Disclaimer : Seriously, guys…I don’t own the series. If I do, I’d be stinking rich! Rich, I tell ye!

Percy’s POV

I woke up with a start, sweating. I could feel my heart hammering against my ribcage, as if it was threatening to jump out of my chest. I look around; making sure that it was really, really a nightmare and not some crackpot joke from the Gamemakers. I sigh in relief when I noticed no one else was in the cave except for me and Katniss, who is currently lying on the floor in a very scary looking pool of blood.

Wait.

What?

I pull her closer to me and put her head on my lap. Oh shit, I thought to myself when I saw a clump of clotted blood on her forehead, just above her eyebrows. I check for her pulse (just in case) and fumble around for the first-aid kit.

I frown at the look of the wound after I had cleaned it. It was absolutely deep and long and it probably needs some stitches. Well, Katniss, I am not a doctor nor am I a stylist or a seamstress. Please don’t be mad at the ugly scar I’m about to give you.

After several more minutes, I stuff the needle and thread away along with the kit. Gently, I put her head back on the floor. Hey, not on the floor okay? On her backpack, which I had emptied first before making it into a pillow for her. After that, I took in my surroundings. For the first time in days, I feel quite good.

I mean, I don’t feel the chills anymore; my arm isn’t throbbing anymore…

Huh?

I roll my sleeve up and look at the wound. Well, at least at where the wound used to be. Now, there’s only a raised bump on my arm, purplish-blackish in color. When I touch it, it throbs a little but otherwise than that it was definitely healing. A huge lump rose in my throat, making it pretty hard to breathe. As stupid as it had been, Katniss had risked her life to get that medicine for me. And she had gotten a huge wound for it.

“ Sorry for burdening you,” I whisper to her, pushing a strand of hair from her face. “ I’ll make it up to you when we get back home. We are both going to bust out of this place alive. I promise…”

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

I didn’t know when I dozed off. But I did. And I was pretty relieved none of them had came back to torture me in my sleep. I guess that will only happen when I get drugged by someone. I stretch myself, wincing a bit when my broken leg made a cracking sound. Well, let’s hope that wasn’t my bone breaking again. I look at the sleeping figure next to me, checking her pulse again (just in case) and the stitched-up wound.

Carefully without waking her up, I pull the sack filled with food and start to munch on the winter bird. A bit cold and old, but as long as it can fill me up, I’m cool. It was when I was eating I heard a THUMP! THUMP! sound on the cave roof. At first I thought it was one of the other tributes trying to do a surprise attack on us. I tense, waiting for them to barge into the cave. But then there were more THUMP! THUMP! and I suddenly notice snow falling outside of our cave.

It's snowing.

Great.

Just what we need.

I lean against the wall, watching the snow fall. Back in District Twelve, when Addy was still around, we’d go outside and make some snowmen. Sometimes do those silly snow angels that she was so fond off. And at times, we’d have a snowball fight. With Mrs. Woodlum. Yep, you heard (read?) that right. We actually challenged her to a snowball fight. To which she respond. Yeah, she responds to us with a whip. That night, those who had bravely (and foolishly) challenged her were sent to bed without any dinner.

But my dear sweet sister would always sneak into the room where I shared with another five boys and pass us some scraps from the table. And as always, she somehow managed to slip away before Mrs. Woodlum could bust her. I always wondered how she could do things like that sneakily…

Katniss is starting to stir now.

I lean over her and plant a brief kiss on her cheeks, brushing her hair from her face. “ Katniss?” She didn’t answer. “  Katniss, can you hear me?”

Her eyes flew open and for a moment, panic filled it. After a while, she calms down and squints at me. “ Percy?”

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Katniss,” I smirk at her.

“ How long have I been out?” she asks.

“ Not sure. When I woke up from my drugged sleep, you were taking a dip in your own blood,” I say, stretching a bit. “ It kind of freaked me out. I stitched your wound but I wouldn’t sit up if I were you,” I add when she tries to get up. “ Drink some water.”

“ Did you eat?”

“ The whole lot.”

“ You do know we need to save up some food because we haven’t gone hunting in a while, right?”

