I wake to Katniss's light shake of my shoulder.
"Peeta, we have to go now," she says with a hint of urgency in her voice.
"Go?" I ask feeling a little confused. "Go where?"
"Away from here," she says looking around. "Downstream maybe. Somewhere we can hide you until you're stronger."
She helps me dress, leaving my feet bare so that I can walk in the water, and tries to pull me upright. A staggering pain nearly nocks me unconscious as soon as I put my weight on my bad leg, and I can feel the blood drain from my face.
"Come on. You can do this," Katniss encourages me.
But I can't. We must have walked about fifty yards or so downstream, with most of my weight propped on her shoulder, when I start to feel as though my head is not connected to my body anymore, and dark spots start blocking my vision.
Katniss seems to realize this and makes me sit on the bank, pushing my head between my knees, and patting my back awkwardly while I recover.
Once I'm able to stand again, she half-carries me up to a cave. By the time we reach the cave I'm panting and shivering, and I can feel that the blood hasn't yet returned to my face.
I watch as Katniss cover's the floor of the cave with pine needles and then unrolls her sleeping bag. She makes me lay down and tucks me in into her sleeping bag, zipping it all the way up to my chin. She forces another two nasty pills on me, but I refuse to eat the fruit. There really would be no point to it – it wouldn't even make it to my stomach before it came back up again.
I watch her as she tries – unsuccessfully – to build a door to cover the cave out of vines and rocks. She stares at her creation for a while and then angrily tears it down in frustration.
"Katniss," I whisper. She comes over and crouches next to me. "Thanks for finding me," I say. I know how big of a sacrifice she has made by coming to find me. She has affected her own chances at survival.
"You would have found me if you could," she says touching my forehead. Her hand feels icy against my blazing skin.
"Yes." Of course I would have. Even if I thought you were going to kill me as soon as you saw me… I can feel my life on a dangerously thin strand, and I want to make sure that she knows how much I care about her before the strand breaks. "Look, if I don't make it back –" I begin to say.
"Don't talk like that," Katniss interrupts me. "I didn't drain all that pus for nothing," she tries her hand at humor – tries being the key word.
"I know," I insist, "but just in case I don't –", she places her fingers on my lips, cutting me off again.
"No, Peeta, I don't even want to discuss it."
"But I –" I try to tell her.
She leans forward, and my brain is so foggy right now that I don't realize what her intentions are until her soft lips meet mine, cutting me off. My heart about jumps out of my chest the moment our lips touch. It doesn't matter what I was about to say. I can't remember anyway.
She breaks away, pulling the edge of the sleeping bag around me.
"You're not going to die," she whispers tenderly. "I forbid it. All right?"
"All right," I whisper. But I'm not sure she heard me – I didn't hear myself; I can only hear my accelerated pulse behind my ears.
She walks out and I lay there, staring after her. Maybe I'm dreaming, I think to myself, maybe I still haven't woken up and I'm still sleeping by the stream. No. No, it felt too real. The staggering pain on my leg as I'd walked here proves that I'm not dreaming. And my heart – It's still stubbornly trying to get out, pounding against my chest.
I sigh, truly happy for the first time in so long. What more can I ask of this cruel world? I think as unconsciousness begins to kick in.
