The Cave
Harry
It’s unusually warm in Harry’s cupboard. His arm hurts. He was having a dream, something about a forest and a snake and… and Katniss. Not a dream, and not his cupboard. He’s in the Arena.
The memories return to him as he slides back into consciousness. His fight with the basilisk, the fang in his arm, Katniss’s arrival, the climb… then nothing. Just pain, followed by blackness. Right now, he’s still in pain, but not nearly as much as he would expect. He flexes a few of his muscles experimentally. He has control of them again.
He slowly opens his eyes. It takes them a moment to adjust to the daylight filtering through the tent. Katniss must have found Luna’s cave and used his supplies to make camp. That doesn’t explain how he doesn’t seem to be dying anymore. Turning his head, he spots Katniss, unconscious.
He’s upright and kneeling over her in seconds. A hypodermic needle pokes his knee – it has a snake symbol on it. Ah. That’s why he’s not dead. Neither is Katniss, she’s breathing, but she looks rough. There’s a cut above her eye bleeding sluggishly. Her thigh is bandaged, but the bandages are soaked through, and so are her pants, and a bit of the tent floor. That’s not good.
Harry digs in his pack. There’s a first aid kit in there now, with more bandages, but no sutures. He sets it aside and digs out the tent repair kit. It has a needle and thread. The needle is easily sterilized with the help of his arc lighter and a flaming stick, but he has to make do with running a sanitizing wipe over the thread a few times.
Time to examine the wound. He carefully unwraps the bandage. It’s not as bad as he feared; a deep but clean slice along the outside of her thigh, probably from a knife, and very fresh. He cleans it the best he can and stitches it up quickly, then wraps it in a fresh bandage. He’s stitching the cut above her eye when the lid flutters.
“Harry?” she murmurs. She starts to sit up.
“Hold still,” he begs – he’s got a needle in her skin. She freezes and he finishes the final stitch. He sits back on his ankles. She sits up and crosses her legs. They just stare at each other for a minute.
Now that she’s cleaned up and conscious, he can take the time to look her over. Her clothes are practically falling apart. There’s a burn healing on her calf where the pant leg has been cut away. What looks to be half-healed tracker jacker stings decorate her cheek and neck. She’s lost whatever weight she gained in the Capitol and then some. Dark shadows under her eyes show she could use about a week’s worth of sleep.
“The camera operators must be dying to get a shot of us right now,” she says abruptly, and then they’re laughing. And hugging. And crying.
“I couldn’t find you!” Harry sobs into her neck.
“I couldn’t find you!” Katniss practically shouts into his shoulder. They babble apologies and nonsense until they calm down enough to resume their seats. He clasps her hands in each of his.
“You did find me though,” he says softly. “Did you go on a solo mission to save me?” he guesses. There’s no other explanation for her having both the antivenom and new injuries.
“Sure did,” she says defiantly as if she’s daring him to scold her for it. He sighs.
“Of course you did,” he grumbles. She chuckles.
“You would’ve done the same for me,” she says. It’s true. He smiles at her, and she smiles back. “Tell me what you’ve been up to,” she asks softly.
He sighs again and rolls his eyes to the ceiling. “Quick version? I spent four days running away from shit, then Luna showed up and we had a vacation. Fucking Draco killed her – dibs on killing him, by the way – I searched for you for a day or two, an odds-damned basilisk attacked me, and here we are.”
Katniss nods. “So Luna did find you? Rue–” she chokes a bit on the name “–said they were together at first, but Luna left to look for you the day before I met up with her.”
“Yeah, she found me,” he says, grief clogging his throat. Katniss gives him a sympathetic look.
“I saw the shrine you built,” she whispers. “I buried Rue in flowers.” A tear rolls down her cheek. He lets go of one of her hands to brush it away with his thumb.
“They both deserved better,” he breathes, and she ducks her head into his hand. He cradles her cheek, then wraps his hand gently around the back of her head to pull her towards him. Their foreheads press together. Her hand that he isn’t holding rests on his knee.
“What day is it?” he asks to break the tension.
She frowns in concentration. “Do you have any idea how long I was out?” He thinks back to the state of her wounds.
