The way we all imagined it would have happened. Set in Mockingjay, during the rescue from the Capitol. Of course, everything belongs to Suzanne Collins. Bits and pieces are paraphrased from Mockingjay.

Katniss

I sit on my bunk, next to Finnick. He's staring at the fraying rope in his hands, silent in thought. I tie a square knot in my rope and untie it. Tie, untie. Tie, untie. I repeat this for the fifth time, when Finnick suddenly speaks. I flinch.

"Do you think they're on their way back?" He looks at me. I swallow, not wanting to direct my thoughts there, that evil place where both of my dearest friends are in terrible danger.

"I have no idea, but I want to say yes." I offer, effectively killing any hope he may have been holding onto.

He looks back down at his rope.

I could lose both of them today.

The thought brings a sting to my eyes and a dull ache to my chest.

"I don't know if you've realized it yourself...but you love him." Finnick says in a ragged voice. I stare at him silently, shocked at the words but letting him continue. "I can see it. At first, after your Games, I was certain the whole 'star-crossed lovers' thing was for the cameras, nothing more. But when he hit that forcefield in the Quell..."

My eyes sting some more, tears threatening to fall. One fat droplet slips down my cheek. "I never should have left him that night."

"We all felt awful, after. For making you, you know, split up. It's not your fault." I know it is, but then the door bursts open forcefully, and Haymitch is there, clearly out of breath.

"They're back...in the hospital wing...come on," He gasps. My heart floods with a million questions, but he does not let me speak. "That's all I know!"

And then we're running, as fast as our scrawny legs will carry us. My breathing is ragged and I am in no shape to run as hard as I am now. I don't know that I could have gone much farther, but miraculously, we reach the medical center before my weak body can give way. There are people everywhere, rushing the wounded every which way. Finnick and I search frantically for our loved ones. I hear a woman's voice ring out.

"Finnick?!"

He sprints across the room to meet a frantic, disheveled young woman. Annie. Later I'm told they don't stop holding each other for three hours. There is such a palpable feeling of relief in the air that for once I don't try to tell myself not to get my hopes up. A hairless woman on a stretcher tears out an IV someone had hooked into her arm.

"Hello again, Brainless." Johanna addresses me. I let out a shaky breath of disbelief. "Over there." She points to a corner in which a dark-haired boy is laid, with a bleeding shoulder hastily wrapped in bandages. I run to him. "Gale." He reaches out to hold my hand with his good arm, a pained expression on his face.

"He's in 203, Katniss. The drugs must be wearing off by now. You should be there when he wakes up." My heart is racing. I squeeze his hand in thanks. "Go." He urges. I fly down the hall. 198. 199. 200. I wonder what I'll say to him. 201. 202...203. My trembling hand freezes on the cold doorknob. What if he doesn't want me there? What if the doctors don't let me in?

I push the disheartening thoughts out of my head, and welcome comforting new ones. Peeta is alive. Peeta is safe. Peeta is just behind this door. I turn down the silver handle and push the heavy door open. Everyone's eyes flicker to me as I walk in. I see overgrown pale blonde curls pressed on a sterile white pillow. I feel a surge of disappointment as I realize that mine was not the first face he saw when he woke up. But then he sees me standing there and it no longer matters.

The look on Peeta's face is something I've never seen before. He swings his legs off the bed, staring at me the whole time through wide blue eyes, and places both feet on the cold tile floor, ignoring doctors' cries of objection and shaking off outstretched arms. They quickly realize their petitions are pointless. There is nothing that can keep us apart. Not anymore.

I look at his bruised, pale face. He looks like he's gone through hell and back. I think maybe he has. My chest burns at the thought of what the Capitol made of the strong, healthy boy he used to be, now replaced with a broken one. His red-rimmed blue eyes don't leave mine for an instant, and before I can process it, they are directly in front of me. I raise a trembling hand to his cheek, expecting it to go right through him, like a vision of mist. A trick, an illusion.

A dream.

Instead, my fingertips meet warm skin and downy facial hair. A breath leaves me in a gasp. The touch must solidify the other's presence in both of our trauma-wracked minds, and I feel him lean into my palm, his forehead coming closer still to rest against mine. Those startlingly blue eyes still look into mine, as if he is afraid to blink. A broken sob escapes my chest, and he pulls me immediately closer, his solid arms wrapping around me the way I longed for all this time. My own arms are reaching to hold as much of him as I can reach; my shaking, desperate fingers bury themselves in his too-long curls, press against his shoulder blades, brush over the nape of his neck. I feel as much as hear him whimper like a poor hurt thing, his face buried in my tangled hair, and I sob again, cradling his sweet head in both my hands. I feel his hot tears on my neck, and we both stand and weep, holding each other. I fear the moment we will have to let go. I'm back with my Peeta. My dandelion in the spring.

It feels like home.

We hold each other tightly, silently. We each know all that the other wants to say; words are unnecessary. Finally he pulls back enough to see my face, and our foreheads press together again. He holds my tear-slick cheek in one hand, the other is tangled in my hair. "Is this real?" He whispers softly, not absolutely certain if it is all an unlikely dream. I swallow my sob, nodding as I lean in to speak the word against his lips. "Real."

I've felt the urge to write this the moment I read the all-too-real, heartbreaking reunion scene in Mockingjay. I swear that chapter crushed my soul and tethered my heart to Peeta's character even more. I was a goner for the sweet baker's boy from the beginning, though. I never stood a chance.