A/N: Another little break from my Enobaria Story. This one got to me a little by the end I must say. I don't know why I do this to myself. Anyway, enough rambling from me. Remember, review if you like, review if you don't! -Lu

When'd you find me?- Arrange

God damn these thoughts

God damn these thoughts

God damn the people that remind me of you

The Arena suddenly feels a lot bigger than it did moments ago.

All of a sudden he is alone in here, alone in a space inhabited by four other teenagers and with the Capitol's presence in every leaf and every blade of grass. So completely alone that it makes his chest ache even when he has left her body behind him in the clearing and even when he has slashed his way through the boy from Eleven.

Fighting has always made him feel better but for the first time he sinks his sword into a body and it doesn't do anything to ease the emptiness inside him. He looks down at the body, watches the blood seep into the ground, and can only think about how he had looked down at her and watched her slowly bleed to death too. Helpless.

He can't get it out of his head. He slashes his way furiously through the field, and the woods, and the now empty flowered grass of the central clearing, but no matter how many trunks he slams his blade into or how many flowers he decapitates she won't get out of his head.

As darkness sets in around him for the first time he finds himself making camp alone. He never noticed how much safer he felt simply knowing she was there. Now, even with a sword in his hand and his every sense alert to movement around him, he feels painfully vulnerable. She always had the better instincts and alertness and now he finds himself second guessing everything he does.

In the simple act of dying she has single-handedly shattered his confidence.

"That is just pathetic."

He stares up at the blackened sky and swears silently at her. She swears back. She's always been a fun person to fight with. She never backed down or tried to seduce him like the other girls did. She gave as good as she got and in his head she is hurling abuse at him for his weakness.

"I know I know," he murmurs to no one but the forest and the watching Capitol who won't be able to hear her. He kind of likes that they couldn't invade on this conversation. They've taken everything already, they hadn't even let him have those last few moments alone with her, but whatever their power they can't hear the things they said to each other now.

He sits up, unable to sleep, and begins to wander aimlessly through the trees, his sword hanging by his side. He would never have done something so reckless if she were still alive. She would have given him that look of complete and utter contempt and told him to grow a brain. It is hard to see in the moonless shadows of the tall trees and twice he stumbles clumsily over a tree root. She rolls her eyes at him.

"You always were an oaf."

"Shut up. Who was it who managed to fall down a cliff last year?"

"You pushed me!"

"Only a little."

They lapse back into silence till he finds himself on the edge of the clearing again. He hadn't meant to come back here but somehow he just keeps getting tugged back to the heart of it all. He crouches among the scrubby bushes on the edge of the grass and watches the moonlight make patterns across the open space. A cold wind ripples the surface of the lake and sends a shiver through the trees around him. Something is brewing.

"Here comes my moment in the spotlight."

"Shut up. You're in no position to be making jokes."

"Neither are you."

Just as she has predicted the Capitol anthem begins to play and he lookes automatically up at the sky. Without realising it this was why he had wandered towards the clearing. He had wanted to see their faces...her face.

She is the first to appear obviously. It looks so much like her, the pale blue, flickering image reflected against the blackened sky.

"It's not my best."

They seem to hold her image there for an impossible amount of time. Perhaps it is because there are only two tributes to show tonight and they want to stretch the entertaining moment out longer. He has no doubt that there were several cameras closely trained on him now, and he keeps his face determinedly expressionless. It is only inside that he is screaming.

"Why do they have to remind me?"

"Because it's fun!"

"How is this fun? You won't leave me alone."

He feels a small whisper of air against his neck that is too warm to be the cool wind whipping around him. He closes his eyes for a second and can almost imagine that it is her, laughing silently against his skin as she wraps her arms around his body.

"I'm never going to leave you alone, Cato."

He doesn't reply, unsure whether to be happy or not about that. On one hand he had never wanted her to leave in the first place. He'd never wanted to let her go. But he can already feel his grip on sanity slipping with every comment they share.

"You're going to send me crazy."

"You already are crazy. Why else were we friends?"

"Friends?"

She doesn't reply and he knows she is biting her lip, anxious at what she said. They were definitely not friends. They fought too much and fucked too hard to call themselves friends.

Eventually her image fades from the sky and he allows himself to lower his gaze. While it had been there he could almost believe he was actually having a conversation with her. In the photo they'd used she wasn't smiling- she never smiled- but there was that look in her eye that he knew meant she was plotting in her head. She'd probably been imagining a dozen deaths for whoever was taking the photo.

"I thought I could choke him with the film. Or drown him in developing fluid. Or-"

"How do you know anything about developing fluid?"

She gives an indignant noise at being interrupted and he pictures her crossing her arms sulkily across her chest and looking away from him. "I have ears, I hear things. Unlike you..."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means look around you, idiot."

Startled from his silent argument with her he looks up and realises that the small spark of moonlight had disappeared. The Arena has been plunged into an unnatural darkness that makes his skin crawl with foreboding. Then he hears the noise which Clove had been referring to. An eerie howl rings across the trees and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. That is not a tribute.

