Our Anthem

When War Comes Calling Home

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KATNISS POV

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A week had passed since Peeta and I first consummated our marriage and we'd done it a few more times since then. We didn't see each other a lot during the day anymore, with him working with Calum and Cailean on some project and I spending time in the hospital helping to train some of the other medics in obstetrics, so it was a nice thing to look forward to. We experimented more, trying new positions, him putting his fingers in me... I tried to take him in my mouth, but it didn't work out very well. I couldn't stop gagging and he couldn't stop laughing, so we resorted to not doing that. "I'll lick it if I have to because I'm not giving up what you do to me," I'd told him.

"Who said I was gonna stop?" he asked me in response. Part of me still couldn't believe that I was in love with, married to and having sex with Peeta Mellark.

We sometimes saw each other at meals, if I had the time to take them. If I wasn't training the medics in obstetrics, then I was helping tend to the wounded rebels that came to us from the battlefields. But seeing more and more of them come was heartbreaking to me because it meant that more people were dying from a war that just needed to end. The Capitol wasn't backing down, and District Two still refused to join us, but they did agree to come for another meeting.

On that day, a District Thirteen medical ship arrived carrying hundreds of wounded rebel soldiers and civilians from District Five. I wondered if Prim was aboard, but she wasn't. Prim survived the bombing of Thirteen along with her hideous cat, Buttercup, but our mother wasn't as lucky. She now worked as a field medic, providing medical care on the battlefield. I tried to talk her out of it, but she was refusing to hear me out. In her anger, she shut me out, and I haven't spoken to her since.

The damage to the rebel soldiers was bad. Many of them had lost limbs, died on the way or died in the hospital. There were hundreds of bloodied, moaning men and women, and just not enough medics.

"We need to find a way to organise them and treat the more life-threatening injuries first," I said. "Call down to the morgue, Breea, and tell them we need them to bring down as many dead as possible as quickly as they can. We need the space." I was addressing the woman who ran the front desk, who's name I finally learned. I then gathered all the medics to announce to them my plans. "There are hundreds of soldiers here and only twenty-three of us. We need every bed in the ward cleared. Send patients to their rooms with whatever equipment they need until we get this under control. Those with minor injuries should be treated by a small team of medics and sent elsewhere. Breea, get Room Assignments on the phone and get them working on assignments for those with minor injuries. The rest of us need to focus on finding and treating the rest. Those with moderate injuries that can become fatal if not treated quick enough will be labelled Critical 1 and those who need to be treated immediately will be labelled Critical Two. Mairi, Hepburn, Zedan and Debbie, you're on minor injuries. Get to them quickly and get them out as quickly as you can so we have room for criticals. Go to the maternity ward. Evera and Orchia, go around with a marker and help us get started with sorting out Criticals 1 and 2 and send minor injuries to the maternity ward, when you're done, help out with Critical 2. Breea, help them when you've contacted Room Assignments and the morgue and when you're done, jump on Critical One. Room assignments first, we need people out of here. Hallox and Rarity, start moving people in the wards that aren't in danger of dying if they leave out. Serebella, if we have patients die on us in either Critical 1 or 2, your job is to move them to the lobby to be taken down to the morgue. Simone, Gidget, Menlo, Orbit, Rig and Demey, you're Critical 1. Everyone else, you're on Critical 2. If any Criticals die, call Serebella. Get to it."