A/N: Anything you recognize doesn't belong to me! Characters, plot lines, and bits of dialogue belong to the wonderful Suzanne Collins, and the title and song lyrics are from Clocks by Coldplay. I'm merely borrowing them :)

Also, this is not my first fic, but it is my first Hunger Games fic and the first fic I've ever published. Please be honest, but don't forget to be polite.

The lights go out and I can't be saved
Tides that I tried to swim against
Have brought me down upon my knees
Oh I beg, I beg and plead...

I hold her every night.

There are no words, no comfort we can give each other, other than to lie beside the other until dawn, each of us silently praying to whatever exists beyond this life that the other will be spared. That in a month's time the other will be the one lying in this bed on their way home.

I make Haymitch swear. I threaten him. I don't care if it makes me crazy. Pushing him against the wall with my forearm warningly across his throat makes me feel better. More in control. It at least stops him from mocking me with the promises he made Katniss.

-:::-

"I do." She says.

"I need you."

She says it plainly, as if I am merely forgetting the fact. And then her lips are on mine, showing me that, to her at least, it is the most obvious thing in the world. I've told myself a thousand times since the first Games that she doesn't love me and probably won't ever love me. At least not in the way I love her.

But this kiss is so different from all the others. It is desperate. Full of need. As if she cannot stand that her lips will ever be parted from mine. It is nothing like any of the others.

This one is real. Not for the cameras. Not for the Capitol. Not for Snow. This kiss is for us.

I have a hard time telling myself she didn't love me after that.

-:::-

My hand closes around the handle of my machete and I feel the sickening thud as it lodges itself in flesh.

I pull it back and swing again, and again and again. He's screaming and so am I and the only thing that exists in this moment is fear and pain and terror.

And then Brutus lays still.

I let the machete fall to the ground as the light leaves Brutus's eyes and hate that I've let myself be separated from Katniss. I hate that I'm here again. I hate that I'm a murderer. I hate that I can't get to her. I hate that I'm scared.

I feel at peace though, when the arena explodes and I see Katniss carried away in an unmarked hovercraft.

Even though the craft above me bears the Capitol insignia.

-:::-

Lights flash in front of my eyes with each time my head hits concrete.

Men in masks come in what I guess is three times a day. Beat me to a pulp. Tell me they know I know things about the rebels. Tell me they'll break me. Tell me I can end all the suffering if I tell them.

I always eventually end up passing out.

Sometimes they tell me about Katniss. About how she survived. How it's rumored she's helping the rebels.

I feel pride well up inside me. I can almost see her braid whipping about behind her as she runs, bow in hand, through the streets of rebelling districts. It almost makes me miss all the times I've trailed behind her as we race through an arena. Miss the months we spent training for the Quell. Miss the sound of her voice. Miss the warmth of her body curled into mine. Miss the softness of her lips. The heat of her embrace. The feeling of her every curve pressed against my body as her tongue battles with mine.

If I close my eyes I can almost see it in my mind, the fire in her eyes before she kissed me that last time. I can almost taste the salt from the sea water on her lips. I can almost feel the way her body presses into mine, hungry, desperate for more. I can almost be with her again.

But I open my eyes and all I see in the dim light are the concrete walls that surround me, the shackles that bind me to the wall. All I hear are the screams from Johanna's cell across the hall, the constant moaning of Finnick's name in the distance. All I feel is the dull, numbing ache of cold, the throbbing pangs of hunger.

My one comfort is that Katniss is safe. They may be starving me for information I do not have. They may beat me bloody and unconscious. I may die here. But at least Katniss is safe. She is safe and well and the things they forced me to me say on television didn't change her mind. She is still fighting.

And I can die peacefully knowing that.

-:::-

I watch clip after clip of Katniss.

I wonder if this is some new torture. They pulled my fingernails out one by one, forced water down my nose and throat, shocked me, cut me, mutilated me, but I still couldn't tell them anything. I still couldn't give them information I didn't have. Perhaps they think these endless clips of Katniss will lull me into madness and then when my mind has gone they can extract all the rebel secrets that were never there.

But I don't care. For now at least, every moment I am conscious I hear her voice, see her eyes, watch her lips form words. Watch her lips kiss me. I don't care even that some of the footage are from times we thought were private. Times we didn't know Snow was watching.

I don't care that the Capitol had footage of all the times we had shared a bed, of the times we snuck away at parties, the times we had worked on the plant book. I don't care that I thought they were moments for Katniss and I alone. It helps me remember what I'm fighting for.

