Percy’s POV

I jerk awake the next day.

So suddenly.

That it felt that I was about to topple out of the tree.

But that didn’t compare to the shock I got when I saw Katniss sleeping on my shoulder.

I bit my tongue, stopping me from shouting out loud in alarm.

How the hell did I forget that we had become allies?

This is weird, you know.

Having her this close to me.

Okay, actually having a girl this close to me.

Please wake up…

……..

…….

“ Um….Katniss?” I say softly, tapping her on the shoulder. “ Katniss…”

She jerks awake, looks at m, her eyes widens in shock and accidentally leans to her right (she slept on my right shoulder) in an attempt to get away from me and, together with me, we slid off of the branch, almost falling to the ground. Except that we were both belted in so we were kind of hanging off of the branch.

   “ What were you thinking?” I yell at her.

   “ What were you thinking?!” she yells back. “ Sleeping next to me!”

   “ We are allies!” I scream in frustration. “ You belted us in to the branch last night!”

   “ I did?” she asks, sounding surprised. “ Sorry. I forgot,” she says, struggling to find the buckle.

   “ Stop struggling,” I say, panting because when she struggles, the belt tightens around me, making it hard to breathe. “ You’re suffocating me!” She stops.

   “ How are we going to get out of this thing?” she grumbles.

   “ Well, I don’t mind hanging around like this,” I say, the muscles in my cheeks twitching. “ Get it? Hanging around?”

  “ Percy, just shut up for a minute, will you?” she says in exasperation. I snickered.

  “ Okay, okay. Let’s just hang around and wait,” I say, feeling laughter threatening to explode.

  “ You be grateful I can’t reach my knife or I would have already gutted you like a fish!” she mutters. “ Oh, this sucks,” she grumbles.

   “ Wait, I think I can reach my knife. Um…do you want to use this belt again after this?” I ask her as I wiggle my knife out from its sheath. “ Because I am going to slice right through it.”

   “ Oh, must you?” she groans. “ Fine. Do what you must do.”

   “ Okay. Going to be free in five…four…three…two…”

THUMP!

   “ Damn…my leg,” I groan, rolling on to my back. “ I think it’s broken.”

   “ Let me see,” Katniss says, scrambling to her feet. She rolled my trousers up and inspected my injured leg. “ Oh,” is all she said. “ Oh dear.”

  “ It’s broken, huh?” I ask. “ Ow! Watch it!” I say when pain flares up from the leg up my body when she touches it.

  “ Yeah,” she said, “ sorry to break it to you,” she added, smirking a bit.

  “ Oh, shut up!” I say, feeling the muscles in my face twitching. “ Can’t you do some healing on me?” I ask her, feeling useless with my broken leg.

  “ I’ll just put it in a cast. And you need to shut up so I can concentrate, okay?” she says, grabbing the now sliced up belt. “ Waste not, want not,” she mutters as she climbs the tree and saws a couple of not too big, not too thick branches.

  “ What are you talking about?” I ask her as she lands next to my head. “ And watch where you’re landing!”

   “ I am going to reuse my chopped up belt to tie these,” she shows me the branches, “ to your leg. As casts. And now, shut up.”

  “ Not without the magic word,” I say, making myself comfortable on the ground. “ Ow! Hey!” I wince as she pressed my leg.

  “ Wimp,” she says, smirking.

************************************

“ I had a dream last night,” Katniss suddenly says as we tuck in into our breakfast (she took down three winter birds! My first meat in weeks!).

   “ What kind?” I ask her as I break several icicles off of the lowest branch ( I jab at it with my crutch and let it fall into container we found in Marvel’s backpack).

  “ A happy kind,” she says. Then she fell silent for a moment. “ About Rue. She was still wearing the flowers I put on her,” she starts, a small smile on her lips. “ And she was trying to teach me how to sing some songs. And there was no blood, no signs of the wounds. She was just…so happy,” she stops. “ It went on and on and on…and I had hoped it would never stop.” She looks at me, probably wondering what my reaction is.

   I didn’t say anything for a while. I couldn’t.

   “ Well,” I say after a long pause, “ um…we should..we should get going, you know. Get away from the…past.”

   “ Yeah, maybe we should,” she sighs. “ What else is there in the District One boy’s backpack?” she asks.

  “ Who? Marvel?” I ask, feeling momentarily stupid. She rolls her eyes. “ Oh, well. Not much besides the pack of dried fruit and the water bottle,” I say. “ Wait. Oh, there’s a flashlight! And a first-aid kit and some spare spear heads and several knives.” I look up at her.

