A/N: So, I was going to make you wait a chapter for our main man's return, but my best friend Cato came up to me and sternly told me to put him in the next chapter, and he said he'd take off his shirt next chapter if I did that, so… Hey, what can you do? It's Cato—shirtless! I melted like butter…

Remind me to never write a Finnick and Annie story, people…

D12- 16- (Katniss Everdeen)

Gale and I sit in the Victors' Village house in silence, staring at each other, for at least twenty minutes. Then everything comes flooding back to me—that I'm going to see Cato today, that Prim…might not be coming back, that my world is slowly cracking into a million pieces. But I haven't given up on Prim. If I had, I'd be floating in a pool of numbness and sadness.

The doorbell rings. I groan quietly, knowing this is probably Cato, delivered just as tall, blonde, and Cato as always, just as promised by the lady on the phone yesterday.

Mother says she'll get it, and Gale glares at the floor. He's here to take Cato outside and threaten him in person, which I promised my half-spacey, half-as-okay-as-she-can-be mother yesterday I would prevent when she found out the news.

Before I went to the mines and stared at the hole as more kids were drawn out, unconscious and badly-damaged.

Before I slept there.

Before I swear I heard my sister's little voice calling for me in the mineshaft, but I wasn't allowed to go down, and no one would go down for her.

They said it was done.

They'd have two more trips up today.

But then everyone left in there was as good as dust.

Mother calls from the living room for me, and I sigh. Gale nods, still looking at the ground, angry. He raises himself out of his chair with me so as soon as my visitor spots me, he'll spot me with Gale. Gale is taking this way too far, but I won't let him go through with his ridiculous plans.

I'd rather be anywhere but here.

My mind keeps floating back to her, wishing I could receive the phone call where the man up at the mines says, "It's Primrose Everdeen. We found Primrose Everdeen alive."

Because Prim does not die. Not under my watch, and I've proved that by volunteering for her, for risking the woods for her. I will, have, and would do anything for that sweet, sweet, alive girl, the nearly-thirteen-year-old whose blouse is always forming a ducktail in the back, her blue eyes knowingly boring into the good parts of almost all souls.

That little girl, my little duck, my Prim, my bright pink, living flower in the middle of a field of gray deadness—she's alive.

Without her, my brain would shut down, as it slowly is now for every second I don't have proof that she is totally, completely, absolutely alive. Even if she's badly-harmed, even if she's burdened with wounds forever, as long as she doesn't die, I'll be happy. I'll be happier than all the money in the world that the Capitol has to offer me, all the kindness and love Cato wants to give me, all the protection and friendship that Gale willingly beholds for me—I'll be happier than all of those things can make me.

Because it's rather obvious that I value Prim's life over my own.

"Katniss." Fingers snap in front of my face. Pale hands with no scars and perfectly-round nails. "Katniss?"

I look up. His somewhat tan, rather pale (you can expect a person to be pale after a coma, right?) face holds his icy blue, soul-cutting, life-taking, heartless yet not eyes, those same eyes I felt myself drowning in just weeks before. I remember those eyes' owner's arms, wrapped tightly around me as I mourned the loss of an ally so much like Prim.

Now, I find myself wanting to be out in the woods with Gale's strong, protecting, capable arms wrapped around me, taking me away from the world as I sob for my sister's disappearance, every second sending an inch of hope away until the amount of hopelessness overrules the amount of hopefulness, and I'm left drowning, wishing I wasn't swimming in Cato's eyes, so unlike Prim's kind, gentle, soft blue eyes, almost exact replicas of Peeta's eyes…

"Cato," I say coldly.

He nods, as if confirming that that's his name. If he weren't in someone else's home, before someone else's mother and someone else's—well, he doesn't know what Gale is to me—friend, I could just hear him saying in his frustrating, hotheaded way of his, "That's my name, girl on fire. And you?"

No one welcomes him into the home, not even when the nosy Peacekeeper scoots away and out past the Victors' Village, back into town.

"So, how long are you staying?" I say quietly, drifting back into space, thinking about Prim.

Seeing images of her body exploding with the mines, being ripped and bloodied, her bones cracked and contorted, her scream piercing the air, unheard because of the sounds around her, too deep in the mines to get a break.

Seeing images of Cato and Clove torturing Peeta and bloodying him and the way he said my name right before they killed him, the way I ignored it in my selfish anger.

Seeing images of Rue getting snagged with that knife, causing her to lose balance and fall down, down, down, down to the ground and landing with the most sickening thump I have ever heard.

Seeing images of my father singing in the mines, fire raging towards him from behind, without him knowing, until his body is ripped from existence like Prim's was.

Seeing images of Cato, weak and helpless, infected, eyes bloodshot, face ghostly white. Images of him falling so desperately like Rue did.

Finally, when I'm out of the horrors of my mind and back into the real world—which isn't much better—I realize I'm in my bedroom, sobbing, Cato at the foot of my bed and Gale scowling in the corner. My mother brings in a tray of tea, and, seeing I'm awake, flashes me a halfhearted smile. She's trying so hard to be strong this time, because I'm not being strong for her.

I'm wading in the deep end.

"You're up," Cato whispers, fingering with my mockingjay pin.