What I hope to go home to.

-:::-

They play other clips.

Clips I wasn't present for. Things I shouldn't see. Things no one should have seen.

Katniss undressing.

Katniss in the shower.

Katniss touching herself.

I shut my eyes and cover my ears with my hands. I shouldn't watch this. I cannot watch this. I refuse to participate in this gross violation of her privacy.

They only let that last a day.

Masked Men flood my room. Two restrain me while another injects me with a paralyzing sedative. They strap me to the gurney the others drag in behind them. I feel needles prick all around my eyes. My eyelids are forced open and a milky, ice-cold liquid is dropped into each eye. When the extreme moisture in my eyes dissipates and feeling returns to my body, my room empties the clips start again.

And this time I'm not able to close my eyes.

I watch Katniss moan in pleasure, one hand beneath her blankets and the other kneading her bare breast. I feel my body betray me.

The third time it happens, and every time after, a Masked Man comes in. The clip doesn't stop. I feel a hot blush creep into my cheeks, the blood pounding painfully and rapidly under my many injuries.

The Masked Man does things to me. Things that make me wonder if some of the Masked Men are really women. Whoever it is must be married. I can feel a ring on their left hand.

And for the first time since I've been here, I can't stop the tears from escaping my paralyzed eyes.

-:::-

Needle after needle disappear into my arms.

The Masked Men don't tell me what they are, but I don't care anymore. Maybe they're pumping me full of a thousand poisons. Maybe I'll finally be allowed to die.

I try to picture that Katniss, her long dark braid hanging over her shoulder, is cradling my head in her lap. That she is pushing my over long hair out of my eyes. Smiling at me. Like I'm something worth caring about.

I want her to be the last thing I see when I finally leave the world. Her lips on mine to be the last thing I feel.

But that's far too hopeful.

A syringe of milky, sliver-white fluid is inserted into my chest.

And all I feel is terror.

I watch the clips of Katniss again.

The colors are strange. There are strange bubbles of blackness everywhere. I can't focus on anything. I'm spinning. My cell is tilting and my gurney is sliding across the floor. Everything is moving. Flashing. Beeping. Crumbling. Humming. Different. Wrong. Impossible.

Unidentifiable.

Except for the fear.

Terror.

Panic.

Horror.

That always makes sense.

I don't know how long I am subjected to the hallucinogens at a time. I don't know how many trips I'm on in a day or how long I'm out after.

But sometimes instead of opening my eyes when I regain consciousness, I keep them closed. I focus on the sounds of Johanna's moaning and the girl crying for Finnick. I want to prolong this relative peace and sanity as long as I can.

Sometimes I can hear the Masked Men whispering over my body as they adjust or replace the straps that restrain me. Apparently I frequently bite through the one closest one to my head. Snow is getting more desperate. His roses aren't growing well. There have been derailed trains and fires and broken dams.

Katniss took down two hovercrafts in District 8 with a single arrow.

-:::-

My stomach hollows out and my ribs appear.

I thought they were starving me before. How very wrong I was. I haven't seen food in what seems like years. I assume that I am given only the most essential nutrients via syringe.

I really wish they'd just let me die.

I start to hate the clips. Hate them because I know that when I see them, soon Masked Men will come in, and I won't be able to control myself again, and they will take my mind and my body and my reactions and my memories and damage them.

Drag them through the mud.

Taint them.

Shit on them.

Ruin them.

With my memories they are taking my identity.

It's only a matter of time.

-:::-

I watch words scroll across a screen.

I feel myself reading them, my mouth working mechanically with my eyes to produce the correct words.

It's too hot. I'm sweating.

It's too cold. I'm shaking.

My mouth is dry.

I want to sleep.

I don't want to be here.

The lights are too bright.

I want to fucking sleep.

I wonder how long it took them to get me like this. How long it took to make me a hollow, hopeless shell of myself. Completely detached, barely aware of my surroundings.

I wonder when I forgot to keep fighting.

There is a sudden commotion that causes the teleprompter to blink and go dark. There is shouting. Shuffling. Cursing.

I just keep staring.

The screen flashes. An audio tone rings out for several seconds, making my head throb and ears ring.

And then Katniss is there.

She is surrounded by ash, soot blackened rubble. I almost let tears slip from my eyes, thinking that this is the worst trip I have encountered to date. That I have invented a new setting for my trips and soon I will begin to shake and convulse and flail against my restraints.