"Here doggy, doggy..."

"Not now, Clove!"

"Fine! But if you don't want to play with it then you should probably run."

He doesn't wait for the noise that comes a second later, the crashing through the trees that tells him the mutations are upon him. He takes Clove's advice and is sprinting across the grass a moment before they burst from the trees right onto the spot he had been crouching.

"Told you."

He ignores her smug comment as he concentrates on sprinting across the open, exposed grass towards the only shelter he can see, the Cornucopia. He has no desire to be back there but there isn't anywhere else to go. No matter how hard he tries he can't stop his eyes from flickering to the place where she had died, even as he throws himself at the side of the golden horn and begins to scramble up it.

On the top he collapses to the surface, breathing hard from the panicked run and the fear of the terrifying mutations. He peers over the edge and sees them, enormous and slavering and throwing themselves at the side.

"Wish we'd had one of those as a pet."

"Yeah, well you would have been walking it."

He doesn't hear her no doubt smart ass reply as a shout and scrabbling noise from the other side of the horn catch his attention. He spins around and sees two bedraggled figures hauling themselves out of reach of the mutts. His bloodlust kicks in and he throws himself at them, pulling one to the ground and slamming his fist into the other before he even recognises the two tributes from District 12.

"Oh look the star crossed lovers." Her voice is dripping with sarcasm and bitterness and he knows she is just itching to sink a knife into one of them. She'd really wanted to kill Fire Girl, for some reason she'd hated her even more than any of the others.

"Don't worry, I'll kill her nice and slow for you."

"Thanks, Cato."

Blood is pouring down his forehead from a cut he hadn't even realised he had but he barely notices it as he throws himself at the girl. His hands latch around her throat and then there are strong arms pulling him back and dragging him to the ground. His fists fly out at the body wrestling with his and he lands several satisfying thuds to Peeta's body before he feels one sharp knock to his jaw that sends him reeling backwards.

Everything rushes into a blur of limbs and strangled cries and in the darkness he can barely tell whose body is whose. It didn't matter. He wants them both dead. His instinctive training takes over and his mind barely even considers the moves he makes. Clove's angry cried egg him on as he finally gets a grip around the boy, hauling him to his feet just as he sees the girl raise her bow at them. He pulls Peeta in front of him, using him as a shield against her arrows. There is blood streaming from everywhere, not just his own body, and he doesn't even know what hurts any more. He can hear Clove hissing quietly in his head, no doubt her anger directed towards the Fire Girl. It must be killing her all over again to not be able to launch a dozen knives into her undefended body.

"Shoot me and he goes down with me!" He speaks aloud for the first time in who knows how long and his voice suddenly sounds strange in his own ears. He's been talking only to her for ages now. Clove is strangely quiet as Katniss steadies her bow on the pair of them and he wonders what she is thinking. She was always so good at strategy, and with his head feeling like syrup at the moment he wishes even more that she was here and could be looking at this scene now with her quick, analysing eyes. She'd know what to do.

"Clove?"

She doesn't reply and he's too busy searching for her to realise that against his arm Peeta is moving ever so slightly. He realises too late what the bloody cross on the back of his hand means, and it seems Clove realises at exactly the same moment.

"CATO!"

He reacts instantly, trying to push Peeta away from him and dive to the side but the arrow is faster and it sears through his hand, pushing him backwards. The slippery surface of the Cornucopia beneath him disappears and then he is plummeting towards the ground.

He's barely even been able to register that he's fallen before the mutts are upon him, tearing at his skin with their razor sharp teeth. Ungodly screams are filling his head but he doesn't even realise they're his.

"Just let go. It's not so bad. I promise."

"I'm scared."

She doesn't scold him for his weakness, not like she would have once, and it's because of that that he knows this is really the end.

The agony fades into the background and for the first time he can see her clearly in front of him. She's got a pained look on her face and he wonders if it's because of him.

"Let go," she urges again and he tries to do as she says but he is still stuck in his body as it is being ripped apart. He looks to her, desperate for it all to just be over.

"This is the sort of drama I expected you to go out with."

"Me? Drama? You're the one who prances for the cameras."

"I do not prance."

Light laughter fills his head and he knows it is directed at him. He doesn't mind her teasing him though. It doesn't hurt nearly as much as the teeth in his flesh. He tries to focus on her voice again, to send the pain away.

"Why are you still here? I thought you'd be off driving the devil insane by now."

"We always were better as a team."

"It's true. You're nothing without me."

She doesn't contradict him and that rips through him. Perhaps now she really is nothing without him. And very soon they'll both be gone.

"Don't be so pessimistic."

"Oh I'm sorry, I don't see you being torn apart my wolves."

"They're dogs...and would you just hurry up and die already. This is getting tiresome."

"You're welcome to leave if you're so bored."

She is quiet for a moment and he is worried she really has left. Without her voice the pain begins to seep back in. But then she's back, filling his mind more than ever, and somehow he just knows she is smiling.

"I told you. I'm never leaving you alone. Together forever you and I."