   “ Keep the other things. Dispose of the weapons,” she says, looking suddenly angry. “ Come on. We need to get a move on.”

   Well…

   Okay…

   I’ll just keep the flashlight, first-aid kid and the knives. But I’ll be a good friend and dispose of the spear heads. Looking at them makes me sad and angry too.

  Since there’s only six of us left, there’s not much to do or happening. So, we just loiter around, poking here and there.

  Of course, with me on a crutch, we couldn’t go too far or too fast.

  “ Did it bother you when you killed the other tributes?” Katniss suddenly asks when we had stopped for a rest. “ Did you…constantly think about it over and over again?”

   I smirk. “ Why are you so sure I killed any of the others? For all you know, I didn’t . Maybe my killing record is clean and spotless,” I say, turning to look at her reaction.

  She stares at me, her mouth hanging open. A look of pure disbelief on her face. I couldn’t stop myself from bursting out with laughter.

   “ Can you be more serious?” she asks, kicking my cast. I wince.

   “ Oh, sure. Why duct tape Percy or tie him up when all you can do is kick his broken leg?” I say sarcastically. She gives me a look that says, be-serious-or-I’m-going-to-kill-you. “ Okay, okay,” I say, surrendering. “ Well, my first victim was that boy from District 3. His name was Luke, I think. He attacked me first so I disarmed him and then killed him.” I stop. “ But no, I didn’t wallow up in self-pity that I had stain my record with his blood. Or Grover’s. Or Annabeth’s. Or Katie’s. In Luke and Annabeth’s case, they attacked me first so you can’t actually blame me for killing them. It was in self defense. And as for Grover and Katie, it was an act of mercy. End of story.”

  She didn’t reply, merely stares into space for several moments.

   “ Sorry. Didn’t mean to sound that harsh but it’s the truth, Katniss.” She is still not saying anything. “ Uh…was Marvel your first kill?” I ask her.

   “ Yeah,” she nods. “ He was my first. So, you can’t actually blame me for wallowing up in self-pity,” she says pointedly. I laugh. “ Gale was right. What’s so different about it, right? We’re hunters. We kill for a living.”

“ Same in the execution, different altogether in the aftermath,” I say, nodding in agreement.

It was then when the anthem plays.

“ Here it goes..,” I mutter. The death toll. Although there’s not much happening today.

But then, there were trumpets playing. Both of us perk up, feeling excited since this is like the first communication we had in weeks, asides from the death toll.

   It’s Claudius Templesmith!

   “ Dearest tributes! Congratulations for making to the final six! Some of you have been expected to be in the final six while others had come as a surprise – “

“ Hear, hear,” I mutter.

 “ – the rules have been revised and there been an agreement to the newly revised rules. – “

“ What rules?” I ask Katniss but she shushes me by kicking my cast again.

“ – Under the new rules, if there are two tributes from the same district left, they shall be declared as the victors of the Games. I repeat – “

“ Oh. My. God!” I yell. “ You have got to be kidding me right?”

Katniss didn’t say anything. Well, she didn’t say anything but she did give me a huge hug. “ Oh, I am so glad I found you before Cato did!”

“ Uh, excuse me? I found you, okay?” I say.

“ No. Actually, Rue found us,” she says, letting go of me. She beams happily. “ At least we won’t have to be so alone.”

I didn’t reply. I just smile at that. Yeah, we won’t have to be alone.

****************

“ So, let’s get all of this straight. There are six of us left now. Can you tell me who the other four is? Okay, I know two of them are Cato and Clove but – “ I ramble as we continue our walk(you might be bored listening to me talking but seriously, there’s nothing better to do!) even though it was dark .

“ Wait, who’s Clove?” she asks, cutting me.

“ Oh, she’s the girl from District 2. She’s the one who killed Annabeth and was gleeful when Cato cut me,” I explain.

“ I thought you killed Annabeth,” she says, raising an eyebrow.

“ Okay. I wounded her to the point she begged me to finish her off but before I could actually do it, Clove beat me to it. Annabeth took a knife in the back,” I recounted the memory. “ She dropped dead at my feet, you know,” I say quietly. “ To say that I actually didn’t think about those deaths was actually a lie.”

“ I guess all of us aren’t immune to that feeling,” she says, smiling sympathetically. “ Anyway, to answer your question. The other two, besides us and Two are Foxface from Five and Thresh from Eleven.”

“ Foxface? Is that really her name?” I ask her, nearly tripping over a frozen root.