I grin sheepishly at her. Instead of getting angry at me, she just sighs and grins back. “ I was starving!” I say, feeling guilty that I had actually finished the last of the winter bird.

“ Never mind,” she says. “ You did need to eat. And I don’t mind having to go and hunt again if it meant you’re feeling better.”

“ Yeah,” I say, nodding. “ And about that, thanks,” I add, planting another kiss on her forehead. “ But I’m still mad you nearly got killed.”

She grins. “ You can get mad as often as you like. I don’t care. As long as you’re not dying anymore.” She adjusts herself on the floor.

“ Are you cold?” I ask her, taking off my jacket and wrapping her in it before she could answer.

“ Won’t you be cold?”

“ I’m made of steel, sweetheart.”

She rolls her eyes at that. “ I’m hungry. Are there any food left?”

“ Well, my berries and…um..that’s all,” I say, looking sheepishly at her. She shakes her head, smiling and takes my sack of berry. “ Sorry.”

“ That’s okay.”

We sat in silence for a while.

“ So,” we both say at the same time. We burst out laughing. It felt good to have something to laugh about after the days I felt a bit like some sort zombie.

“ I’ll go first,” I say, before she could even open her mouth. “ Who gave you that cut?” I ask, looking curiously at the wound, before my eyes travel down to her lips and suddenly notice that she had another wound over it : a thin line that someone had traced into her skin that looked as if the person wanted to cut her lips off. “ And that?” I add, tracing my finger lightly on the line.

“ Clove,” she says simply. Just hearing that name gave me goose bumps.

“ What did she actually do to you?”

“ Well,” she says, looking pretty uncomfortable in retelling the tale. “ I got to the Cornucopia and waited until they pulled out the table that the bags were put. Foxface was the first one to get hers. I was the second. When I nearly reached the table, Clove caught on with me. I shot some arrows at her but missed, and she threw one knife at me and actually made a pretty serious wound to me.”

I laugh. “ You nearly got knifed by her but all you can think is how your arrows didn’t manage to kill her?”

“ If I did manage to take her out that time, we might get some breathing room from the District Two killers!” she says defensively. I chuckled some more and gestures for her to carry on. “ Anyway, she managed to pin me down before I could escape. And she talked about how she was going to kill me. – “

“ Knowing her, must be something really painful,” I mutter under my breath.

“ – she said how she was going to cut me up and all. That’s how I got this,” she says, pointing to the thin line above her lips. “ Clove said it would be best if she started from my lips. And then she mentioned Rue. I hate how gleeful she sounded when she talked about how Rue died!” She bursts into tears.

I pull her into an awkward hug since she’s lying on the floor and I’m half-sitting, half-leaning against the wall. “ She doesn’t know what it feels when seeing the person you had started to care for die in front of you,” I murmur gently to her.

She buries her head into my chest and sobs for a while.

“ Um..does your story have an ending? Ow!” I say as I felt her punch my ribs.

“ You’re an insensitive jerk!” she yells at me, punching me again in the ribs.

“ I try to,” I snicker at her. She rolls her eyes and continues with her tale.

“ And then, Thresh suddenly appears and he was so mad and he grabbed Clove and starts banging her against the Cornucopia and then…she’s dead,” she stops for a while, her face getting this faraway look on it. “ He let me go, though. He said he didn’t want to owe me anything.”

I didn’t say anything after she finished her story. I understand about the part not wanting to owe anything to anyone. Maybe even experienced it for all I know. Yeah, I do have an experience in that department. The day the mines blew up. I owe Shrap my life. Also to Darius. And maybe to Mrs. Woodlum.

“ Funny you should mention about owing things to people,” I say, smirking a little. She looks at me confusedly. “ I owe so many people my life. Including you. And I’m going to make it up to you, I promise.”

She smiles. “ Percy, you don’t have to make it up to me. Because I…uh…” she blushes a bit. “ Never mind.”

“ Oh, no. No backtracking. You wanted to say something. What is it? Tell me!” I say in my most commanding voice. She shakes her head, her blush getting redder. “ Come on. What did you wanted to say?”

“ Nothing,” she says evasively. “ It was just…nothing.”

