fuelforthefire | Debut - Locked to Katniss

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Debut - Locked to Katniss

Something was very, very wrong. I know the second the wire bounces back toward the tree. Finnick sees it too, Beetee the only one who’s so wrapped up in what he’s doing to notice. He can’t see what’s wrong, wrapped up in his winding the wire around the knife I’ve just given him, the knife I wish I had in my hands now.

When Brutus pounces on us I lunge for Beetee, for my knife, but Finnick gets in the way. It’s too late for the tribute from three, but Finnick pushes me, forcing me back and into the woods. “Go,” he hisses before launching himself at the Career.

Finnick saved me, I realise as I tumble through the trees, running and falling in equal measure. I’m not running away, I’m running to Katniss. The attack came too early and I need to find her. I need to make sure she’s safe; to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid. The trees seem as if they’re trying to trip me and my leg isn’t helping. I stumble again, unsure of where I am and what is going on until I hear her call my name.

I call back with only a second of thought. I know she’ll be panicked, wishing we had never separated. She needs to know I’m alive before she does anything headstrong, before she sacrifices herself in some crazy Katniss gesture. Even if it calls Brutus and Enobaria down on us. It’s close to midnight and I’m sure of what she’ll be thinking. The kind of Katniss-like things that will get her killed.

She can’t die. There’s no going on for me without her. She has to live.

Hearing me call her name might be what keeps her thinking straight. If she knows I’m out here she’ll look for me. I hurl myself toward where I think she’s calling from, only I’m hurt now. There’s blood and I don’t know whose it is and where it came from.

Not far off the buzzing of the insects ceases and I realise that it’s almost midnight. It’s almost time for the lightning to strike. Had Beetee done enough? Would the tree electrocute us? Was she far enough away?

With that thought I know there isn’t enough speed. There’s no way I can make it through this jungle on time, that I can find her. I howl her name, hoping that whatever happens next she’s far enough away to be safe.

The world explodes.

That’s the only way I can think of it. The flash of white, the sparks, the fire that starts raining down. It’s only when the dome is illuminated in flame that I realise it. Too late I see the other game that’s being played. I should have seen it earlier the way the pieces all snap together, but I was so concerned with keeping Katniss alive, with outsmarting her at her own game that I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see the picture, only the details.

I scream when I see the hovercraft, but I’m not sure I make any sound. Is my voice raw from calling for Katniss? Can anyone hear me? The cameras won’t be on, the Districts blacked out. But maybe they have their own fires burning tonight.

Revolution doesn’t mean much without her. I want to get away from the claw, away from the Capitol but I’ve gotten too much of the shock. I can barely control the way my body moves, I’m not even sure I ever made a sound.

I don’t want to be their pawn

That’s the last lucid thought I have. It's the last thing that flashes through my mind as the claw lifts me from the Arena.

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I stop short when I see him, frozen to the spot, like I'm physically incapable of moving. For a moment, I'm not sure that isn't true, if only because of how badly I want to run to him or run away. It's been months now since I've seen Peeta, since he vanished without any kind of word or ceremony. I should be relieved, and I am, I guess. I'm just also equally as worried. I can't trust it, can't trust him, even if I'd recognize what he's wearing anywhere, know when he has to have come from. I don't know what to make of that, either.

Heart lodged somewhere up near my throat, I force myself to take a deep breath, fingernails pressing hard into my palms for a moment before I relax my hands again, all I can do not to reach for a weapon. If he tries to attack me, if this is some further Capitol trick, I'll still be ready.

"Peeta?" I ask, like I'm not sure it's him, nearly wincing when my voice breaks. Apart from that, all I can do is stare.

Edited 2013-01-06 14:16 (UTC)

It's cold wherever this is. Freezing cold and strangely wet. Is this torture, the sort of thing the Capitol does to people after they disobey? Am I dead or just hurting?

I've barely processed all of that when I hear a voice. Her voice. I push up from the snowbank, gasping with shock and cold and wonder. "Katniss? Are we- What happened?"

I haven't really got a clue how to answer that question. It's not like I don't know what happened, in both senses of the word -- his being here at all, and what I can only imagine he's just come from. The clothing alone isn't something I can put much stock in when that would be easy enough to replicate, some way of catching me off guard, making me trust him when I shouldn't, but it's still something to go off.

It just isn't that simple, any of it. Seeing him, it leaves me practically speechless. Instead of answering, I just look at him for another few seconds, mouth hanging open, before I say, "You're here."

Getting up is harder than I expect. The shoes I'm wearing aren't made for the slipperiness of snow, and my leg doesn't help the situation. As quickly as I get up I slip and goes down, landing hard and woofing out a breath.

"Of course I'm here," I manage to say, struggling to my feet. I want to go to her, I want to touch her and make sure she's real and okay. "I heard you calling. Katniss, where are we?"

