I told him not to volunteer. Not that Cato ever listened to me, of course, but that was the first thing I thought when I watched our other tribute fall to the boy from District 11. He never should have volunteered.

That was the problem with the Careers, as I later found out the other districts nicknamed us. We were trained to fight and were eager for the honor of competition, but that gave us no advantage. Special academies and delusions of grandeur were nothing. When you boiled it all down, what were we fighting for? Glory? Money? Fame? That meant nothing. It was the boy from District 11 who struck down Clove in honor of the poor young girl sent with him; the girl from 12 who took her sister's place; the girl from 10 whose mother may not live to see her come home; the victor would be one of them. It seemed so clear to me from the beginning, from the moment that Cato told me he wanted to volunteer. He could not win. Cato could fight better than anyone, but he had nothing to fight for.

He could not understand why I told him he should not compete. This was his last year. He was 18. He had to volunteer. He would never get another chance. While I was relieved that this was the last year I had to stand at the Reaping, head held high to hide my shaking knees, Cato could not see it the way I did. He could not see that he would lose. Even before we knew about the star-crossed lovers and the dying mothers, I knew Cato would not come home to me. But I could not persuade him to stay. In the moonlight, he promised never to leave me, that he would be with me always. But, when the sun rose, he picked up a sword and spoke of the various trials he may face in the arena. Even though he gave his heart to me, and I would be eternally thankful for everything that entailed – the pain and the joy – his mind was miles away.

"I'm not leaving you," he assured, tracing an indeterminate pattern on the curve of my shoulder. "It will only be a few weeks, and I'll be right back here like nothing happened. I'll live in the Victor's Village, and we'll get married, and you'll feel dumb for doubting me."

"You aren't guaranteed a win, Cato. You know that, right?"

He rolled his eyes at me. He did that to me a lot, especially once he got this notion of volunteering stuck in his head and I made my position on it known. I frustrated him. I always had, of course; our entire relationship was built off of how damn irresistible we found each other in the most heated of moments. We fought big and made up bigger. But, I did not find this obsession with the Hunger Games sexy. I found it terrifying. Because I loved his plans. Getting married and feeling ashamed of how I was too scared to believe in him. It was intoxicating to think it could all really happen.

"Of course I'm not guaranteed a win, Venus. But, c'mon, you seriously think someone else out there can beat this?" He took his hand away from my shoulder to motion to himself, smirking even though I knew I'd upset him. That was the thing with Cato. He would try to hide his anger until it built up and exploded. So, to calm the storm raging in his eyes, I brushed my fingers along his bare chest and kept my eyes locked with his, hoping to see that flash of frustration fade. Cool fingers wrapped around my wrist, stopping my hand's downward descent, and, without breaking our eye contact, he brought my palm to his mouth. The feel of his chapped lips against the sensitive skin of my hand sent a shiver through me, and he smirked at the physical reaction he could still give me even after all this time.

"That's better. No need to get your panties in a twist. Speaking of," he glanced around his bedroom lazily, "where d'you think those ended up?"

It was my turn to roll my eyes, and I pulled the thin cotton sheet up even more just in case. I think his mother figured out the physical levels of our relationship a long time ago, but I still had the paralyzing fear that she would walk in on us one day. Few things frightened me more.

"Promise me something."

He let out an exaggerated sigh and flopped onto his back, still holding fast to my wrist. "Fine," he groaned. "What?"

"If I get chosen-"

"Don't be stupid," he interrupted immediately. This thought made he roll back onto his side to look me dead in the eyes again. "You won't get picked. You know girls are bat-shit crazy. They'll probably volunteer before anyone even asks if there are volunteers. Hell, we'll probably show up to the Reaping to find one of them already standing on the stage."

"Yes, but if-"

"You won't get picked."

And now, I was upset. I hated how he always had to have the last word. Cato's opinion always had to be right, even though he was typically very, very wrong. Wasn't that what everyone always said about us? She has him to fight off thugs and he has her to add two and two together. "Cato, let me finish!"

"You won't."