I sit up, wipe my eyes, and snatch it from him. "That's mine, not yours," I say hoarsely, my voice weak since I was apparently sobbing in my nightmares of death, which I didn't even know were not just awful, awful images playing out from the recesses of my brain and not nightmares until I had woken up from them. "So don't touch it, Cato."

Gale grins at me behind Cato's back as Cato rolls his eyes, sarcastically saying, "Well."

"Are you tired, Katniss? Hungry?" I shake my head at my mother's question as she sits in front of Cato, obviously not approving of his being here, and looks at me, sadness and despair in her eyes. It fills me with the agonizing images of Prim where I can practically feel my body being ripped apart with hers, the fire trickling into my being until I'm one with it…

My mother seems to notice this, because she calmly assures me, "We still have all today, remember?"

I nod. It's all that I can possibly cling to.

She leaves the room, and then silence overlaps us. It's weird, having Gale and Cato in the same room.

Gale stands up and comes beside the bed, glaring at Cato. Cato looks up at him, not feeling threatened whatsoever. Gale forgets that he's a trained Career and not just the "pest" that likes me and won the Games with me.

At the mention of the Games, images float into my mind, trapping me again. A lot of them are of Prim, but some of them are of tributes, the fear I felt so strongly in the arena flooding into my system. My breathing shortens and shallows until I'm hyperventilating, clawing at the air to scratch away the pictures. Gale sits down beside me and takes hold of my arms, pressing them to my sides until I finally leave them there.

"Hush. Katniss, stop, slow your breaths, and calm down. Stop."

I look up at Gale's concerned face.

And overwhelmed by the death that finally took me over, I see everyone's death, whether they're dead or not. Gale. Cato's real¸ for-good, no reincarnation death. Haymitch. Mother. Darius. Madge. Mayor Undersee.

Everyone I've met in my lifetime, dead or alive, I see a death featuring them.

It seems like it's going on for hours, and I thrash and kick and Gale and Cato struggle to calm me, telling my mother when she comes in to bring Haymitch by because I keep screaming his name, as his death is the worst, so unexplainable and terrible. He dies repeatedly, and I kill him, and it's in the arena. As his cannon sounds, my heart stops and I fall back, dead, too.

It's inevitable; Primrose Everdeen is dead and it drove me to insanity.

D2- 17- (Cato Allens)

I don't know how to respond to Katniss's meltdowns, so again, I stand along the sidelines and watch as her friend—Gale—keeps her from thrashing too much and hurting herself as he tells her to calm down sternly but softly, like coaxing prey to come close before delivering the deathblow. That's what I associate it with at least; I don't think that's how he picked it up.

"Can I do anything?" I ask as Katniss's mother runs out of the room in search of Katniss's old mentor.

Gale doesn't turn around. "You can get out, go back to Two, and never come back. We had her under control and there were no meltdowns about her sister until you showed up. It's too much for her to remember at once," he explains coldly. I know he doesn't like me, and I could honestly care less. If he gets out of line, I can easily hurt him—and who'll believe a poor Twelve boy over a rich victor boy?

"I can't. Not until after the Victory Tour," he says. Katniss is finally asleep, I can tell. Now Gale turns to me. "Not in the Capitol. Only sometimes will I ever be able to get away, even if it is for the better."

He narrows his eyes suspiciously; obviously he doesn't believe me. But it's true—after I woke up from my coma, Snow's was the first non-hospital-worker face I saw. That I remember, at least. He told me that when we are both in the Capitol, I am to be Katniss's. When it's just me in the Capitol, I am to be any woman's. I'm supposed to be the next Finnick Odair, except made especially dramatic since I'll have my little "uncaring" Twelve girl thrown on me.

"You're lying…right?"

"No. Besides…" I take a shallow breath. This house is surely bugged, and there's no way I could get away with telling some random guy I just met that Katniss and my soon-to-be relationship is a stunt. My family's life is on the line for this. Everyone Katniss loves—their lives are on the line too. Though it's obvious she's already lost the main person they could hold over her head to the mines. "I love her. I'll never leave her."

The next thing I know after I say this, Gale is on top of my, fist falling down. I push him off of me, standing up and kicking him in the gut before returning to Katniss's bedside and soothingly asking her to wake up. I touch her arm and she jerks up. But from the hazy look in her eyes, she's still emerged deep into her dream. I slowly creep into her line of vision and smile softly, half wanting to just paint on a scowl and go home.

"Catnip." Gale stands next to me rigidly.

"You—you." The dreaming girl before us points to her friend. He nods. "You killed Haymitch, you traitorous murderer!"

"No, Katniss, it's Gale." Gale shakes his head.

"Get away from me!"

I look on, sighing, and worrying that this is it—this is what my Katniss has become. Will they "dispose" of her because she's not victor material? After all, they still have me to show off to the Capitol. It's not like Annie Cresta's case because she was the only victor of her Games, and "disposing" of her wouldn't be acceptable.

Then everything happens at once. Haymitch bursts in and tries to calm Katniss down, Gale pulls me out of the room, and the whole time I hear Katniss's mother running out of the door, saying, "It's Prim, it's Prim. Tell Katniss I'll be back!"

I hate District Twelve…

A/N: This does not mean Prim's alive. In fact, that's highly illogical, and I'm probably just gonna have them find her body instead.

So, on that note, adios, peeps. Until next time, and trust me—the wait will be much shorter next time!