“ Nah. I gave her that nickname because she kinds of remind me of a fox. You know, with her sly face and her cunning abilities,” she shrugs.

“ Nice nickname,” I comment. “ Ow!” I say when she hits me on the head. “ I am so not going to escape this arena in one piece if you keep torturing me like this,” I mutter.

“ Don’t say that,” she growls. I raise my hands in defense.

“ Okay, okay. Sheesh,” I say.

After that, we didn’t talk anymore. Just ‘enjoying’ our walk in the winter hemisphere. That was until I spotted a huge boulder covered with snow.

“ Hey,” I say, tugging Katniss’ arm. “ Do you think that could be a cave? Because if it is, I think we should camp in there because there is no way I can climb any tree with my leg like this,” I whine. Yes, I know. I am whining. I don’t care if you think I’m weak because I’ve been strong for the last couple of weeks and now is the time when I show that I, too, have a weak side.

She smirks. “ Fine. Let’s go and poke around.”

“ Poking around. My favourite activity!” I say sarcastically.

“ Shut up, Percy,” she says, giving me the evil eye.

Well, when we reached the boulder, my leg was throbbing like mad and Katniss made me swallow a couple of painkillers from Marvel’s first-aid.

“ Just sit there for a minute. I’ll go and see if it’s a cave or not,” she says, shaking her head after looking at my leg. “ Your leg is so swollen. How can you not notice it?”

“ Well, talking to a pretty lady made me forget some things,” I say, grinning. She scoops up some snow, rolls it into a ball and throws it at me. “ You be grateful I’m not at my full strength. If not, there will be a snowball fight!” I call out to her as she walks to the boulder.

“ Keep talking, dude,” she calls back. “ Oh, wow!” she exclaims.

“ What?” I demand, grabbing my crutch and forcing myself into a standing position. SNAP! “ Oh, shit. My crutch just broke,” I mutter.

“ Well, it looks like the Fates are really kind to you now. I wonder why,” she muses, rubbing her chin. “ You won’t have to turn into a squirrel tonight. We can set up camp right here.”

“ It’s a cave?”

“ No, it’s a house. Of course it’s a cave!”

“ Okay. Uh…can you help me up?” I ask her. “ My crutch is broken.”

“ What did you do with it?” she asks, pulling me into a standing position. “ Bite it?”

“ Shut up,” I grunt as I shift my weight on to my right leg. “ So, are you going to let me crawl all by myself to the cave or are you going to help me?”

“ I’ll let you crawl,” she says smirking.

“ Oh, ha ha,” I roll my eyes as I put my arm around her. She grunts under my weight.

“ You weigh a ton,” she gasps as she pushes me down on to the cave floor. “ I can’t believe you put on weight after we started the Games!”

“ Okay, that is definitely a lie,” I say, feeling my cheeks burning. Hey, when you’re on the screen of every district in the country and your ally is making fun of your weight, it’s kind of embarrassing. “ And shut up!”

She laughs. “ Okay, that was mean.”

“ Good of you to know,” I say, nodding.

“ Fine. I’m sorry.”

I didn’t say anything, merely making myself comfortable on the hard ground. Then only  I look at her, feeling my facial muscles tingling. “ For what?” I ask her, putting on my best poker face.

She rolls her eyes. “ Okay. I am sorry for making fun of you, saying that you had gained weight and all,” she says.

“ Okay. Apology accepted,” I say, grinning.

“ Wimp,” she mutters, smirking like crazy.

“ I heard you!” I say in a sing-song voice.

“ Good,” she says, sitting next to me. “ It’s good to know that you’re not deaf,” she grins. I jab her in the ribs and she winces. “ Are you hungry? There’s still two of the winter birds.”

“ Not really. That’s funny, because I was so hungry this morning. Now I’m feeling like I want to puke,” I shrug.

She puts her hand on my forehead and tuts. “ You’re having a fever,” she says, rummaging in Marvel’s backpack for the first-aid. “ Must be from your leg wound.”

“ Maybe. Or maybe it’s just the cold. Maybe I’m starting to get frostbite or something,” I suggest.

She frowns. “ Okay, Percy. Whatever. Now, eat this,” she says, handing me two pills and the water tumbler.

“ What’s that?”

“ Medicine for the fever.”

“ I hate pills.”

“ Eat it or I’ll force feed you.”

“ Fine,” I say, snatching the pills and the water tumbler from her before swallowing it. “ I’m bored. Entertain me,” I say. She makes a face at me and hits me on my right shoulder. “ Ow! Hey! I got pierced by a huge icicle there!”