It's a question I know I have to answer, but one I don't much want to. Looking at him now, still feeling a little like my heart's stopped, I'm entirely at a loss. It doesn't even occur to me to go help him to his feet until it's too late to. Then again, I'm not sure whether or not he'd want the assistance, or, for that matter, what he thinks of me right now. On that count, though, I don't care.

Remembering too well what it was like to have him trying to kill me, I should be a little more careful. This is Peeta, though, and I could take him if I had to. What I can't do is keep standing here. Crossing towards him, I wrap my arms tightly around him, as if needing the physical proof to believe he's here at all. "I'll tell you," I say, half-muffled against his shoulder, almost expecting him to pull away. Normally, I wouldn't want him to see me like this at all, but it's been months. I didn't think I'd ever see him again at all. "Just, in a minute."

It’s only before this Games that things went back to this, that Katniss had been okay with needing comfort from me. Even with that it’s a surprise, because here in the Arena things are different and it’s all for the cameras.

Only I don’t think we’re in the Arena anymore. I wrap my arms around her, I breathe in with my face tucked into her hair. She’s real, this is real and I don’t know what’s happening.

What I know is that I’m here, and she is and there’s no hovership trying to take me away. I can’t see the horn or the jungle or any of it.

But I can see her. I can feel her here in my arms.

“Katniss,” I say, not wanting this moment to end. “I’m freezing.”

"I know," I say, muffled into his shoulder as I cling to him still, not ready to let go just yet. It's the stupidest thing. I almost think this would be easier if he'd attacked me instead of holding me back, drawing attention to the fact that I've actually started this in the first place, what it turns out is a whole lot more difficult in the light of day and on our own than on camera or lying in the dark after a nightmare. After months, though, I don't know what else to do. I almost can't believe that he's here at all.

Real or not real? I think, biting back the words before I can speak them. He feels real enough. Sounds it, too.

Drawing back, my cheeks burn bright pink, and not from the chill in the air. I try to ignore it. "We should get you inside somewhere," I say brusquely, like I'm not the one who's been keeping him out here. There's plenty more we need to do, too, but getting him out of the cold is a good start.

"Wait." There's something I need to know, something I need to ask and freezing isn't going to stop me. I don't want her to pull away, I want to keep my arms around her, but I know that it's dangerous until I know the answer.

It may be cold and I might not be dressed for it, but I don't care. I need answers before I do anything. Before I know how to act. Are we still on camera?

"Is this the Arena? Is this the Capitol? Did we get out? Please don't lie to me. Not now."

I freeze at his question, genuine uncertainty in my eyes before I can do anything to hide it. Somehow, even now, after all these months, he does this to me. No matter how much acting we did on camera, I can't lie to him so easily. At least, with this, I wouldn't want to. I just wish I didn't have to seem so thrown.

"I don't know," I tell him after a long moment, not looking away despite being tempted, wanting him to know I mean it. "Well... We got out. I don't think this is either. But I'm not sure."

I don't trust it. Why should I? Now that he's here, I don't think he should, either.

"We got out," I huff out the words, disbelieving. I want to believe it, more than anything I want it to be true. Only I don't know where her is, and I know that I need to get inside before I get any more answers.

"Okay," I say slowly, knowing that all I can do right now is to trust her. As much as things this past year have sometimes been strained, she's always acted with some bizarre sense of my best interests in heart.

Or, at least what she thought my best interests were.

"Maybe we should get inside." I'm still not sure who's watching, and I want to put my arm around her. Would that be welcome? Probably not. "Before I lose my other leg to frost bite."

"Right," I say abruptly, almost a little taken aback by the suggestion, though I'm the one who made it first. My head's spinning, though, and in the face of that, it's easier for me to ignore the cold. I'm more dressed for it, too. What money I have here, I don't like to spend on clothes, but a heavy coat and a sturdier pair of boots than I'd been walking around in has been inevitable, making this a lot easier for me to deal with.

At least it means not dwelling on the way I held on to him, the story I have to tell him one that should be a good distraction from that. It's not lie there's anything else I could have done, anyway. "Come on. We'll find somewhere."

I'm just in the things that survived the Arena. That waterproof suit we'd had is gone now, just what I'd had on beneath it and the strange rubbery shoes. Maybe I really would have frozen off my other leg if she hadn't found me.

"Okay. Lead the way. Katniss leads," I laugh, trying to make light of it. "You know the way. You always do."

Any other time, and the way he laughs, what seems to me like a genuine one, might be enough to get at least a smile out of me. As it is, I'm too on edge to relax as much as that would require. I need to explain all of this, and I barely even know where to start. There's too much that I know for that, thoughts of the Peeta we got back from the Capitol mingling with ones of the Peeta I left in the Arena, making it too difficult for me to know how to act. I definitely can't manage a joke.

