Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games.

Dedication: This is dedicated to Persephone's flower, who requested a story with this pairing. I'm sorry if it's not shippy enough for you (or long enough, but you know that some of my stories are short!), but I hope that you like it anyway. (Psst, team gale, if you are reading this your is coming! I promise! I don't know when, exactly, but soon.)

Death is the sublimity of life.

-William Mountford

Sublime

It's a funny thing, knowing that you're about to die. You don't feel anything about it, other than relief, because you know that nothing that you can do or say would stop it. It's inevitable. Of course, I knew death was inevitable as soon as I stepped foot on this arena.

I just hadn't expected it to come so fast, so suddenly. I hadn't thought that it would happen like this. I had wished that it wasn't coming at all. For a moment I see my life as it should have been, I see all the things that could have happened if I was able to live.

I would one day properly fall in love, I'd get married, I'd have children, and then one day I'd be growing old with my husband as we watched our grandchildren. I imagine a charmed life, one that may have existed in District Twelve. Or maybe not.

But then those images are gone in the blink of an eye and all I see is the sky of the arena. For a moment I wish that this was faster. I just want to die already. But then I hear something to my side and I realize that someone is with me. It's Haymitch.

For a moment my heart swells in my chest. I'm glad that I'm not dying alone, and I'm glad that the person that is with me is Haymitch. As ironic as it is to me, because I'm the one who didn't want to have to watch him to die, the fact that Haymitch is here makes things seem different. I didn't want to die alone.

I don't know how he felt about me, but I've always had a crush on Haymitch, even before the Games that destiny put in our way to tear us apart. I wonder, for just a second, if fate hadn't been jesting with us so much, if maybe in another life we could have been something wonderful. Magic.

I know that he is from the Seam and I'm from town, but I think that maybe there could have been something about us. I think he's a good person, even though I don't think that he believes that himself. That's what saddens me, because know I'll never be able to tell him all of the wonderful things that I think about him.

He might be saying something now, or he might not me. I don't know, because I can't hear him. The dark tendrils of death are slowly creeping closer and closer and are soon going to take me away from the only world that I know. I don't have the strength to stop them anymore.

Looking into his grey eyes, the eyes that remind me so much of home, I think about my sister. The sister that hates me because she thinks that our parents love me more. She's wrong of course, but now I'll never be able to tell her that. She'll hate me forever now and I'll never have the chance to try and change her opinion.

I'll miss my parents. I'll miss the sooty smell of home. I'll miss the way that District Twelve looks at sunrise, the hopeful way that the sun descends on our village before we realize that this day will be the same as any other and continue to trudge on waiting for yet another sunrise.

But most of all I think that I'll miss Haymitch. In these games where desperation and malice run free we were actual allies in every since of the word.

He won't miss me, though. I'm sure that I'll haunt him for the rest of his life now that I'm going to die right in front of him. I want to spare him from this, but I can't tell him to. I can't do anything, because I'm dying, slowly, painfully, and yet I'm still coherent. I can still think. For now.

I just hope that this doesn't destroy him. I don't want it to. I want him to be happy and free of me forever, just like I won't be free of him. I'm sure that I'll watch him, from wherever I end up.

As I take my last breaths I'm glad that my life doesn't flash before my eyes. My life was boring. My life, if I think about it, was pointless. But my death means something. Just like hundreds of children before me I am about to die for something beyond my control. I'm about to die because of the Capitol's tyranny, because human beings are power hungry and selfish. I'm about to die because of the Hunger Games.

I know I won't be the last to die. I know that Haymitch won't be the last person to watch someone that they cared about (at least I hope that he cares about me) die. But I wish that I was. I wish he was.

I know that Haymitch will try to stop this now. He has never been one to watch unfairness happen and do nothing about it. I remember watching him in the school yard stop kids from being bullied. I know that he's a fighter and won't let this happen much longer. I hope he remembers me when he does fight. I hope that whenever he gets married and has children and grows old, all of the things that I will now never be able to do, that he will remember me, even if it's just a glimpse of my face in his mind or my name. I wish he knew how much I cared about him.

I hope he wins.

I can feel death closing in on me and I know now that this will be my last breath. I take one last look at Haymitch's face before the darkness consumes me.

And then I am free.