His eyes flashed dangerously, and the hand holding my wrist clenched painfully around it. That all meant nothing, though, because I could feel my own blood pressure rising. In the early days, when I, too, threw myself into the academy's training regiments, he used to laugh at how my cheeks flushed with rage. Now, though, the sight of it made his jaw clench with restraint he had been forced to learn when I became something more than physical. I, however, ripped my hand out of his grasp with a downward flick so as to purposely scrape a nail across his wrist. I knew without looking that I broke the skin, but Cato's face did not even flicker. Instead, he grabbed my face between his hands and pulled my lips to his. This was how we were. Two armies colliding. Thunderstorms carried by different winds. We were desperate and needy and rough and so very District 2. But I could not let one kiss, no matter how breathtaking or infuriating or heart stopping, deter me. So, I pulled away. It took more will to break my lips from his than it ever had to imagine killing at the cornucopia.

"Please," I rasped, "please just promise that, if I get chosen, promise that you won't volunteer."

Cato squeezed his eyes shut and thumped his forehead against mine. His breathing still came too heavy for someone so well-trained, and his hands still rested on the sides of my face.

When he opened his eyes, my heart sank. I knew that look. I had seen it before, in the eyes of tributes passed. I was that girl. The girl who was going to watch him die. The girl who may have to kill him. The girl who may watch him kill her.

"You won't get picked."

At least he was finally right. My name was not picked. I can't even remember the Reaping that clearly, at least not the girls' portion. I remember Clove, though, proudly volunteering and taking the stage. "Short," I thought. "She's short. He can beat her. He can kill her. Look how small she is." Not once at the Reaping did I think about the day at the academy when I pulled a sword on a group of girls my age who thought it would be fun to beat a new trainee as an "initiation". Or when I taught her how to hold the knife blade so she did not cut herself when she threw it. I never thought of how Clove and I used to laugh at how Cato and the other boys seemed more focused on impressing us than our instructors. How we would throw knives at each other, and the first to draw blood won. How Cato used to give her half of his lunch on the days her parents were too busy fighting to remember her. I didn't think that he was going to the Capitol with the closest thing to a sister he ever had. I thought that at least she would not be the one to kill him.

When he volunteered, I had to bite my fist to keep from vomiting. Not that I had much to throw up; between the lump in my throat and the knots in my stomach, I had not been able to eat all day. But, there was always stomach acid, and it threatened to come up right there in the middle of the Reaping as he took the stage. His eyes found me in the crowd, and he winked that cocky little wink that I found so damn sexy before I knew what it was like to love, the wink where he cocked his head to the side and half-smirked. All the girls loved it. I used to love it. Now, it made me sick.

I told him not to volunteer.

He couldn't understand why I cried when the Peacekeepers let me in to see him. That was all I could do, though. Even though I had stayed up all night preparing myself for what I would say in this moment, I couldn't get a word out. He had to do the talking as I clung helplessly to him, trying to remind myself that I still had him for another three minutes, two, two and a half. As long as I could feel him, he was still mine. He was not theirs. He did not belong to the Capitol yet. He was still my Cato.

"Venus," he laughed, "calm down. Hey, hey!" When I would not listen, he urged me off of him. I kept my arms around his shoulders but allowed him to push me just far enough away for us to see each other. "Stop it. All right? I'm coming back. And we'll…we'll do all that stuff I said. Sound good?" I nodded pathetically. He rolled his eyes. "We'll live in the Victor's Village. Together. Okay?" I nodded again, and he once again rolled his eyes at my lack of words. "For fuc…we'll get married, okay? When I get back, we'll get married. You want to do that?" I nodded. "Dammit, would you just answer me?"

"Yes," I sniffed, nodding frantically. I began to brush my tears away, but he stilled my hand as the Peacekeeper opened the door. "Yes, I want to marry you."

"Good," he grinned. "Then, that's what we'll do."

And he wrapped his fingers through my hair, pressed his chapped lips to mine, and sealed our promise.

As the Peacekeeper took my shoulders to lead me from the room, I threw my hands out and grabbed the doorframe. I might not want to compete in the Hunger Games, but there was a reason Peacekeepers came from District 2. We were strong, and I easily shook off the woman trying to pull me away. "You come back to me, Cato. You better fucking come back."

Cato grinned again, that cocky grin that would shine on television screens across Panem in the days to come. "Promise."

Despite my fears, I was proud of him as we crowded around the screens to watch the coverage. He was a star. The people loved him. Not that this was surprising. Of course they loved him. I loved him. What was not to love? He was amazing, as always. It was not hard to imagine that, with the proper guidance, his infuriating arrogance could appear to Panem as charming confidence. He was beautiful in the parade and the interview, but, I'm sure, deadly in training.