But this is something I've never seen before. She is standing somewhere I've never been before. A tiny part of my brain registers that this is not a trip. This isn't oddly colored, shifting or flashing. This is steady, real.

And then she is gone.

I am confused. But the teleprompter is back up. And I'm reading again.

But that tiny part of my brain that told me I wasn't tripping suddenly understands everything I'm reading. A water purification plant has been bombed. The purification chemicals leaked into the ocean surrounding Four. The fish are dying.

When the words are replaced by Finnick Odair, it remembers he's more than a name screamed in the darkness. It remembers the girl he's talking about, Rue, who died with a spear in her belly.

But it can't make me stop staring gape mouthed at the screen.

It flashes between the cool, unnatural blue of the teleprompter and more clips of Katniss I've never seen before.

She's in a meadow, singing a song.

Teleprompter.

She's kicking up soot and ash, in what I guess was once a road.

Teleprompter.

She is on a rock in the forest, looking wistfully at the trees.

Teleprompter.

She sends an arrow into the wing of a hovercraft and it spins into the one behind it, both crashing to the ground.

Two hovercrafts.

One arrow.

Katniss took down two hovercrafts in District 8 with a single arrow.

An audio tone rings through the studio again, but I ignore it.

That part of my mind that still belongs to me remembers everything now.

The drugs, the pain, my paralyzed eyelids, the ring of the person who touches me, the things whispered when they think I'm asleep.

The dam that was bombed, the derailed trains, the fires, the toxic spills, that Thirteen exists, that it doesn't matter how Thirteen reacts to this because they'll be dead by morning.

Dead by morning.

Dead by morning.

Snow is talking. He asks me the question he rehearsed. My parting thoughts for Katniss.

"Katniss…"

My voice shakes. The words of those Masked Men ring in my ears.

Dead by morning.

All I have to do is say it. Tell them. Bombers are coming during the night. Thirteen is in danger.

Dead by morning.

But the answer Snow forced me to memorize, the answer he spoon fed to me, before I was allowed out of that cell, the answer that I was trained to regurgitate when I hear Katniss's name, rises to my lips instead.

I try to fight it. That part of my mind that is real and good and belongs to me is fighting, flailing furiously, trying to stop my tongue. To stop the track playing in the other part of my mind. The part that belongs to Snow and the Masked Men.

My mind is screaming at me as the words fall from my lips.

"No one is safe."

Innocent people will die.

"Not in the Capitol."

Bombs will fall and 13 will burn as easily as 12 did.

"Not in the districts."

Katniss will burn with it.

"And you…"

Katniss! Who you love more than life itself!

"In Thirteen…"

This will be the last day of Katniss Everdeen's life.

She won't see the sun rise.

Her silver eyes, cold, unblinking and dead, fill my mind. My whole mind.

"Dead by morning!"

And the set is pandemonium.

-:::-

I watch Masked Men fit my head into a sort of restraint.

It is a long time before they realize I'm awake.

I can feel everything, everything I've missed, and it is only now that I realize how much of a fog I was in. I am aware of roughness of the paper on my bare skin, my weight on the cool metal table, the sharp scent of disinfectant in the air, the buzzing of the single bulb hanging ominously above me.

I am me again.

Masked Men slip metal discs under the thick rubber strap across my forehead. They attach them to wires that run to a machine. I can see the word "voltage" printed clearly above a dial.

But I smile.

The end has finally come. I will die here, on this table, and whether it is a single shock that stops my heart instantly or a constant current designed to cook me slowly and painfully, I can die happily. The Capitol couldn't break me. When the life leaves my body, I will still be myself. Just like I told Katniss I wanted, that night a thousand lifetimes ago on the roof of the training center before our first Games.

I am still Peeta Mellark. I am still the son of a baker with two older brothers. I still like to paint. My favorite color is still the shade of orange in sunsets. I still like to sleep with the windows open. I still don't take sugar in my tea. I still double knot my shoelaces. I still remember everything about Katniss. I still love her.

And even Snow and his Masked Men and top scientists and interrogators and drugs and torture couldn't change that.

Her silver eyes bore into mine, with the same intensity as that day on the beach.

The world flashes.

Then everything is gone.

A/N: Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave a review and tell me what you liked, didn't like, hated, loved... anything really! (Except if you didn't like it, tell me WHY!)

Also, I have decided to expand this fic! It's looking like four more chapters and an epilogue as of now. Chapter two should be up soon :)