A/N: Thanks go to ETNRL4L, liu, Norbert's Mom, Fanficfanny, Pika-Thunder, hungergamesfan1254, blue287 for reviewing recently! I'm just going to shut up and let you read now.

Not Over Yet

Gale's POV

Nothing happened for a day or so after Finch had died. The programme was so devoid of action and excitement that it was almost like watching one of the old reality TV shows from before Panem in the school library. Almost; were it not for the continued tension springing from the fact that it was down to the final three tributes and sooner or later, there would be a confrontation.

Katniss and Peeta seemed to ignore that fact as much as possible, carrying on in what had become a routine. One of them sleeping while the other kept watch, dividing some of what they had hunted and eating it.

Finally, though, the Gamemakers decided to end it. The stream outside the cave had run dry. The ponds were similarly empty of water.

"They're driving us to the lake," Katniss needlessly confirmed after checking the nearest pond.

But when they arrived at the lake, Cato was not there. As an audience member, I was well aware of the fact that Cato had headed into the woods to seek them out. But in the arena, Katniss and Peeta weren't. After searching in vain for their opponent, they waited him out sat in front of the lake in full view, talking idly about District 12 and what it would be like when they got home.

I already knew that should they defeat Cato they would have a welcome home unlike any other. The whole district wanted to meet them at the train station, though it was restricted to just family members and Capitol reporters. The rest of the district was going to have to settle for a celebration in the square. Then the next day, Katniss and Peeta would move into their houses in the Victor's Village. The next month would be documented by Capitol cameras.

Whilst they talked, Katniss hummed and whistled the four note tune Rue had taught her. Peeta marvelled as the mockingjays in the arena took up the melody. But their smiles soon faded.

Just as it was getting dark, Cato bolted out of the trees and ran towards them. Katniss was on her feet in an instant, an arrow loaded and let loose in another, though it rebounded harmlessly off Cato's chest.

"He's got some kind of body armour!" Katniss shouted, bracing herself for the moment he crashed into her.

But he just ran past.

Prim looked at me in confusion, her mouth opening to ask a question about why Cato hadn't attacked or what he was playing at. But before she even uttered a word, it soon became clear that Cato hadn't been hunting Katniss and Peeta. He'd been running in fear from a muttation.

A strangled scream came from Prim.

Posey turned and hid her face, shaking in my arms.

Vick and Rory went pale at the sight of the thing.

Mother shuddered.

And Dahlia…she stared with wide eyes at the wolfish creatures.

Prim's POV

How Katniss wasn't frozen in fear, I never knew. The sight of the massive muttations would have turned my legs to jelly. Peeta seemed to be as stuck as I would have been for a moment, before jolting into action and turning tail, running with a limp after Katniss.

But the thing about the muttations was just that. They were muttations. They were not normal wolves. The commentators blathered on about what the Gamemakers had done to create them, but I didn't hear it. I was focused on the fact that though they ran on all four legs, the wolves were perfectly capable of standing on two legs and could make hand gestures as easily as a human could.

That wasn't all I noticed.

It was Rory who voiced what I had been thinking in my head. "Damn, those things are fast," he whispered in horror.

For every stride Peeta took, they seemed to take four. They were gaining on him. It was as simple as that.

Katniss reached the cornucopia, Cato already safely on top of it. Just as she stared to climb, she looked back at Peeta.

"Go, Katniss! Go!" He couldn't see behind him, but he must have known they were closing in on him.

"Oh no." My hands came up to my mouth. It had been going so well for the two of them, they'd been so confident but in that moment it looked like everything was going wrong. There didn't seem to be any way Peeta would be able to make it to the cornucopia and climb up it before the muttations caught him.

My attention flashed back to the images on screen as Katniss' shout for Peeta to climb reached me.

Finally on top of the horn, Katniss shot an arrow into the muttations, taking one down. Its metallic claws flashed silver in the fading sunlight as they cut into the flesh of the mutts on either side of it.

"That's disgusting," Vick muttered, looking a tinge green.

