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Katniss was screaming, Peeta was running, the heavy leaves of the arena holding him back. It had only been a few minutes. He had walked off for two minutes. He could barely think. He could hear Finnick crashing through behind him. His prosthetic was aching, the knife in his hand was dragging through the wet foliage. She was still screaming. He found himself calling her name, his voice breaking on the ‘a’. The floor seemed to stretch. Now he could hear Johanna calling out to Finnick and he knew it wasn’t good. The breath left his chest even as his newly revived heart beat hard in his chest. He had made a promise, he had made a promise, he had made a promise…
BOOM.
There was a scream that tore through the arena, forcing Peeta and Finnick to the ground. The humming of the forcefield disappeared, even the trees went quiet. Peeta laid there, the cool dirt seeping through the holes in his suit. He laid there for what felt like forever as the scream bounced around in his head, the place where the locket had sat only minutes ago was cold on his chest. No. No, no not to worry, that cannon belonged to someone else, it’s ok, the scream was Katniss and it had been after the cannon, she was still alive, no not to worry…
Peeta picked himself up and began to run again, trying to relax. His heart was racing and there was a pit forming in his stomach as he got closer and closer to Johanna calling out to Finnick. He looked through the trees and spotted Johanna on the beach, sitting up with Katniss. Peeta let out a sigh but the void in his chest was spreading through his whole body. Something was wrong with the image on the beach before him.
Peeta picked up his pace, not even checking to see if Finnick was keeping up. He began to call out, “Johanna?” “Katniss?”. He was nearly on the tree line when he heard the sobbing. The tell-tale crying of someone in pain. He ran forward to investigate.
There they were on the beach, Katniss in Johanna’s lap, her face shielded from Peeta’s view. He heard Finnick stop behind him, a sound escaping his throat that Peeta didn’t recognise. His whole body was numb. He could hear the airship coming to pick up the dead Tribute, a noise he was accustomed to by now. He looked back at Finnick who was on his knees in the sand, a fallen prince with a broken crown. He made a small sound as he turned back to Johanna. She looked at him with red eyes and Peeta didn’t understand. What had happened? He looked up as the airship got louder, coming towards them. He looked back at Johanna, his vision blacking out in the corners. His voice was quiet, so low it was most likely those watching in the Capitol couldn’t hear him.
“Katniss?” Silence. He tried again as he walked around Johanna, the world in slow motion. The same response.
Peeta’s eyes couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing. There she was, on Johanna’s lap, her hair freed from her braid. He knelt down beside her and brushed the hair out of her face to look her in the eyes, ask her what was wrong, why she had been screaming just moments before. His hands met cold, clammy skin and he started to smell singed hair and fabric. His heart stopped for the second time in as many days.
But he had just been with Katniss, had just been kissing her, giving her the promise of life, the promise of a future. He hadn’t known why Johanna would be crying, why she would be sobbing so brokenly. But he knew now. Johanna was looking at him, eyes full of tears, “the lightning, she was in the water, I don’t even know, it was just out of nowhere…” her voice cracked as she explained and now Peeta knew the scream after the cannon had belonged to Johanna. He knew the second that scream had shredded the air, his body had known, had shut down with her, piece by piece.
Peeta felt his knee hit the sand. The world was quiet. There was only her, laying so quietly on Johanna’s lap, so still, her face calm and gentle, free of pain. He reached out with his other hand to cup her face and someone gently moved her to rest on him, her back pressed into his thighs, her head and shoulders cradled by his arms. He felt Johanna move beside him, could hear Beetee talking. But they were just sounds in this new world where there was nothing. Where there was nothing to listen to because she couldn’t speak. Nothing to stare at because she couldn’t stare back. Nothing to live for because she couldn’t be protected anymore.
Peeta had thought he had died when his heart had stopped after hitting the forcefield; but he knew now that that was only temporary, not even truly death for he hadn’t even taken one step over that threshold. He knew now that this was death, life without a purpose. A heartbeat without a pulse. A locket without a neck to hang it around. A mockingjay pin without a chest to attach it to.
Finnick, Beetee and Johanna were screaming, yelling and arguing amongst themselves. Peeta could hear the words ‘wire’ ‘lightning’ ‘forcefield’ and ‘midnight’ but they washed over him, the darkness surrounding them was enough. For some reason the airship had disappeared, never making it over to them. One part of Peeta’s brain, the part that created the stories and played the Capitol, viciously thought it would be better to let him sit there, the other half of the Star-Crossed lovers, and hold Katniss’ body in the damp sand - the ratings would skyrocket, the Capitol would be in tears. It would be incredible, the reaction this would elicit.
At some point, Johanna and Beetee had left, talking about a plan that involved the Lightning Tree. Finnick stayed with Peeta and Katniss. He moved them into the tree line, off the sand, explaining quietly to Peeta that he needed to get to safety. He didn’t argue when Peeta asked him to help move Katniss out of harm’s way as well, as though she was asleep and not - Peeta couldn’t even think it. They settled themselves against a tree, Katniss protected between the two of them, her head in Peeta’s arms and her body protected by Finnick’s trident. They sat there quietly until they heard Johanna’s call from the Tree. Finnick looked over at Peeta and then began to explain.