“ I guess I’ll have to make the assumptions myself,” I grin at her, leaning in for a kiss. Her face flushes a deep red when I pull away. “ Okay, I guess I’ll stop kissing you for now. You must still feel tired,” I say. “ Go to sleep.”

“ What about you?”

“ I’m okay. I don’t think I want to go to sleep anytime soon, anyway,” I shrug.

“ Why?”

“ I had a horrible nightmare,” I say simply. She looks at me questioningly. “ My victims came to torture me. Rue and Addy were there too. It was horrible,” I say, shaking my head, trying to get rid of the horrifying images. “ I’m not going to relive them. And don’t ask,” I add, when she opens her mouth. “ Go to sleep.”

“ Fine. Wake me up when you feel like crashing,” she reminds me, before drifting off to sleep in my arms.

Truth be told, I did doze off a few times. And each time I wake up feeling bad that I had dozed off. If Cato or the others came, we’d already be dead. After several hours, Katniss jerks awake, probably from the sound of lightning.

“ Is it raining?” she asks, peering outside.

“ No. It’s a storm.” She looks at me, looking annoyed. “ What? I’m not being sarcastic. It’s literally storming.”

“ Since when?”

“ About two hours before you woke up. Maybe more?” I shrug, adjusting myself and getting rid of the cramps. “ It was already snowing when I woke up.” She looks outside thoughtfully. “ I wonder who they’re trying to get to kill each other…”

“ Cato and Thresh,” Katniss replies, snuggling closer to me. “ Thresh took Cato’s backpack. Obviously Cato is going to hunt him down first before he starts to hunt us or Foxface.”

“ Well, that’s pretty reassuring,” I say gruffly. Silence. “ I’m hungry.”

“ Good to know you got your house-sized appetite back,” she mutters. “ We’ll go hunting tomorrow, when the storm stops.”

“ I wonder…” I say out loud. She looks at me both questioningly and bored. “ If the winter hemisphere is having a snow blizzard, I wonder what would happen in the desert hemisphere.”

“ Probably nothing since there’s not much hiding place,” she says, stretching her legs.

“ No, I don’t think nothing is going on there,” I say. “ I mean, if we have snow blizzard, the desert hemisphere must have some sort of sand storm. To push the tributes to an open so that they will have the bloodiest final stand.”

“ Yeah, you’re right. But why are you suddenly thinking about it?”

“ Just in case they wanted to do some sort of killer surprise for us. Then we’ll know where to run.”

“ Where?”

“ To the Cornucopia, dummy!” I say, rolling my eyes at her.

“ You are a genius, Percy,” she says dryly. “ Go to sleep.”

“ No.”

“ Do you want to share your nightmare with me?”

“ Hell no!”

“ Fine. Then, shut up for a while so that I can enjoy my peace of mind.”

I snort. “ You won’t last a second.”

“ We’ll see,” she says smugly. “ I can tune you out.”

“ You’ll go crazy in that dark head of yours.”

She didn’t reply, merely pokes her tongue at me. She adjusts herself again and snuggles closer to me, her icy cold fingers close to mine.

“ Freezing, huh?” I ask her, taking her hand in mine and rubbing some warmth back into it. “ If we don’t get out of this arena soon we’ll get serious frostbite.” She sighs in reply and puts her head on my shoulder. “ We’ll make it alive,” I say, patting her on the head. “ I promise.”

That’s a lot of ‘I promise’ I said today….

A/N: I am so sorry for the boring chapter!! I don’t know why! It’s like some of my muse is gone! *sobs* I am so sorry! Really sorry for the next news I’m bringing you guys : I won’t be updating for a month. That’s right, A MONTH. I’ll be starting my prepping classes this Saturday. Wait, what’s that? You’re asking what prepping classes?

   Oh, didn’t I tell you? I’m going to do Medicine in Egypt this September. That’s what the prepping is for. So that we don’t get some sort of culture shock when we get there. Sorry for not telling you earlier. Anyway, I’ll try to get the next the update up by this Friday. But it’s not a promise. I’ll TRY to, okay?

But me telling you this does not mean you don’t have to review, you know…

PRESS THAT BUTTON! YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO

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