I still have no idea what number he received. I couldn't watch. But I saw her. Katniss Everdeen. Eleven. I knew he didn't beat that. Cato was good, but he didn't have a story. He wasn't fighting for his little sister. His fellow tribute didn't confess her love during the interview. His father hadn't died. What did he have to fight for? Me?

I wasn't sure that would be enough.

He loved me. I knew that. He may never have quite said it, but that never bothered me. It just wasn't his way. He could only get the words out after too much ale, or when he thought I was asleep, or when I made him so furious he had to yell it at me, as if the words were half of a threat meant to stop me from throwing another knife at his face. Dammit, Venus, stop trying to kill me! I fucking love you, but I'll strangle you if you don't put the damn knife down! But that might not be enough to bring him back to me. A promise made in our last seconds together might not be enough.

So, I alternated between reassuring myself that Cato, my dear Cato, could do anything, and running from the screen in case this was the moment he fell. I sat in horror as the tributes took off for the cornucopia. It was always a bloodbath there. Everyone else was so sure that he would get right to the center, but I wasn't. I was half certain he would get too excited and step off the platform early, the first causality. Killed by his own stupidity.

He was not, however, blown up before the games even started. No, he was beautiful at the cornucopia. Even though I discovered long ago that I could never take a life, I was entranced by him. How he could grab a girl by the neck and use her as a shield as he continued towards the cornucopia, stealing her air and dropping her when her struggles were long over. How he grabbed swords and food and water. Good. He wouldn't survive in the woods. He needed the supplies. They never trained us in survival.

The alliance terrified me. I could just picture the girl, the blonde one who sparkled in the sunlight (Glimmer, someone later reminded me), killing him in his sleep. But Clove, my little Clover Leaf, always watched. He never saw the way she would sharpen her knives without looking at the blades, but Glimmer did. She had to notice. She could feel those eyes boring into her, and she would watch Clove sharpen that blade. No emotions showed on either of their faces, but none were needed. There was an unspoken message in the eyes of our young tribute. If you kill him, I will kill you. It will be long, and it will be painful. They did not teach us mercy in District 2.

During the 74th Hunger Games, I made many vows and promises I could not keep to a God no one believed in. I promise never to try to kill him again if you protect him from the tracker jackers. Should Peeta Mellark somehow make it out of the arena, I will kill that baking traitor myself. If you let me have his daughter, I will raise her to be like the Everdeen girl.

But what sickened me was my weakness. We were strong in District 2, but under my stoic façade in the viewing room, I was falling apart. When their supplies exploded and we all watched him snap that young boy's neck, I cried out. I could not help it. No one else seemed to hear me over the cheers, but I was not proud as hands clapped on my shoulders. That's your man, Venus! Look at him! I did look at him. But he wasn't there. That was not Cato. My Cato kept his allegiances. He had restraint. He would not kill the boy, no matter how furious, until all the other tributes were dead and only his allies remained. My Cato did not kill that boy. Someone else did. Someone else with the same square jaw and strong arms and chapped lips. Someone with different eyes. Eyes I didn't know.

I've heard since that the arena changed everybody. I wish that had been whispered in the shadows of District 2. Maybe then I would have expected it. No, we were much too proud for that. It was in the poorer districts that people saw the games for what they were, and it was not until much later that I heard this and realized the truth of it. At the time, I could not comprehend what happened. Where was Cato? Who was this stranger?

I pleaded to the heavens for Katniss Everdeen to die by someone else's hand, because I knew this man could not beat her. The Cato who broke the District 3 boy's neck did not promise to come back to me. He did not plan to marry me. I wasn't sure what he fought for. I just knew this stranger could not win.

I was right.

I told him not to volunteer.

Clove always talked too much. It was one of her annoying habits that I did not miss when I left the academy against my father's wishes. A story about one thing morphed into a story about something else when she had to clarify a point, and this secondary story involved a detailed explanation that was sure to lose your interest. We used to joke that she could talk her opponents to death in the arena.

We would never guess that would be what got her killed.

