After The Storm (A Hunger Games Fanfic)

Guilt - 12

She's swimming, floating, under the water. She has to get her face free, but she can't. The water is everywhere, pouring down her throat, seizing her legs, tugging on her clothes. Tendrils of it coil around her arm and rip the flesh clean off it, and she can't see, it's so dark. She waves her arms in a weak imitation of swimming, but she could be going the wrong way and getting deeper, and her arm hurts too much anyway, and her legs ache and the water is just so much stronger than her...

"Rain? Are you there?"

That voice! She knows that voice that she can hear above the water, like it might be shouting from the other side of a field. It is coming from above her. She has to go up, if she can. Her lungs feel like they might burst and her arm is on fire, but she has to go up. She tries to open her mouth to shout, get rid of some of the pressure on her insides but water rushes in instead, and it hits the back of her mouth and tickles and she has to cough, her entire body jerking from side to side, the water receding, letting her choke alone...

The blackness fades and she's looking up at a clear night sky, the moon's silver touch soothing on her skin, the luxurious band of stars ringed by the stems. The rushing noise isn't water but grass. No, grass and water. She's not wet, except for her right arm and her face and neck. A sharp, clinical smell lingers in the air.

Her arm hurts. A lot.

Groggily, she turns her head to look at it, but a rough hand cups her cheek and won't let her. "Don't look," Gavin suggests, "It isn't pleasant." The wound was enough to make his stomach turn, despite everything he's seen back home. He's done his best, and the pristine bandages that appeared in that wonderful golden package look neat, but blood is still soaking through and he's not sure if he used enough of the paste stuff. He didn't want to use it all at once, just in case.

"How bad?" she mumbles, her eyes still slightly glassy. She's shaking a little. Gavin bites his lip; he doesn't want to lie to her, but he doesn't want her to be any more uncomfortable either. 

"Don't lie to me, Gavin," she warns. It sounds odd, a warning coming from somebody so vulnerable, but he just smiles it off.

"Sure?"

"Sure."

"The axe split right down your arm. I could see the bone. You've lost a lot of blood."

It's a good job she's not standing, because he can tell by all the colour zipping away from her face that she would just faint. He splashes a little more water onto her face, feeling queasy. What if the wound gets infected? What if she's lost too much blood. What if there's nothing he can do?

"You've bandaged it," she whispers, her other hand skating along the bloody cloths. He nods, looking down into her damp and tired face. She looks like home, and despite the stink of the paste, she still smells a little like baked earth and dried crops. He nods. "Sponsor gifts. Somebody out there wants you to win." 

She draws breath sharply, a painful rattle in her throat. It must hurt so much. Her hand grips his briefly, a small clutch, and then she lets go, the whites of her eyes shining in the moonlit darkness. "Somebody wants you to win too, Gavin. There's somebody who wants all of us to win."

"I know." And he thinks; and there's people out there crying because of me.

"No, Gavin, you can't beat yourself up. It's the Games. Nobody can blame you." Her voice is soft but strong, convinced. She genuinely thinks that.

Seeing the doubt in Gavin's eyes, she shakes her damp head and continues, "I don't blame you."

He smiles, just a little bit, but it doesn't reach his eyes. He keeps hearing Flora's scream, seeing the blood, the cannon booming ominously over the arena, a candle going out. Rain doesn't blame him; she hasn't killed anybody. She's not a murderer.