“No more than a few hours,” he’s pretty sure. “You would’ve bled a lot more if it was any longer.”
“Then it’s Day 12,” she answers his original question. That’s good. He’s only lost a day to the basilisk.
A rustling noise above their heads interrupts them. They both freeze, but it’s already stopped. Katniss is the one to pull away from him and unzip the tent, enough to peek her head out. “There’s something on the tarp,” she informs him, then climbs out. He scrambles to follow.
The tarp roof of the cave is depressed on one side by some large and heavy object, dragging down the rope that holds the center up. They carefully climb out the other side without disturbing it. It’s a sponsor parachute – attached to a picnic basket.
Katniss bursts out in a full belly laugh. She stuffs her fist in her mouth to stop the sound from carrying. Harry smiles, but he doesn’t see what’s so funny. The picnic basket is cute, but not exactly comedy gold. Then she points out, “They sent us a picnic to get us out of the cave!” Now they’re both laughing, holding each other's shoulders and the tree. It reminds him of the chariot.
They oblige their sponsors by sitting on the lip of the crown to enjoy their feast, sides pressed together – Harry on Katniss’s right since apparently, she lost hearing in her left ear from the explosion – plates balanced on their laps. There’s the lamb stew and rice Katniss so famously enjoys, rolls, cheese, apples, and some sort of molasses pie for dessert. They each take a teensy bit of everything, but Harry can’t help taking a second slice of the warm pie after he tries it. Katniss has seconds of the stew.
While they eat, they fill each other in on their activities in more detail. They skim past the kills and the losses, focusing on the little anecdotes that have the power to make each other chuckle. She calls Draco a “bitch-faced twat” and he almost falls out of the tree. She wraps her arm around his waist to steady him. He’s disappointed when she pulls it away too soon.
He spots a knot not far above them that he’s pretty sure was not there before. Sure enough, it ripples. He waves at it. Katniss sees what he’s looking at and follows suit. They share another laugh.
It’s easy to forget why their voices are hushed, their laughter poorly suppressed, but the camera is a stark reminder that they’re in the Arena. He hopes they make it home so they can have these kinds of conversations at a normal volume.
The sun is almost below the horizon by the time they pack away the rest of the food. They stay on the lip to watch the sunset fade to purple. Stars start to twinkle through. He slowly wraps his arm around her shoulders; she leans in, lays her head on his shoulder, and then wraps her arm back around his waist. Her hair smells like smoke and sweat and spice. He breathes deep.
Once it’s fully dark, they listen to the anthem and watch the Capitol seal, followed by Pansy’s face, floating in the sky. “Dinner and a show,” he quips. “Should we call this our first date?”
She lifts her head to look at him, the corners of her mouth turned up in a half-smile. “Yeah,” she says, a bit huskily. “First date.”
Taking a deep breath, he summons his courage to say, “First dates usually end with a first kiss.”
She blinks. Bites her lips. Blinks again. “You really want our first kiss to be in the Arena?”
He grins broadly at her. “Are you kidding? First off, we might not get another chance. Secondly, if we do win, I’m going to ask for the tape.” Her bright and genuine smile is all the permission he needs. Their lips meet.
It’s not just their first kiss, it’s Harry’s first kiss ever. He thinks it’s probably hers too. Circumstances aside, it’s not as awkward as he expected. In fact, it’s spectacular. Once they find their rhythm, his hands are in her hair and hers are on his hips and they’re in very real danger of falling out of the tree together. He doesn’t think either of them would really notice until they hit the ground.
They kiss for hours, days, years maybe, until the heat in his belly finally cools enough to bear pulling away for more than a breath. He keeps their foreheads pressed together and his hands in her hair. He can feel her pulse racing beneath his thumb where it rests on her neck.
They stay there, in that perfect moment, trading more kisses, slower, languorous ones that spread the heat in his core out to the ends of his limbs. There’s no need for words. By silent agreement, they return to the tent.
He unzips both sleeping bags, laying one out on the floor as a cushion so they can curl up together under the other. He wraps his arms around her shoulders, hers wind around his waist. She lays her head on his chest, tucked into a spot under his chin that was made for her.
It’s far and away the best sleep he’s had in his entire life.