Author's Note: I guess I've gotten some writing bug for Peeta. Doesn't necessarily mean the quality has been tip-top but I won't complain about it too much. It's still enjoyable.

Unless you're the pour soul who has to read it…

Disclaimer: Erm… No? Yeah, no. Not mine.

Expendables
(Alternately:Ctrl-Alt-Delete)

I extend an arm above me, reaching for another rung, feeling a painful swarm of tears pooling in my eyes as the cries echo below me and I know I've got to move quickly and swiftly. Swift, however, can never be my strong suit with a metal contraption dragging behind the rest of me, weighing me down and conducting itself in a rigid and less-than fluid way. What I find is not more ladder to heave myself up with but an arm, fingers curling just above my elbow and another hovering by my face, grasping at the air quickly, spastically, purposefully, waiting for my other arm. And I give in graciously, clasping her as tight as possible and slipping out of the pipe.

The moment my top half is over, she releases me and reaches down to pull up Cressida. The feeling of her moving behind me where I can't see her clearly has my heart leaping into my throat. I'm completely exposed and so I crawl away from the hole, quick as possible, soundless as necessary, inconspicuous as feasible. I feel myself begin to wander into a shiny memory…

And I'm in the arena. Curled up under a tree, keeping watch for my fellow tributes and current allies that will all too willingly turn their backs on me the moment our foes are forgotten. The sky is peppered with stars tonight, most probably an illusion, and an altogether hush of forest life. No one will make a move.

Cato is scrunched up in his facial features, but everything about this arena is who he is and his very being becomes smooth and natural. He shifts and turns away, grumbling. I remember wishing him dead; nothing shiny about that.

Clove, Glimmer, just the careers in general have all come here to find peace and honor from what they've been trained to do. And that's all fine by me. I have no problem playing along with them, allowing them to string me along. I have nothing for me back in District 12 as it is.

But my nightmare has followed me into the arena.

No… that's not right. Is it?

She's curled in her tree branch, stoic and cruel, searching around her but my job is not to pretend to care but simply to be on the lookout for anything suspicious. My memory tells me she has tried to kill me once before and I don't let myself easily forget it.

That's when it drops. A nest of trackerjackers.

She has narrowly missed the top of my head, but it's still enough.

I remember Cato yelling at us—

"Climb!"

We were just supposed to kill her and be done with it, but instead she was given the opportunity to attempt to murder me again, the cruel creature that is Katniss Everdeen.

That's wrong…

I shake myself from the memory, if only for a brief moment, but it gives me enough time to crawl, huddled against the wall, cringing, trying to decide if what I see is real or not real. My mind can't process anything, people are yelling at each other, there are explosions, and it's all too real…

And just as I'm fleeing from the nest, my face burning and swelling with poison, I trip and stumble through trees to find Cato also not in his right mind. And as I try to explain what happened, where the nest had suddenly sprung from, I feel cold and callused fingers close around my neck tightly. I feel her presence all around me and Cato sprints away, his shoulder knocking a tree as he goes and the rest of him tumbling after. The trees begin dropping orange bubbles, wafting down on a wind current, but I have no time to ponder this as she clamps down tighter and my air starts to give out…

"Peeta."

Don't say my name, how dare she? Her voice is cool and sweet-sounding, not at all harsh as her actions. Her fingers loosen their grip, everything about the image still flashy and bizarre.

"Peeta?"

No. I'm not in the arena, but the fear is still real. And the mutts' chanting still resounds in my mind, something setting me off, pulling me back down into an animal frenzy. I can't process her, which one is real and which is not. Katniss is the girl with the steely grip, isn't she?

"Leave me," I beg at first, dreading that she'll try to kill me, demanding that she not lay a finger on me. I'm cold and numb, but something about this fear feels wrong and part of me realizes that it is. Katniss is not the girl trying to kill me… "I can't hang on."

"Yes. You can!"

I bite down on my tongue hard to recognize that this pain is real, these words she's saying now are real, I'm really going to be fine. The pain on my tongue flashes me back to another memory of the back of her fist smashing against my cheek and drawing blood, me trying to back away. But that me, the memory of my former self, the boy who was afraid, engendered a seed of resentment and anger. And that was when I started fighting back… according to the Capitol.

"I'm losing it. I'll go mad. Like them."

Or maybe I already have.

I feel that Katniss, the one that has become my familiar nightmare epitome, raging her own war in my head, taunting me and fighting as hard and dirty as possible, searching for any loop that will kill me. I feel that Katniss demanding my attention, daring me to let this other Katniss, the real one, get close to me.

And this other Katniss, well, she kisses me.

Full on the mouth.

Smooth and right and calm and nice and real. This is real.

And that memory, the one playing in my head, I begin chanting at it over and over. A mantra that I hope will kill this false image, end it, forbid it from crossing my mind.

Katniss is kissing me, not killing me. This is right. This is real.

My whole frame shudders and shakes as the shiny image begins to fade, as I force it away, banish it from my mind. It doesn't belong here. I can't keep it, I can't allow it,I won't allow it.

Get out, get out, get out. Leave me alone.

Not real.

Not real.

My head begins pounding, my heart leaping in my throat as the shiny Katniss wiggles her way around, trying to remain as my focal point, trying to taunt me and tease me and kill me. The shiny Katniss trying to remind me of what I can't ever forget. The shiny Katniss is working her magic, winning…

"Don't let him take you from me."

"No. I don't want to…"

She clasps my hands in her own.

"Stay with me."

The real Katniss is stronger, though. The real Katniss is dominant in all ways. The real Katniss needs me to keep my promise to her, I can't leave her alone. That one memory is ours, untouched.

Always.