Mockingjay Part 3. Rekindled Flame

Fever

My skin feels too hot, but I shiver beneath Peeta's covers. I have spent the last few days here, not able to move further than the bathroom and back to the bed. My joints and muscles scream at me even though I remain still. My head throbs against my temples and my stomach cramps making me gag into my bucket, but I haven't eaten anything for it to come back up. I have acquired a cough that leaves me gasping for air until I'm heaving again.

Peeta checks on me frequently, but I tell him to keep a distance so he doesn't catch whatever I have. He doesn't leave the room at night though. He sleeps on a leather gray couch in the corner, sometimes pacing around the room while watching me. Haymitch has also come to take a look at me but the only advice he had was to maybe give me a strong drink to clear me out. I didn't agree. 

On the sixth day, I try to apologize to Peeta for being such a nuisance, but I'm cut off by a crackly cough that leaves me gasping for air and exhausted. His eyebrows crinkle as he presses the back of his hand to my forehead. He takes his lip in between his teeth, his eyes flitting to mine and then back to my flushed complexion. 

"That bad?" I manage to whisper. His breath leaves him in a laugh as he sits himself at my side on the bed. His weight on the mattress pulls me toward him until my hip is against him and my head tilts slightly on the pillow. I don't have the energy to right myself. 

"Katniss I think we might need to go to the Capitol hospital," Peeta says. 

The very mention of going back to the place that held so much terror, loss, and trauma just so that doctors could give me some faulty antibiotics is unthinkable. I could never go back to that horrible place, and I don't know how Peeta can even think of going back there after everything he endured. 

My breath labors as flashbacks of all the blood and death engulf my vision until I'm basically reliving those moments once more, unable to move in my catatonic state. My eyes squeeze shut as I try to block the images flashing in front of me. I feel my head turn back and forth in protest and my body begin to tremble. 

"N-no," I plead, but it sounds more like a guttural animal sound after the claws of a trap ensnare it. The force of the word as it rips through my chest sends me into another coughing fit. I try to turn my face away from Peeta in order to shield him from any spittle that might land on him, but he stands to get closer to me. 

When I catch my breath, he gently places his hands on each side of my face, rubbing his thumbs softly over my cheekbones. My breathing sounds like bubble wrap while his comes out in silent puffs across my face. 

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he mumbles. "You have been getting worse by the hour, and I'm just really worried. None of the healers are back in 12 yet, and even if they were, you know that they couldn't give you what you needed to get better." 

"I don't-" gasp, "want to go-" gasp, "Please Peeta." Gurgling cough. Peeta doesn't release me. "Illnesses always gets worse before it gets better. Just a few more days." 

He looks conflicted, but nods his head. For a moment I'm worried he might pull the same trick that I did in the first games. When he was dying in the arena and Claudius Templesmith announced that there would be a feast at the Cornucopia with something for Peeta's leg, Haymitch had sent sleeping syrup. I fed Peeta the syrup in a berry broth, breaking the promise I made to him that I would not go to the Cornucopia and risk my life for him. He was knocked out for over a day, and when he had woken up, his leg was a million times better and he could walk on it again. 

However, I push this from my mind because Peeta isn't me; he isn't someone to betray a friend, even if it meant saving their life. But I'm not dying and District 12 most likely doesn't have sleeping syrup that survived the bombs.