"I'm the one who's been here," I point out, casting him a look. Of course I'm leading. He'd just get lost, and then he really would freeze and lose his other leg. That in mind, I make myself look away, shrugging the too-big coat off my shoulders. I've still got a scarf and a long-sleeved shirt underneath, and I've survived with less. I might as well offer him something. "Here. I don't know if it will fit you, but..."

"Like I've ever been very good at finding my way?" I'm not dumb, I know where my strengths lie. Leave me alone in the forest and I'd pick deadly berries or scare away all the wildlife, no matter how quiet I think I'm being.

Joking is the only thing I have left. I'm clinging to it, just like I wanted to keep clinging to her.

"Katniss-" I start to insist, but I know how stubborn she can be. That and I am freezing, my fingertips already turning blue. The coat doesn't quite fit, but it makes a big difference, even if I can't get it done up and it's a bit tight in the shoulders. I'm used to clothes that don't quite fit, I spent my life wearing my brothers' hand-me-downs. Even being the baker's son didn't mean we got new clothes, not in District Twelve. "Thanks."

Whatever it is he was going to say, I'm not sure I want to know. It's better to just leave it at that, whether or not it was going to be serious. I'm sure it doesn't matter half as much as what I'm going to tell him, anyway, and even that's on hold until I figure out somewhere to take him, needing it to be close by but not too public. No one else needs to listen to us talk. We've had to make our business everyone else's too often for that.

"It's fine," I say. "I'm not going to let you freeze." He didn't let me starve, after all. Even if that weren't the case, I wouldn't have it in me to let anything happen to him.

"Of course you aren't." I want to say more but decide to not. Not right now. I'll wait and let her explain, even if it's hard.

I used to say things like 'that's harder than I can imagine'. But then the Games happened. Not once, but twice. Now I know better.

The thought catches me off guard, my mouth pulling downward as I follow her. One impulse I will give into is to grab her hand. Even if I'm on parade for some bizarre thing I don't understand, at least I'm on parade with her.

I'm not expecting him to reach for my hand. Maybe I should be, but that's too difficult to discern right now, when everything always changes with Peeta. I remember too well the way he came after me when we brought him back from the Capitol, and the one I found here, from all that time later. The Peeta who was still confused somewhere in between. Now he's from before all that, and I can't remember how I'm supposed to act around him, or figure out how much to tell him. There's too much, and nothing to be done about it here.

When he does, though, even in almost wincing from how icy his skin is, my fingers curl tightly around his, holding on like I'll lose him if I don't. I have so many times now, I'm not convinced that won't be the case. "I never would."

It's okay once she wraps her fingers around mine. I was afraid that she'd pull away, that she wouldn't want to touch me, that maybe something had happened that changed things. I never really know with Katniss. She feels so much, but she's not very good at dealing with those feelings.

"I know." I'm looking around at the buildings that seem to loom up around us. This isn't the Capitol - or not any bit I've seen - and it's not any of the Districts either. I can't wait any longer. "Katniss, where are we?"

"We're in Darrow," I say, a too-simple response that should probably have some sort of preamble. I don't know how to deal with any of that, though, and I don't know what good it would do. I've given him the most important information already — that I don't think this is anything like the Arena, even if I can't say for sure. The rest is just details.

Still holding on to him, I breathe in deep, the cold air stinging my lungs. "It's a city. Not in Panem. No one knows how we get here, but we do."

"Not in Panem." Those are the words that stick with me. How is that even possible. "District Thirteen?"

Only that's in Panem. This isn't. I'm confused and it shows in my eyes, in the way my hand tightens around hers. "How... Are we dead?"

"No," I say, trying to hide how ridiculous I think that sounds. We're here, so of course we aren't dead. Besides, we'd remember something like that.

I'd remember it happening to him, but he's clearly from our second turn in the Arena, and while my Peeta might well have died that day, he didn't really. If he had, I would know. How to say that, though, I don't have the faintest idea.

I seize on his question instead. "How much do you know about Thirteen?"

"Only what you figured out." I know it's not much, it's all just rumors and conjecture. "That it might still be there, but they don't seem to be doing anything to help us. That the Capitol knows something and is probably hiding something."

When isn't the Capitol? I'm so tired of their games, and if this is a way out of that... I don't want to hope, afraid to be disappointed.

"Right," I say. I should know this, I think, but after everything that's happened, I don't feel like I can try to make calls about any of it. My head's still too much of a mess, memories of Peeta at different points in time converging, becoming muddled, impossible to differentiate. It still doesn't even feel like he's here at all.

For that matter, I don't know how to tell him about how much time has passed for me, both back in Panem and the months I've spent here. I'm not even sure if he trusts me enough to take my word for it right now. "They always are."

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Debut - Locked to Katniss

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