This is an AU/AE.

A/N:

SPOILER ALERT. Do not read even my note if you havent finished Mockingjay.

Warning: rated M for 'violence' and suicidal theme... I'm not even sure thats allowed on here. Hope its not a problem. But you are warned.

Long A/N I apologize for. If you read the whole thing and the story, kudos to you and I appreciate your patience!

I LOVE peeta. fav character. I almost didn't want to write this. But while I was reading MJ, before the end, I kept thinking of all the possibilities for how it would end. And I was so disheartened by the lack of Peeta in the book. And then when he was there, which was rarely, he wasn't even the charming character that I adored. Anyway. So while reading, I was so disheartened about the whole situation with Peeta, or rather no Peeta, and I kept wondering how things would get resolved... And I wondered if something intensely dramatic would happen with Peeta before the end, in which he martyred himself for the cause. To save the mission, to save Katniss from himself, in a moment of lucidity. There are so many ways it could have turned out and I really feared he was going to die by the end. I also wondered if, just as dramatically she would have to kill him. Whether as a defense or kind of like the movie Xmen 3 last stand- a moment where hes so dangerous and he even knows it and begs to be killed. (maybe i could write a fic with that scenario in it. if any readers like that idea and want me to go for it, let me know with reviews/msg ;) )

Anyway so this is just an idea I kept having before finishing the book, because everything was looking so bleak and I couldn't see how Peeta was ever going to be Peeta again. The actual way this plays out, including setting and exchanges isn't exactly what I had in mind- actually I didn't have any specifics in mind when I was predicting the outcome of the book. Just Peeta dying. Dramatically. Martyred or murdered by Katniss whether out of mercy or defense or something, in war, whatever.

I wrote another fic, previously posted. 'The Way We Were' which is a Katniss/Gale AU/AE in which Peeta is dead. This story could actually be a prelude to that one...Because the details on Peeta's death are vague in that one. This could also just be stand alone, maybe you don't even want to entertain the idea that Katniss would move on eventually with Gale. (I don't! :P -yet I wrote a fic about it hmmm...)

This takes place immediately after the holo is blown up(Finnicks death in the tunnels with the mutts). The first bit is taken directly from the scene. The rest is me adding and changing how it pans out.

OK I AM SORRY for the rant. It is done. This is a one-shot I think. If I get any/enough requests to continue it, just to resolve the ending of the actual Mockingjay book(peeta-less because of this fic) I might actually do it.

This isn't my best writing, so I apologize. I had a hard time writing this one... Probably because I'm having some writer's block and also because I love Peeta's character too much to really want to write this.

Please leave comments and reviews they're so appreciated.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Hunger Games or specifically Mockingjay. All rights to Suzanne Collins.

"Leave me," he whispers. "I can't hang on."

"Yes. You can!" I tell him.

Peeta shakes his head. "I'm losing it. I'll go mad. Like them."

Like the mutts. Like a rabid beast bent on ripping my throat out. And here, finally here in this place, in these circumstances, I will really have to kill him. And Snow will win. Hot, bitter hatred courses through me. Snow has won too much already today.

It's a long shot, suicide maybe, but I do the only thing I can think of. I lean in and kiss Peeta full on the mouth. His whole body starts shuddering, but I keep my lips pressed to his until I have to come up for air. My hands slide up his wrists to clasp his. "Don't let them take you from me."

Peeta's panting hard as he fights the nightmares raging in his head. "No. I don't want to..."

I clench his hands to the point of pain. "Stay with me."

His pupils contract to pinpoints, dilate again rapidly, and then return to something resembling normalcy. "Always," he murmurs.

I get up to go, Pollux and Gale ahead of me, and Cressida behind him. He stays down and says, "I'll follow in a moment."

We begin to pick up our pace, find a ladder going up, to lead us out of this network of sewage.

I hear a scuffle behind me, and turn to see two bodies tangled on the ground, fighting.

"Peeta NO!" I shout. Now Peeta has lost it, I'm sure, and he will have to be killed because his next move will probably be to kill me.

Peeta has a revolver in his hand, one he wrestled away from Cressida. He stands up and I take out my bow, ready to fire it at him if I really have to. I settle on the idea of only shooting his hand to stop him from shooting. Its just like Jackson had said when I wasn't originally given a time slot to be on guard duty. "I'm not really sure you'll shoot him if you need to." Just the idea of shooting him is difficult enough. Though I suppose I could shoot and not kill.

But Peeta doesn't point the gun at me. He holds it in his shaking hands at his side.

"Peeta?," I ask, my voice cracking just the slightest. I take a breath. "I know you're confused. And I know you think I'm the enemy. And maybe I am in a way. But not on purpose. I never wanted to kill you, and I never wanted to lose you. And I'm sorry about everything that has happened to you. Everything."

I want him to know what that encompasses. The games. His leg. His heartache. My callousness. My manipulations. His family. His torture. My impatience and selfishness. My anger towards him for things that weren't his fault. His hijacking. His heart break.

But I've never been good at words, and I'm no better now, with an arrow poised and ready, and him holding a revolver, with war above us and around us and within us, within him, and everyone behind me, watching and waiting, probably with their own weapons poised to react against him as well.

For a moment Peeta stands there, silent, shaking, eyes only slightly crazed. Then something changes in his face, something that makes him look more like the Peeta I knew. My Peeta. He looks less tense and crazed, his eyes look more soft, and theres a hint of tiredness and sadness there too.

"Katniss, if I'm going to die, I want to still be me."

Peeta's words ring back to the night before our first Hunger Games. "I want to die as myself. I don't want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster that I'm not. I keep wishing I could find a way to...to show the Capitol they don't own me. That I'm more than just a piece in their games."

