An Extra Tribute

-a bullet wound, a wedding, and a reunion-

My hand flies to my mouth.

"Oh my gosh," I say. "Is she okay?"

"Yes. They had to remove her spleen because it ruptured in her fall, but the bullet didn't touch her. She did bruise her ribs though. She's awake and doing good in rehabilitation," Dad says. When I give him a look of disbelief, he defends his reasoning for not telling me Katniss was hurt until now. "I didn't want to worry you and by association cause Peeta to throw a fit. It's not like you've left his room much lately. She's down the hall with Johanna." I nod.

"Okay," I sigh. "Thank you." Dad nods and I race down the hall, bumping into Gale on my way in. "Gale!" He grabs my arms to stabilize me and I give him a hug.

"Hey, Noah," he chuckles. I pull away.

"How long have you been back?" I ask.

"About a week," he says.

"A week? And you didn't come and say hi?" I ask, appalled. I know I'm caught up with Peeta, but I can still talk to people. Goodness gracious.

"Plutarch suggested that we let you come with your own time," he defends, putting his hands up.

"Why?" I ask.

"He said that you guys were making progress with Peeta and that you shouldn't be interrupted... and that it probably wouldn't be good for him to see Katniss, Haymitch, or I, especially since it would be pulling you away," he explains. Okay. That actually makes sense.

"Okay, well next time try to catch me in Command or something. I don't spend all of my time with him," I say. He laughs.

"You kind of do." I roll my eyes at him and let out a laugh.

"Maybe," I say. "I'll see you later." I lightly push his shoulder and he bids me a laugh of a farewell as I walk into Katniss' hospital. She's sitting up with an annoyed look on her face as Johanna plugs into her morphling drip. Johanna looks up at me with a note of alarm before realizing who it is.

"Bryant!" She calls with a smirk.

"Mason!" I call back, reciprocating her smirk with one of my own; my old smile-smirk. "What are you doing?" She shrugs, her lopsided grin remaining on her features.

"Taking my reward for saving her life," she replies. I look at Katniss, but see that despite being mildly annoyed, she's okay with it. Because she feels guilty.

"Whatever," I laugh. I look back at Cat. "Wanna go for a walk?" She nods eagerly, looking so over this place.

"I'd love to," she says. I help her off the bed and hook my arm in hers as we stroll down the halls. She explains to me that she got shot by a Capitol soldier after Gale's plan of flushing them out of the mountain (the Nut, as she called it) in 2 worked. After she got shot, everything went crazy, but we just sat by watching as the miners turned on Snow's supporters. Fun.

"How's Peeta doing? Plutarch and Haymitch report back, but it's never good," she says. I remember what Dad told me about keeping information about Peeta under wraps until things are looking a bit more normal.

"Well, he and I have made some progress. But, uh," I clear my throat, "he's still not very fond of you." She sighs and nods.

"That's what I thought," she replies. Suddenly, Heavensbee rounds the corner and decides that he needs to talk to us. Well, he actually gives us needed information, so I think he did actually need to. Now that we've gotten 2 on our side, we're regrouping before attempting an attack on the Capitol. We're getting stronger and have cut off all supplies from going into the Capitol. Snow doesn't have an ally in the world.