“ You’ve got another wound?” she asks, grabbing my hand and forcing the sleeves of my shirt up. “ Why didn’t you tell me?”

“ Because it was tended to.”

“ What do you mean?”

“ Glimmer had cleaned it before. So I didn’t actually bother to check it,” I explain.

“ Well, it’s gotten infected now,” she scowls as she inspects the hideous wound. “ How can you not notice this? It’s swollen too!” she says, pressing the wound. “ I guess she wasn’t a very good healer, huh?”

“ Ow!” I wince, watching as pus and blood ooze from the wound. Hmm…she’s right. How can I not notice it? Now that I’ve realized that the wound hasn’t actually healed, I could now feel it throbbing. Great.

 She turns my arm over and inspected it, as if looking for something. “ Well, let’s just hope it’s just some cold or something that made you sick and not blood poisoning.”

I shiver when I thought of that.

Blood poisoning.

One of the girls at the orphanage, Amara got injured one day. She was one of the few girls who was forced to go to the mines with the rest of the boys because she’s either a) sucks at learning or b) she’s as big as a boy, though I don’t remember why she was forced to go to the mines. Anyway, at the mines, a minor explosion occurred, killing her older brother, Jade and injuring several others including her. The others made it through the horrible recuperating days but Amara just never did recover. Addy told me how she had extreme high fever, abdominal pains and at times, confusion and decreased body temperature. Several days later, she died. Mrs Woodlum didn’t take her to see Mrs Everdeen because she thinks it’s a ‘waste of time and energy’. She didn’t even feel guilty that Jade and Amara died because of her. When I told this to Madge and Katniss, the latter explained to me about blood poisoning.

“ So, if I do get blood poisoning, the chances of me surviving is like none?” I ask her as she divides the food.

“ Don’t even say that,” she growls. I shrug. “ Eat this,” she says, handing me a small portion of the winter bird. I wrinkle my nose. “ Come on. You’ve got to get some food in you,” she says gently.

“ No,” I say, pushing her hand away. “ I think I’m going to throw up,” I groan, covering my nose and mouth. I struggle on to my legs and limp out of the cave before collapsing several metres away from the mouth of the cave. There, I finally let go of everything. This morning breakfast, for sure. And maybe yesterday’s meal, too. And I heaved and heaved until nothing is coming out. I was so occupied with my throwing up I didn’t notice Katniss kneeling beside me, rubbing my back.

“ Drink this,” she says, handing me the water tumbler. I gargle with the water first before drinking it. Even several sips of the water made me want to throw up again.

 “ I feel lousy,” I pant.

“ You look lousy,” she says, taking the water tumbler from me and pouring some of the water on to the top of my head.  I let the water seep into my scalp, feeling immensely rejuvenated by it. “ Better?”

“ A bit,” I nod weakly.

“ Let’s go back inside. Get you warm,” she says, heaving me into a standing position. Slowly, she half-carries, half-drags me back into the cave.

“ Can’t we make a bonfire? I’m freezing,” I say, feeling clammy all over. She purses her lips before piling every dry leaves and twigs there are scattered over the cave floor and setting them on fire. “ Thanks.”

“ This is bad,” she mutters, snuggling close to me. “ You’re running a temperature now,”  she says, putting her hand on my forehead.

“ Maybe the drugs haven’t kicked in, yet,” I say, shivering. She suddenly sits. “ What?”

“ You just puked. The drugs are out of your system now,” she says, grabbing the first-aid. “ You’ll need to take another dose.”

“ Oh, please. No, I hate the taste! I think I may have puked because of it!” I say, refusing to take the two small, white pills. “ It’s nasty, man!”

“ Fine. I’ll force feed you,” she says, grabbing my head and setting it on her lap. “ I warned you,” she says, grinning evilly.

“ Okay, okay! I’ll eat it my-“ I gag and spluttered.

The pills are already on its way into my digestive system.

“ That was nasty,” I say, glaring at her. She shrugs and pulls her backpack closer to us before snuggling next to me.

“ It’s for your own good, Percy,” she says softly. “ Go to sleep. I’ll take first watch.” I raise an eyebrow at her. “ Seriously. You need the sleep more than me.”

“ Okay,” I say, feeling oddly relaxed and calm. “ Good night,” I say and, thinking about it for a moment, lean in and plant a brief kiss on her lips.

She froze in surprise at the gesture and I laugh at her expression. It was a little while before she regains her composure, glares at me (though in the dim firelight, I think she’s blushing) and says, “ You taste of puke.”

“ Yeah, yeah,” I say, waving her insult off. “ Good night.”

