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Katniss had felt this coming for a long time now. Usually, she was okay, she could avoid all of this by going to the forest and calming down there. Hunting gave her the relief and satisfaction that people couldn’t. But that wasn’t an option anymore.
Usually, she’d resort to just burying it and pretending it wasn’t there, and it would be gone by morning anyway. Unfortunately, when she woke up this morning, it was still there. That could be attributed to the fact that she’d only had one or two hours of sleep anyway.
Still, it was here, and now, she couldn’t avoid it.
She wasn’t entirely sure what had caused it, but she knew what exacerbated it. People.
She’d been training with Haymitch and Peeta, and Gale had come along to help because it was a Sunday. It was already a situation that she didn’t want to be in, but it was worse any time Peeta and Gale talked to each other. Each sentence was charged with malice and hatred, and she hated that it always came down to her.
Gale hated Peeta because Peeta was in love with her, and she is who she kissed in the arena, she is who he’s going to marry, and she is going to be in love with him in the next games too. Peeta hated Gale because he was too protective and obsessive over Katniss, and because he thought Katniss liked Gale better than him. Everything came down to her, and them wanting her too bad in one way or another.
She couldn’t get their voices out of her head. She was flinting arrows by herself, wanting a break, and they were whispering behind her back. She couldn’t catch any individual words or even what they were talking about, but she could hear the heat and anger in their voices.
She decided she didn’t like it.
She didn’t like the scraping of the flint against her knife when she sharpened it, or the creaking of the wood when she fixed it onto the arrow shaft. She didn’t like the sound of Haymitch’s snores while he slept on the grass a couple metres away from her feet. She didn’t like the eerie soundless-quality of their makeshift training grounds behind Victors’ Village, and how it enhanced every other manmade sound around her. She didn’t like the deep, grating voice of Gale, arguing with the soft, scratching voice of Peeta.
She didn’t realise how far she’d zoned out, trying and failing to tune out the sounds around her, until Gale started shaking her.
“Catnip! Catnip, you with us?” Gale yelled.
Katniss yelped at the unexpected touch, whacking Gale’s hands away.
She gritted her teeth. “Don’t touch me, Gale.”
He made a show of raising his hands in the air. “Whoa, sorry Catnip. You just didn’t respond when I said your name.”
She pursed her lips. “Okay. What did you need?”
“We were gonna head to the forest, try and teach Peeta how to use a bow.” Gale said, voice gruffer than usual.
That only made Katniss feel worse. “Can’t. The fence is electrified again.”
Gale blinked. “Oh. I didn’t know. Is that why you’ve been so down in the dumps lately?”
Katniss tried not to glare at him. Yeah, that’s the only reason she’s been down in the dumps lately. It’s got nothing to do with you hating my friend and pretending like you’re the only one who deserves me or anything like that.
“Sure, Gale.” She continued working on the arrows that she was slowly coming to hate.
Gale crouched down in front of her. “What’s the point of flinting arrows if we can’t hunt anymore?”
“I wanted a break, and it calms me.” Did calm me, before you came here. She felt a little bad for being so mean to Gale, even if it was just in her mind, but she wasn’t able to think clearly right now.
“Well, we should get back to training now.” He suggested, standing up.
Katniss followed the movement with her eyes, and was almost blinded by the light of the sky above him. She kept her eyes down. “I think I’m done for the day, actually.”
She couldn’t see Gale’s face with her staring at the ground, but she could hear his indignant sigh.
He started to pace. “C’mon, Catnip. That’s not something you’re gonna be able to say in the arena.”
“You haven’t been in the arena, Gale.” Katniss snapped.
He fell quiet for a few moments. She could feel the silence that came when someone was about to open their mouth, but Peeta walked over before he could say anything.
“Are you okay, Katniss?” He asked, crouching down to her level. Their similar height made him seem way less intimidating than Gale. When had she started thinking of Gale as intimidating?
Peeta reached out his hand, and she felt compelled to take it. Her arm wouldn’t move though, and so his dropped. “You don’t seem well.”