When Cato ran to her across the field with no regard for the danger, I had to thrust a fist in my mouth to keep from crying. She was gone. It never occurred to me that she would die. Ever since they made the announcement that tributes from the same district could both win, it seemed sure to all of us that Cato and Clove would be home in a week's time.

But, as he reached her, as he ordered her to stay with him, as warm blood rushed into my mouth, we realized it would not happen. We would only have one champion.

If we had a champion at all.

Clove's death was the moment they realized Cato might not come home. When he killed Thresh, a cold murder I still cannot think about, there were few cheers, few nudges of encouragement, no jealous glares from the girls he'd rejected for me. Because Katniss and Peeta were still out there. And, while Peeta Mellark may not be a threat, Katniss Everdeen would kill Cato. We all knew it. We hoped we were wrong, but we knew we weren't. Even though I saw my Cato come back to the world when Clove died, he left when the hovercraft took her body away. The man that killed Thresh, that man was not my Cato. As the cannon sounded and the stranger wiped the blood from his face, I wondered if I would ever see him again. There was one thought to keep me going as the quiet girl from District 5, the girl who never took a single life, ate the wrong berries.

He promised to come back to me. He promised. Cato keeps his promises. Cato always keeps his promises.

I had forgotten, though, that Cato was gone.

At night, when the moonlight falls over the empty half of a bed meant for two, I relive our final moments. I see Peeta Mellarck trace an 'x' on his hand, and my gut still clenches as painfully as it did the first time, when the realization struck me that this was the end. I hear the growls, the sword slicing flesh in a futile attempt to survive, the cries. It lasted for hours, and they kept the camera on him every minute of it. And I stayed. I couldn't leave the room, even as the rest of District 2 slowly trickled away. It was just us in the end, just his family. The people who loved him. We had to be there. This was the closest we could come to being with him when he died. So we stayed. We stayed even though I had to grab a bucket and throw up, salty tears mixing with the acidic remains of a sandwich I never wanted to eat as his mother held my hair out of the way.

The part I see every night, without fail, is the end. My mind always forces me to see that, when he looked up at the Girl on Fire and begged for a quick death – the dignified end the Capitol stole from him – it was really him. It was Cato. My Cato. He would have come back to me. He would have come back and we would have married and lived in Victor's Village and had children that were smart, like me, who would pass quietly in the background while the others volunteered for their deaths. He would have come back.

But the Capitol took care of that. They gave him armor to protect him from her arrows, the very armor that drew out his death. They gave her a reason to fight. They said that two could win.

When the arrow hits his skull, I always wake up screaming. My mind refuses to imagine that, and I did not see it the first time. When she pulled her bow back, I dropped the bucket I'd spent the last hour clutching and buried my face in my hands. I never saw him die. I couldn't. I tried, but I could not watch him die. I felt it, though. As the sound of an arrow finding its target resonated in the viewing room, I felt my heart stop. It was no good without him. It did not work. It died with him.

Someone tried to assure me once that I would find someone else. I slammed her up against a wall, elbow to her throat, ready to watch the last breath leave her body. It was the first time since age thirteen that I seriously considered killing someone. But, I stopped myself long before the Peacekeeper tore us apart because I realized that, furious as her comment made me, I had learned restraint long ago when not holding back meant scratches and broken bones and blood and knowing I was the reason he had to lie about cuts and scars. She did not get to remind me of him. So, I let her go. There was nothing I could do to her that was worse than letting her live.

There would never be anyone else, but these people could never understand that. Their lives revolved around the Hunger Games. They trained ruthlessly for them and volunteered and fought for glory. Their Victor's Village had many happy households filled with braggarts and egotists and sadists who spent their days retelling their victories. Champions. Everyone wanted to be a champion. Or marry one. Or give birth to one. Or train one.

I did not belong in District 2. I never had. I was not one of them.

I was the girl who told him not to volunteer.

Thanks for reading! This is my first Hunger Games venture, so I hope it was at least somewhat worth your time! I know a lot of people write about Cato because of the movie (in which he is just so very delicious), but that's actually not why I chose to write this. Really. I swear. I have a fascination with the characters that seem so solidly evil or crazy or bad. I like to imagine the human side, I guess; it's why I love Snape and Malfoy so much in Harry Potter. I obviously own nothing to do with the Hunger Games; Venus is my own creation, but the world and events of the Hunger Games belong to a mind much more brilliant than mine! I hope you enjoyed!