I'm Coming, Baby Girl

Chapter One

I'm Coming, Baby Girl

By everlark4ever75

Chapter One

It must be midnight, it must be tomorrow when Haymitch pushes open the door. "They're back. We're wanted in the hospital." My mouth opens with a flood of questions that he cuts me off with "That's all I know."

I want to run, but Finnick's acting so strange, as if he's lost the ability to move, so I take his hand and lead him like a small child. Through Special Defence, into the lift that goes this way and that, and on to the hospital wing. The place is in an uproar, with doctors shouting orders and the wounded being wheeled through the halls in their beds.

We're sideswiped by a gurney beating an unconscious, emaciated young woman with a shaved head. Her flesh shows bruises and oozing scabs. Johanna Mason. Who actually knew rebel secrets. At least the one about me. And this is how she has paid for it.

Through a doorway, I catch a glimpse of Gale, stripped to the waist, perspiration streaming down his face as a doctor remove something from under his shoulder blade with a long pair of tweezers. Wounded, but alive. I call his name, start towards him until a nurse pushes me back and shuts me out.

"Finnick!" Something between a shriek and a cry of joy. A lovely if somewhat bedraggled young woman – dark hair tangled, sea green eyes – runs towards us in nothing but a sheet. "Finnick!" And suddenly, it's as if there's not one in the world by these two, crashing through space to reach each other. They collide, enfold, lose their balance and slam against a wall, where they stay. Clinging to one being. Indivisible.

A pang of jealousy hits me. Not for either Finnick or Annie but for their certainty. No one seeing them could doubt their love.

Boggs, looking a little bit worse for wear but uninjured, finds Haymitch and me. "We got them all out. Except Enobaria. But since she's from Two, we doubt she's being held anyway. Peeta's at the end of the hall. The effects of the gas are just wearing off. You should be there when he wakes."

Peeta.

Alive and well – maybe not well but alive and here. Away from Snow. Safe. Here. With me. In a minute I can touch him. See his smile. Hear his laugh.

Haymitch's grinning at me. "Come on, then," he says.

I'm light-headed with giddiness. What will I say? Oh, who cares what I say? Peeta will be ecstatic no matter what I do. He'll probably be kissing me anyway. I wonder if it'll feel like those last kisses on the beach, in the arena, the ones I haven't dared let myself consider until this moment.

Peeta's awake already, sitting on the side of the bed, looking bewildered as a trio of doctors reassure him, flash lights in his eyes, check his pulse. I'm disappointed that mine was not the first face he saw when he woke, but he sees it now. His features register disbelief and something more intense that I can't quite place. Desire? Desperation? Surely both, for he sweeps the doctors aside, leaps to his feet and moves towards me. I run to meet him, my arms extended to embrace him. His hands are reaching for me, too, to caress my face, I think.

My lips are forming his name when his fingers lock around my throat.

I'm blown back to the floor with a loud thud and a rumble throughout my whole body from the contact. Pain radiates from the places where the heavy impact from Peeta's body resting against mine. His hands are tight around my windpipe and my eyes are wide as I start at him. I'm breathless, not in the way I wished I would be when I saw Peeta again. I'm literally breathless. I make a choking noise and it feels like hours before people try and restrain Peeta from off my body. But, he's too strong and he pushes them away like they are an autumn leaves in late autumn. There's a small space in time when both of his hands aren't trying to strangle the life out of me, that's when I try to suck in as much air as I can.