She didn’t feel well. She felt like she wanted to go inside and bury herself in her blankets. The scratchy kind that she laid on in her old home. Haymitch snorted in his sleep.
“Katniss, seriously, are you okay?” Peeta asked again, voice underwater.
Her vision had begun to spin, flickering in and out of focus, blinking like the light did when it left Rue’s eyes—
Her breathing had started to quicken, and she couldn’t get a deep breath. Every breath she took was too shallow and she lost more air than she gained and it left her feeling hollow and this is exactly what she’d been trying to avoid ever since she got back from the Games. She was the strong one that supported others, she wasn’t affected, she was just glad to be alive. She had been so much luckier than everyone else in those Games — Peeta lost a literal limb — she couldn’t go and forsake that.
Gale’s arms were around her now, and she was sure he was saying something, but she couldn’t understand it. She could feel the stretch of sinew in his exposed forearms and the scratch of his shirtsleeve and she didn’t like it one bit. She still couldn’t will herself to move.
The only thing she was able to do was breathe even faster (or breathe less?), and feel pinpricks of burning in the corners of her eyes.
Haymitch was waking up now, slurring something despite being forced into sobriety. Or maybe she just couldn’t understand what he was saying because she couldn’t hear anything right now. Only an acute ringing in her right ear. She couldn’t hear anything out of her left.
Her chest began to pound, her heart slamming up against her ribcage. She was very aware of the shaking of her entire body, but mostly her hands. Not the kind of thing you'd want to happen to you in the arena. Suddenly, the world exploded with sound and colour. Everything was vibrant and ringing and shiny and she couldn’t tell you exactly when she blacked out.
—
Katniss didn’t wake up. She hadn’t fallen asleep. But she regained control of her senses some unspecified time later. It felt like hours but was probably only a couple of minutes.
She had been moved by somebody. She was laying down in the grass, still in the training area. By the lack of slight-red marks on her body, she knew it was Peeta’s hands that had moved her. Gale was always too rough, even if he didn’t mean to be.
The sky above her was still bright, and the sounds were still loud, but they felt a bit more manageable now.
She raised a hand to her face and felt dried tears on her cheeks. The movement alerted the others, who were sitting a few paces away from her, that she was ‘awake’ again.
“Katniss.” Peeta whispered. “Are you back?”
She sat up to face him and nodded. They shuffled over to her.
“What happened?” Peeta asked.
“...” She couldn’t talk. She just shook her head. I don’t know.
Peeta furrowed his brow. “You won’t say or can’t say?”
Katniss held up two fingers. The second one.
“You can’t talk?” Peeta asked slowly.
Katniss nodded.
“Okay. Um, can’t or won’t?”
She shrugged. It was both, maybe.
Then Gale piped up. “Do you want us to take you back inside, then?”
Not inside. She didn’t like feeling trapped. If anything, she wanted to run away to the forest and hunt. Without Gale. He required too much mental energy to be with right now. So she shook her head.
Haymitch groaned exaggeratedly. “What if, Katniss, you’d like us to leave you alone?”
Thank you, Haymitch. Katniss nodded.
“Right.” Haymitch slapped his thighs as she stood up, groaning as he did. Old bones. Gale sighed, but followed Haymitch’s actions.
When Peeta stood up too, Katniss’s hand shot out to grab his wrist. He blinked. “You want me to stay.”
She nodded before she even heard what he said. He looked back at Haymitch and Gale. They turned around and trudged off. Peeta sat down beside Katniss.
“Do you want to hold my hand?” His voice was soft, and she appreciated it.
Katniss nodded, which she did a lot around Peeta. Her grip slid from his wrist to his hand and she squeezed tightly.
“I’m not going anywhere.” He reassured her. “...But why don’t we go lay down over there?”
He pointed to a patch of dandelions in soft grass. She nodded, and let him stand up and lead her there. Her world quieted down and zeroed in on him as they laid down together. Her focus refused to waver from the point of contact between their two bodies.
“Thank you, Peeta.” She managed to say.
He nodded. “Of course.”