***************************

I woke up the next morning to the smell of something nice. But of course, being in a sickened condition, the smell didn’t invite me to eat. Instead, it made me feel like throwing up.

“ Percy,” I hear a voice say, shaking me awake. “ Percy. Wake up,”  she says again, shaking me harder.

“ What time is it?” I yawns.

“ It’s still dark but Haymitch sent us a gift,” she says in a low voice.

“ Can’t we open it later?”

“ Haymitch sent you some broth,” she says. Next moment, the smell of chicken broth waft into my nostrils.

I push the container away from me. “ No. I’m not going to eat that,” I say, shaking my head.

“ Percy, you need to get some food in you. You didn’t eat last night. Okay, that was solid food. Now, it’s just broth. Please?” she pleads, making a pleading face.

“ Don’t make that face ever again. It looks ugly on you,” I say, taking the container from her. She punches me in the middle, grinning.

“ Eat up,” she says. “ And then you can take your another dose of your meds.”

“ Oh, can’t we just skip the part to where I’m already healed and better and not having a fever?” I grumble as I look at the broth. “ It smells so good yet so revolting at the same time.”

“ Eat,” she says, giving me her most notorious look ever.

“ No,” I say, trying to be stubborn.

“ Please?” Again, she puts on that pleading look.

“ Gah. Don’t look at me! You look hideous with that on your face!” I say, shielding my eyes.

“ Fine. How about a kiss?”

“ I taste of puke.”

“ It’s okay. I don’t mind,” she smirks.

“ You sound so…unlike yourself,” I say, trying to hide the smirk.

“ I am doing this so you won’t starve,” she says. “ Please? Pretty please? Eat that broth?”

“ No.”

“ Fine.” She grabs my face and leans in. Before I could actually comprehend (the fever must’ve made my brain slow as hell), my arms were already around her and we were actually making out. “ Now, will you eat?” she asks as she pulls away from me.

I could feel my face burning. “ I don’t know. Maybe.”

She pulls me towards her again and kisses me again and again. “ Now?”

“ Fine,” I say, pulling the container towards me. I sip it slowly and gag. “ Oh, please. I don’t think I can finish all of this!”

“ Are you just pretending feeling unwell just so that we can make out?” she asks.

“ Well, you’re being awfully direct now,” I comment. “ No, I am not pretending. I am seriously unwell and this broth is making me feel even more sick.”

“ Come on, Percy. You need to eat!” she says, sounding exasperated.

“ Maybe by being sick, I can actually win the Games,” I say, scratching my chin. “ You know, on the account of not being able to feel hungry and all. They won’t be able to lure me to some feast or anyt-“ I falter under her steely gaze. “ Come on, Katniss. You don’t know how awful that broth tastes!”

“ You just said it smells delicious!”

“ It smells delicious but it tastes horrible!”

“ You are going to eat that broth until the last drop or I am going to tie you up and force feed you!” she says, scrambling to her knees ( the cave has pretty low ceiling) and towers (barely) over me. “ Do you understand me?”

“ Uh….no.”

“ Percy, what more do you want me to do?” she asks. “ I kissed you, I persuaded you, I threatened you….why don’t you want to eat?”

“ I’m sick, Katniss,” I say simply. “ Sick people don’t want to eat much.”

“ Please eat, Percy. Your mom and Addy would probably ask you to do the same thing.”

I give in when she mentioned my mom and Addy.“ I hate you,” I say, throwing the spoon aside, tilt the container towards my mouth and drink it like it’s only tea. “ Oh, that’s nasty,” I say, wiping my mouth after I had drained the broth.

“ That wasn’t so hard, was it?” she asks, beaming. “ Now, for your meds,” she says, popping another pair of those nasty, white pill.

“ Must I?” I plead. She grins. “ Fine.”

The drugs made me want to puke. That’s all I can say, yet again.

“ Go to sleep,” she orders me. I shake my head.

“ No, I can’t go back to sleep. I’m not sleepy anymore,” I say. She opens her mouth to protest but I cut across her. “ You’re the one who needs sleep now.”

“ But – “

“ Nothing is going to happen,” I assure her. “ I won’t go anywhere. I can’t, actually. And our hidey-hole is pretty much hidden,” I say. “ They won’t find us.” And by they, I mean Cato. The others, I’m not so worried about. We can take them down. Except maybe Thresh. Hmm…

“ Okay. But wake me up after about three hours okay?”

“ Sure, sure.”

A/N: Come on, guys...cast your votes, leave your comments..:) pretty, pretty please with cherry on top?