I hadn't understood him then, hadn't understood why it even mattered, and didn't understand how he could achieve that, unless to simply die and not fight. But Peeta had found a way to show them, and to be himself. He went into the games with the intention of keeping me alive. That was how he remained himself, and showed them they didn't own him. He loved me then, and cared only that I lived. That was Peeta's way.

It takes all of a second for the next thing to happen, that in my mind is too fast and yet too slow.

Peeta takes the revolver and points it at the side of his head.

He pulls the trigger before I can stop him and my scream hangs in the air long after the banging sound that means it is done fades into a soft echo and then silence in the tunnels around us.

I'm numb or shocked for what feels like an eternity, simply standing there, staring at where Peeta was once standing, but is now on the ground, crumpled, blood splattered on the wall next to him.

Then I'm running forward blindly, screaming again, and sobbing and making this awful sound like I can't breathe, because I can't.

I can't breathe.

I fall to my knees next to him, banging them painfully, but it doesn't matter.

Peeta is lifeless in my hands and I'm screaming and shaking terribly. One more thing to add to my nightmares, and this is surely the worst of them.

Gale comes over trying to pull me away, telling me we have to go before we get caught here in the tunnels. I snarl at him to leave me alone, to leave without me.

Because here in this new arena, I have failed Peeta, and I will spend the rest of my life here trying to think my way out of this.

Peeta has entered the arena three times with me, and each time I made it out unscathed while he suffered terribly. Lost his leg and got his heart broken, was captured by the Capitol to be tortured and to lose himself, and now he is dead. The Capitol has won. They managed to kill the only person who ever deserved to win.

Then I stop and think maybe they didn't win. It was a victory and a loss.

Because while they tried so hard to make Peeta a piece in their games, and they did turn him into a monster he wasn't, Peeta still found a way to defy them. He killed the monster, the threat, the enemy he was made into just for me. He still found a way to keep me alive, to be himself when he died.

Peeta's head is perfectly intact with a clean bullet entrance and exit wound. His face is tired, worn, eyes open and half crazed half sad. I close them and he looks peaceful, asleep if not for the wounds and the blood.

He almost looks just like my Peeta again. The Peeta who wanted to spend his life with me, who I was reluctant to spend my life with. And how stupid I was because now I know I wanted to spend mine with him too.

I can't breathe and I can't move, can only stare, frozen in place, wanting to go backwards in time. To kiss him a million more times, off the cameras, to spend every moment of every day after the victory tour with him. To know everything about him. To have spoken to him after he saved me with the bread, to say thank you and be his friend. We could've started this relationship so many years ago, if I hadn't been so stubborn and proud. We could've grown up together, and entered the games together, and it would have been real from beginning to end. I would never have given him the berries, just taken them myself. He could have lived a long and happy life, and found a love he deserved. After his hijacking I would have been there everyday, reminding him of who he was, and trying to bring him back to himself, back to me.

I would have worked hard to make him safe again, from the world, from himself, and from me. There are so many things I wish I could change, so many ways this could have ended.

But I can't go back. And I can't change what I did or didn't do. I can't change how our lives ended up, or how his ended.

Instead I'm stuck in this moment, now, in the arena again, with Peeta's blood on my hands, knowing I will never be able to wash it off. Knowing that this is a nightmare Peeta can't wake me up from, can't hold me after, can't comfort me through.

"Katniss we have to go now. We'll have to come back for him after," Gale says. His voice is soft and urgent, but with so much feeling. He may not have really liked Peeta entirely because of the rivalry between them, but he wouldn't have wished this on Peeta. And he knows how badly this hurts me.

"There is no after," I say, shaking my head.

It all ends today. We win or we lose and die.

Either way, this place is going down. We won't be returning to this place, because either we'll be dead or this place will no longer exist. I know this because it is inevitable. Because bombs are going off everywhere, and chaos follows us.

We've woven our own path of destruction, and destruction has found its way ahead of us, behind us, within us.

Gale picks me up to carry me away, but I scream for him to put me down. I need to say goodbye to Peeta, I tell him. He puts me down, understanding, and looking away to give me my moment.

I touch Peeta's cold face, brush his hair out of his closed eyes. I kiss his forehead, and his cheeks, and his lips.

His lips, only for me, are cold and soft, and lifeless.

The lack of response or warmth send the most painful feeling of longing and loss to my heart.

I whisper close to his ears, even though I know he can't hear me, because he's no longer here. All that this is is the weathered and broken shell of the wonderful boy I knew. "I'm sorry. I wanted to save you just like you saved me so many times..." My voice is broken with tears. "I loved you too. Goodbye."

I want to stay here, and sing a song for him, because he fell in love with me when he heard me sing. I regret not singing more, something he would have enjoyed. I regret not singing just for him.

Gale picks me up and carries me away and this time I don't fight. I bury my face in Gale's shoulders as he quickly walks with me in his arms, jostling me in his arms because of the speed with which he is moving. He puts me down when we get to the ladder to ascend from these gloomy tunnels of death.

"Up you go Catnip," he whispers sadly.

I nod my head and do as he says, following the others up, Gale behind me, protecting me from whatever is behind us, and protecting me from myself, from the urge I have to fall behind the others, to go back to Peeta and let death find me there with him.

I move mechanically onward with whats left of the crew, all the while reliving Peeta's last moments, knowing that if I live to see the end of the war, I will relive this nightmare every night for the rest of my life. One thing that I keep thinking, bitterly is that fate has a twisted sense of humor, because one thing that is both better and worse, is that at least Peeta got his wish, in some way, to die as himself.