Disclaimer: Not mine and stuff.

A/n: This one is a bit of an AU, where Peeta dies before the scene with the mutts. This is pretty much just playing on movie!Cato's emotions at the end of the movie.

Prompt: cato/katniss, i struggle with the feeling that my life isn't mine. (For jada_jasmine)

Dead Already

I'm dead already. Didn't know that 'till now…

Katniss moves through the trees silently, searching for game. Dusk is closing in and she still needs something to eat.

There is a soft rustling or splashing noise and then what distinctly sounds like a sniff. A little confused and curious, she moves as much as she dares and is able to just barely peer around the large tree she is hiding behind. Roughly twenty feet away, crouching beside a shrub at the edge of the stream is Cato, the tribute from 2. His large sword is discarded but clean beside him, and he's gently scrubbing his bloody hands in the cool water. Thin tracks of water slide down his cheeks.

Wait.

Is he… crying?

Of course she doesn't think he was incapable of it – alright, that wasn't exactly true. The Careers (of any Games) were almost always the coldest, strongest, most violent and trained – emotionless. They liked spilling blood, winning, taunting, being superior – they were taught to be so from the earliest age. The idea of one of them displaying an emotion different than that was completely foreign. And one as vulnerable as crying?

He's just playing to the cameras, she thinks immediately. He's trying to rack up sponsors by pretending he has a heart.

Katniss shakes her head and decides it would be a very good thing to get far away now, lest he discover her nearby. Ignoring what she's seen, she creeps from shadow to shadow until she is sure she's out of earshot, then breaks into a run.

Katniss is still in the Games when the last Careers finally turn on each other. She had thought they would've tried to stick it out until the end, but seeing as how there's only four competitors left, she guesses they must've felt it was time. She lost track of Peeta sometime ago, and but she heard two cannons today. At night, it's the girl from 2 and Peeta that light up the sky.

Make that just two competitors left.

She frowns with regret – despite doubting his motivations for nearly the entire time she knew him, it was clear to her after he saved her from the Careers during the tracker jacker attack that he had been trying to protect her the whole time. She can't help feeling the loss of him, of a fellow District 12 tribute, of – and it sounds weird, maybe too strong a word and not strong enough – a friend.

Katniss dips her head and covers her eyes, pretending to cry a little. She has to keep up the star-crossed lovers bit, after all. (She does care, of course she does, but not to the level they expect her to.)

While it is the last place in the arena she wants to be, Katniss knows she'll need to head to the Cornucopia. All other water sources have been dried up by the Gamemakers and the lake is likely all that's left. And when the mutts attack, she and Cato both hurdle across the open space to the Cornucopia, not bothering with each other for the moment – she doesn't have time to consider anything but running like hell.

Katniss reaches it first and hauls herself up, scrabbling for hand holds. She hears him call out behind her, turns, and it's only one split second: she knows she should do nothing, let the mutts gets him, and she will be the victor. Maybe it's instinct, or stupidity, insanity or the image of him silently letting tears roll down his cheeks when he thought he was alone, or maybe that she's not willing to let someone be mauled to death (if he has to die, she'll make it clean and quick – somehow that's more fair, and she doesn't know why that matters). Whatever it is that makes her do it, she reaches down and he grabs her arm. As she's pulling, she has a moment of horror thinking he has played her and is about to pull her down to be killed by the mutts instead. He doesn't, however, and she helps him up, and they collapse backwards, panting and shaking as the mutts try desperately to get at them.

She comes to her senses first, scrambling away from him, bow aimed at his heart immediately.

Cato sits up slowly, still trying to catch his breath and doesn't seem at all surprised by her action. His face is bruised, bloody and swollen and there are deep, red slashes in his arms and legs. She wonders how much trouble his fellow tribute from 2, the girl who was so good with knives, gave him when he killed her. She wonders if (hopes) Peeta did some of the visible damage to Cato too, that he fought hard.

"Go ahead," Cato wheezes. "I'm dead already."

She hesitates, doesn't shoot, and there's no reason not to.

His eyes are bright and shining. "You know, we're built for this. In 2. My whole life, I was… I was built for this. I didn't have a say, didn't have a choice, I just was. I was learning to wield weapons probably by the time I was old enough to walk." He chokes a little, spits.

"And you… you come from the… coal district. The," he laughs bitterly, swaying and weak. "The goddamn coal district. You get an 11, and you… What have you done with your life? What training or money or privilege…"

He falls quiet for a moment and she still hasn't shot him, hasn't ended it. It's like she needs to hear him out, let him finish, say what he has to say.

"You had nothing. And you're here, same as me." He shakes his head and she's almost struck by the sadness she sees in him (so Careers are humans too), thinks of the moment by the stream. "Neither of us had a choice."

Katniss almost wants to argue with him, to point out that they both volunteered, that they did have a choice. But she thinks of Prim entering the Games, and how the simple act of being in the Games in his District is the highest honor. How every step has brought them to this moment.

"No," she says quietly. "We didn't."

They're still staring at each other when he points to his chest with a trembling finger and whispers, "Make it count."

She finally lets the arrow fly.

I'm dead already.