He gripped Katniss tighter as Finnick explained that they needed to cut out their trackers, that this was the revolution and they had to act fast. Peeta held out his arm, still mute, unable to form a word or a sound. He hadn’t even cried. He knew, instinctively, that he was, in all ways that mattered, dead, and that although his body remained in this life, all of the good parts, all of the things that made him Peeta, had died when Katniss had been struck in the water, when her heart had stopped and she had drowned as her body had sunk under the gentle waves that she had guided him through. When the Capitol and the Gamemakers had sucked the life right out of her and in doing so, had killed him as well. When his face hadn’t appeared in the sky right after hers, like he had expected - hoped even - Peeta had, for a moment, been filled with rage. For they had not acknowledged his death, his departure from the land of the living. They had not considered that his body was now simply an empty shell that looked and sounded like he once had.
The rage however subsided as quick as it came and he once again felt nothing. His arm didn’t even bother to sting when Finnick slashed it with a knife, when his friend’s thin fingers fished around between muscle and bone looking for the device. Peeta didn’t so much as wince when he watch Finnick do the same to his own arm. But as Finnick stood to leave, offering his now bloody fingers to Peeta to help him stand, Peeta felt something in his heart, an ache, a need, a duty, even. “What about hers?” Finnick’s eyes were so terribly sad. He stared at Peeta, the silence between them so devastatingly loud. Peeta thought for a moment that Finnick was going to leave her here, as they both left for safety. He felt the rage boil again. But Finnick knelt on one knee and ever so gently cut into Katniss’ now-pale forearm and removed her device. He tore a strip of his sleeve and tied it around her wound, although it was barely bleeding.
He stood again and looked at Peeta imploringly, “We have to leave.”
Peeta gently laid her on the ground and stood, then leant down to scoop Katniss up, her head lolling and falling against his chest. Peeta choked on the sob that the impact knocked free. Finnick grabbed his arm and dragged them further into the forest right as the arena exploded.
Peeta and Finnick were knocked apart but Peeta's grip on Katniss remained, never loosening, not even when he was lying unconscious, the arena falling apart above them. He stirred as they were picked up by the airship. 'Finally', he thought, 'they've come to take us home and bury us.' He pulled Katniss closer to him and blacked out again.
...
When Peeta came to, he was being set on the ground, his arms locked around a body he already knew was Katniss'. He had spent enough nights sleeping beside her, cradling her in the dark as she breathed through unspeakable terrors, had her arms around him as he woke in the night, rigid and pained, looking for signs that she was alive. That feeling, the feeling of having her close was something he wasn't going to mistake, not even when he was semi-conscious. He blinked his eyes open and found himself staring at the soft light of the fluros lining the roof of the Capitol airship. As he held Katniss, he looked down at her and saw her eyes were closed, she must still be unconscious. There were loud noises coming from behind the door in the little room they were in. Peeta quickly pulled them over into a corner and looked for his weapon and coming up empty. He was thinking of what Katniss had said on the beach. How she needed him. He needed her as well, plus he had made a promise to stay with her. Always. He wasn't going to abandon her now. He walked to her sleeping from and kissed her gently on the cheek, "I can save us, don't worry".
He turned toward the sound of running feet and readied himself for whoever came through the door. Peeta promised himself that if it was Snow, he would kill him with his own bare hands, just for knocking Katniss out. Then he would get to work on the Peacekeepers. The lock on the door turned and Peeta prepared himself to launch at the visitors. The frame shuddered as metal scraped metal and Haymitch's face was revealed.
Peeta's hands dropped immediately and he ran over to Katniss, shaking her to wake her up, to tell her that they were ok, they'd been saved. "Two arenas, Katniss! Can you believe?" Relief was washing through his tone, his hands feather light as he tried to stir her. He turned to Haymitch to find their mentor simply standing there, his hands by his sides. "Haymitch, help me wake her." The usually loud and aggressive drunk didn't even twitch a finger.
"You can't."
"Can't what?"
"Wake her." His tone was clipped, not with anger but with restraint.
"Don't be ridiculous." Peeta turned back to Katniss. His hands on her sides, his fingers searching for that heartbeat that beat in a way so particular to Katniss.
That's when he realised what had felt so strange when he had woken on the cold floor. Katniss had had no heartbeat. She still didn't. She didn't shift, didn't blink or twitch. She wasn't even breathing.
Katniss was dead.
Peeta's vision went white. His heart shattering in his chest so loud he was sure Haymitch had heard it since he ran forward and placed his hands on Peeta's shoulders, so much like a father would to his son. As Peeta slowly looked up at his mentor, he could pin the expression that Haymitch wore so clearly on his face. Devastation. Peeta turned to look at her body again, propped so lovingly up by his own hands only moments before. A strand of her hair was covering her face and as Peeta reached forward to move it away he was hit with the overwhelming weight of the memories from the arena. The beach, the running through the trees, the scream, the cannon and the look on Johanna's face when Peeta had seen Katniss lying there, so still and quiet on the sand. He remembered Finnick removing her tracker so gently and tying off her injury even though it wasn't going to bleed.
Peeta also remembered the day the Quarter Quell was announced and what he had said to Haymitch in that dingy living room: "Promise me you will let me go. Let me die in there. Let me die for her. Please Haymitch," he'd pleaded to the older man's sad expression, pride and dignity forgotten in that moment. "Haymitch, I can save us, don't worry."
The pain was everywhere. All the pain he hadn't felt in the arena was washing over him and drowning him, pulling him under. The weight of the world fell on Peeta with no warning, crushing his chest, his arms and legs. It felt as though even bone in his body would splinter, like his head would explode from the pressure, not unlike the arena. As shock and desperation stole his breath and tore sobs from deep in his chest, Peeta was only able to get one sentence out, over and over.
"I can't save us. I can't save us. I can't save us."