Chapter Text
“They’re back. We’re wanted in the hospital.” My mouth opens with a flood of questions that he cuts off with “That’s all I know.”
I want to run, but Finnick’s acting so strange, as if he’s lost the ability to move, so I take his hand and lead him like a small child. Through Special Defence, into the elevator that goes this way and that, and on to the hospital wing. The place is in an uproar, with doctors shouting orders and the wounded being wheeled through the halls in their beds.
We’re sideswiped by a gurney bearing an unconscious, emaciated young women with a shaved head. Her flesh shows bruises and oozing scabs. Johanna Mason. Who actually knew rebel secrets. At least the one about me. And this is how she has paid for it. I reach out my hand and brush her arm as she is pushed past us.
Through a doorway, I catch a glimpse of Gale, stripped to the waist, perspiration streaming down his face as a doctor removes something from under his shoulder blade with a long pair of tweezers. Wounded, but still alive. I call his name, start towards him until a nurse pushes me back and shuts me out. I stand there, staring at the door wondering what he had to do out there until a shout snaps me back to reality.
“Finnick!” Something between a shriek and a cry of joy. A lovely if somewhat bedraggled young woman – dark tangled hair, sea green eyes – runs towards us in nothing but a sheet.“Finnick!” And suddenly, it’s as if there’s no one in the world but these two, crashing through space to reach each other. They collide, enfold, lose their balance, and slam against a wall, where they stay. Clinging into one being. Indivisible.
A pang of jealousy hits me. Not for either Finnick or Annie but for their certainty. No one seeing them could doubt their love.
I think silently there for a moment about how much I wished I had that with Peeta. I did have it, almost. The “run at each other in desperation” kind of love. The “lay next to me so I don’t have nightmares” kind of love. The “hold my hand”, “talk for me when I can’t” and the “give me the strength to get up and move” kind of love. It wasn’t as obvious as Finnick and Annie’s, but I really wish I had been more open about my love for him.
Because I was. I was ridiculously in love with Peeta. The boy with the bread who has given me everything. Bread to survive. Hope in a cave. A pearl that hasn’t left my side. A locket that I fiddle with as I stand here. He gave me his life in that arena, promising to try and get me out alive, no matter the cost. And here I was, waiting for him to come back to me.
I still wish I had just died in the first arena.
Boggs, looking a little worse for wear but uninjured, finds Haymitch and me. “We got them all out. Except for Enobaria. But since she’s from Two, we doubt she’s being held anyway. Peeta’s at the end of the hall. The effects of the gas are just wearing off. You should be there when he wakes.”
Peeta.
Alive and well – maybe not well but alive and here. Away from Snow. Here. With me. In a minute I can touch him. See his smile. Hear his laugh.
Haymitch’s grinning at me. “Come on, then,” he says.
I’m light-headed with giddiness. What will I say? Oh, who cares what I say? Peeta will be ecstatic no matter what I do. He’ll probably be kissing me anyway. I wonder if it will feel like those last kisses on the beach in the arena, the ones I haven’t dared let myself consider until this moment.
Peeta’s awake already, sitting on the side of the bed, looking bewildered as a trio of doctors reassure him, flash little lights in his eyes, check his pulse. I’m disappointed that mine was not the first face he saw when he woke, but he sees it now. His features register disbelief and something more intense that I can’t quite place. Desire? Desperation? Surely both, for he sweeps the doctors aside, leaps to his feet and moves towards me, his prosthetic creaking with the movement. I watch as he wobbles a bit as he speeds up. I’m beaming now, arms outstretched. I can barely see through my tears and have already started up those horrific sobs I hate so much that crack out of my chest.
I can’t believe he is back.