Justice, the 4th hunger games book, the story after mockingjay

Chapter eleven

Chapter eleven

I'm awoken early by a thrashing from the other side of the bed and before I am able to react I am punched in the nose. My instant reaction is to attack my attacker though as my eyes come into focus I realise it's Peeta and he's asleep, having a nightmare. I don't think I have ever see him like this before.  

"Peeta?" I ask, gently taking hold of his shoulder but this just causes him to thrash about even more and he catches me again in the nose. Ignoring the pain now emanating from my face I spring up and plant myself on top of his thrashing body taking echo f his wrists in each of my hands. 

"Peeta!" I yell. This does the job and he snaps awake with a jolt sending me flying off the bed to the floor. 

"Katniss!" He gasps sitting bolt upright and looking around for me, his eyes settle on me still in a heap at the side of the bed. "Katniss! What happened? Are you OK?" He suddenly springs off the bed planting himself in front of me taking my face in his hands. "Your nose!" What about my nose? I think and reach up and my hand is instantly slick with blood. Damn Peeta can punch hard! 

"I'm fine." I say quickly brushing it off. "You had a nightmare. What was it about?" I ask trying my best to change the subject. 

"Did I do that to you?! I did, didn't I? Oh I am so sorry Katniss." He gushes and rocks back, his head in his hands. 

"Peeta, it's not your fault. You couldn't help it, I'm fine, really, it's just a little blood I say wiping my nose on my sleeve in an attempt to take the worst of it away though my sleeve is saturated in minutes. I forgot how much I bleed! I grab one of the bed sheets and hold it to try and stop the bleeding and slide over to Peeta. 

"Hey, it's not your fault. What was it about?" I ask though I'm beginning to feel a little light headed. 

"I don't really know, I can't remember much." 

"Try? Please? It will help, trust me." I encourage. 

"You were there, I, I was trying to reach you but I couldn't. The faster I ran the further away you got and then you raised your bow and shot an arrow at me, but not at me. It went straight past my ear, I turned to look behind me as a body slammed into me pinning me to the ground. The last thing I remember is the figure stabbing me and you yelling my name. That's when I woke up. It was horrible!" 

"It's OK Peeta, it's fine. I'm fine, We're fine. Sounds like you had one of my kind of nightmares. It wasn't real though." I remind him taking away the sheet from my nose, I think it's finally stopped bleeding, looking at the sheet though from the amount of blood on it you would have thought Clove had cut me again. I take his hands in mine and prize his hands away from his face forcing him to look me in the eyes. "Peeta. Look I'm fine really." 

"It's not fine Katniss, I punched you!" He rasps clearly devastated at hurting me. 

"I'm fine. It wasn't your fault, you couldn't help it. Peeta please don't blame yourself. If you want to blame anyone, blame Paylor and the Capitol they brought back these nightmares." he sighs and leans in resting his forehead on mine, closing his eyes as he silently argues with himself. We sit like this for a couple of minutes, knowing full well I was not going to be the one to break this, allowing Peeta to get a grip of himself. After what seems like forever he leans in and gently brushes his lips against mine. 

"I love you, girl on fire." He murmurs between kisses.  

"I love you too, boy with the bread." And I feel him smile beneath the kiss before pulling away. 

"We need to get you cleared up." He says, getting up and pulling me to my feet, leading me to the bathroom. I zone out as he grabs a damp cloth and starts to clear me up, I've learnt over the years not to get involved when he's treating me. Before I know it he sweeps me up in his arms and carries me downstairs to the kitchen. I glance at the clock as he places me in a chair and gets to work fixing up breakfast. 6.30 it reads. I'm not going to like these early mornings I think. For the next few months we will be having to get up before dawn to train, making sure we have the largest advantage we can going into these games. 

"Peeta, I want to teach you how to hunt properly. It would be useful if you could use a bow and arrow. What if you are close to one at the Cornucopia?"  

"OK, I'll try and learn though I'm not promising I'm going to be any good." always doubting himself. 

"You will, with me as your teacher, I'm sure I can have enough patience with you. What have we got to lose?" 

"You." He replies simply. "I want to teach you how to wrestle, you need to be stronger too, it will help. I don't know how much you heard yesterday but everyone is going to help as much as they can."  

"I heard." I confirm. 

"Well I was thinking we would have a sort of training timetable so everyone would have a chance to have time off and what not?"  

"Yeah that sounds like a good idea." How long has he been thinking about this? Knowing him since we found out. He grabs a pen and paper and comes to join me at the table. 

"Breads in the oven. While its baking shall we?" He asks and I respond with a nod. 

"Let's do this on a three day rotation?" I ask thinking about the best possible way to spend our time. 

"Sure that sounds like a good idea." He says splitting the paper into four columns, one for the times and the other three for the schedule. "How shall we do it? Up at six?" He asks and I grimace making him laugh. 

"Suppose. Up at six out hunting from six thirty till about nine? Me you and Gale." I begin making sure that he is included. 

"How about every other day you and Gale go out alone so that you can work on your technique without having two worry about me." I begin to protest about this but he silences me by saying. "I'll then have a chance to do some baking too." 

"OK, that sounds fair." I say and he writes that down at the top of the page. 

"Breakfast then insurance training, I want us both to be able to run a fair distance carrying some heavy weights." 

"OK but once every two days, on one of the other days you teach me how to wrestle and it would be nice to be able to spend a morning every other day with the kids?" To confirm he writes that down too with lunch at about midday. He also fills in dinner and rest time from eight every evening. 

"I guess we fill in the rest when the others surface." He says putting the pen down and leaning back allowing me to cuddle into his side. 

"We will need to sort out a rota to look after the kids as well. I'll feel bad if we always leave them with Sae."  

"I think they should come with us, watch us.when we are training around the district, especially in the village it would probably be better and it would give us more of a reminder of why we must win." He justifies and I know he is right, having them watching us will help us push ourselves to our limits. Exactly what we need to do.

It's nine before everyone gathers at ours and we are able to sort out the rest of the schedule we decide that Gale would help with snares and survival once every three days, Johanna and Enobaria are going to work with us both with the other weapons like the spears, daggers, swords on two days in the early afternoon and the third in the late afternoon, Haymitch will talk us through tactics throughout the training. We will go on a long distance run and plenty of drills to bring up our fitness in between. Before we know it darkness is falling and the tv turns on for the compulsory viewing of Paylors announcement of the games. Peeta and me just sit in the love seat looking at each other, not paying attention. We already know what it's about, she announces that the reaping will be in exactly eight weeks from today on the first of June. Eight weeks to train, to prepare ourselves, to prepare our children, of freedom.

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Thank you for voting and commenting! It really means a lot that you are enjoying it! Keep commenting, it's good to get feedback on my work. Sorry this chapters short and uneventful. Should i do a chapter or two of them training or would you guys pefer if i went straight to the reaping?