again, could never let herself be this helpless, this uninformed, when either Prim or Peeta was at risk. She would do whatever it took to make sure she was prepared for the danger they would face here, to head it off whenever possible. She’d do what Peeta had been after her to do since they’d come through the seal, she’d assimilate, make friends, find a job that could provide for Prim. She’d ask Cindy and Pete to teach her to hunt and when the next crisis came she’d be ready. It comes down to war again sooner or later, she thought, resignation heavy in her chest as her hand rested on her bow.
When they pulled up in front of the complex Katniss started to rise to her feet to help Peeta out instantly, eager to get him inside and settled, but his voice stopped her halfway to her feet. She froze when he thanked her, looking back at him, serious and inscrutable, as she thought of how much more she would deserve that thanks if she hadn’t been so long in coming. When he dropped his head and admitted that he’d thought he’d never see her again, she leaned forward instinctively, then stopped. Putting a hand on his shoulder and gripping was her first impulse, but it would have hurt him. She opened her mouth, wanting to tell him, ”Me too. I saw where you were and I thought I was going down there to find a corpse. Even before that, I couldn’t sleep without seeing you dead and then I’d wake up to you gone and…” but her throat was closing up again, her eyes tearing up, and she couldn’t afford that, not now. Instead of speaking she shifted forward and rested her forehead as gently as she could against an uninjured spot on his temple. For a long moment she stayed like that, getting her breathing under control again, then she pulled away and held out a hand to him. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”
Peeta listened half-heartedly to Katniss’s reasoning for trusting a stranger for her sister’s care. Mostly, the words went in one ear and right back out the other. He’d have to have her repeat herself another time when he was able to better focus. Between his extreme hunger and thirst and then the pain he was in, added onto the fact that his head was pounding with a headache from the sudden brightness of the sunlight in contrast to the days of complete darkness, Peeta was completely unable to absorb what Katniss was saying, no matter how hard he was trying or how badly he wanted to. Rather than attempt a response, Peeta just nodded.
His responsiveness to her was mostly limited to taking the offered bottle of water when she held it out to him, sipping on it, and handing it back. Peeta’s entire body felt exhausted from effort, almost moreso now that he was out because he couldn’t fall asleep to ignore it, not with the sun shining brightly — no, angrily — through the windows at him. Once the van stopped and he’d thanked her, admitting his fear to her, Katniss moved toward him, pressing her forehead against his again.
Closing his eyes, Peeta held still, wanting to be able to appreciate it. He could tell that there would be nothing further than the gesture she’d already given back inside the crypt, but he still found it comforting. If he weren’t so tired, Peeta would have pulled her closer, wrapped his arms around her; held on tight. Instead, he sat motionless until Katniss pulled back and offered him a hand to help him out of the van. Come on, let’s get you inside, she said and Peeta nodded lethargically, taking her hand and following her out. She’d take him to her room, she’d feed him, maybe help him scrub the cold sweats and grime from his skin, and put him to bed. Frankly, Peeta couldn’t think of anything at that moment that sounded better.