"What?" I asked.

"The commentators just pointed out that the muttations have been engineered to resemble the fallen tributes," Gale explained, his mouth set in a grim line and his nose wrinkled.

A wave of revulsion washed over me and I had to swallow the rising bile in my throat. The next time I looked at the screen, I immediately noticed the largest, darkest mutt, Thresh, rearing as Peeta reached the cornucopia and Katniss helped haul him up. Katniss had just let go of Peeta's hand when she realised the mutts represented the dead tributes, seeing Glimmer. She shrieked and reflexively fired an arrow at the District 1 mutt.

"Katniss?"

"It's her!"

"Who?" Peeta asked, desperately shaking her arm for her attention as she surveyed the other mutts, recognising Rue, Finch, all of them. "What is it, Katniss?"

"It's them. It's all of them. The others. Rue and Foxface and…all of the other tributes."

"What did they do to them?" he gasped. "You don't think…those could be their real eyes?"

The thought hadn't even entered my mind. Renewed disgust made me close my eyes, but the vision of Glimmer's mutt's hauntingly green eyes is burned into my eyelids and I soon opened them again.

Before Katniss could answer, a mutt managed to grab hold of Peeta's leg in its mouth. His cry of pain jerked Katniss from whatever she was thinking about.

"Kill it, Peeta! Kill it!" she yelped, doing her best to keep them both from being dragged over the side of the cornucopia. Peeta stabbed wildly with his knife before finally finding muttation flesh. The jaws locked around his leg released, and Katniss pulled him back onto the top of the golden horn.

They finally moved towards Cato and away from the danger they were faced by the mutts, the boy from District 1 on higher ground than they were.

Whilst Katniss was distracted with the mutt that resembled Thresh jumping six feet into the air, Cato got to his feet and yanked Peeta away, putting him in a headlock.

Before anyone could speak, Katniss had an arrow aimed at Cato's head. But he just laughed. "Shoot me and he goes down with me."

Nobody spoke. Peeta and Katniss both knew he was right. But Katniss didn't lower her bow and arrow or give in. It was trained on his head until Peeta drew a cross, an x, on the back of Cato's hand in his own blood. X marks the spot. The second Katniss' arrow pierced his hand and caused it to jerk away, Peeta threw his weight back against him, sending Cato tumbling off the cornucopia and into the muttations below. Snarls and screams reverberated out of the television's speakers.

"They've done it," I whispered in relief as Katniss and Peeta stood atop the cornucopia. "They've won." But the cannon didn't fire and the programme didn't end. Despite the fact it had long ago gotten dark both in the arena and in District 12, the cameras kept rolling, showing the mutts slowly but surely ripping and biting Cato to shreds.

Dahlia's POV

Something was wrong and it wasn't just that Peeta's leg was bleeding heavily. Katniss tied a tourniquet around it though with her shirt and her last arrow. The two of them were probably freezing to death on top of the cornucopia, but it was impossible to tell. The Gamemakers continued to show Cato's torturous death instead of focusing on the two victors.

Gale shielded Posey's eyes, so she didn't have to watch the hours of gruesome injuries. Even in the moonlight, the spurts and pools of blood were still all too visible. Eventually, Vick and Posey fell asleep but the rest of us were forced to watch until it was all over, whenever that would be.

It was Katniss who ended it, thankfully, shooting Cato with her last arrow.

But that was when the relief ended.

"Then we won," Peeta said upon the firing of the last cannon of the 74th Hunger Games. But nothing happened.

"Hey! What's going on?" Katniss shouted.

"Maybe it's the body. Maybe we have to move away from it," he suggested.

"OK. Think you could make it to the lake?"

"Think I better try," he responded, forcing himself to his feet and hobbling to the tail end of the cornucopia and inching down it. The pair of them made it to the lake, drinking water as the body was lifted away, but still the Games were not over.

"What are they waiting for?" Peeta complained weakly. In daylight it was easy to see the dark stain of blood down his leg.

"I don't know."

Even the commentators didn't answer the question for the viewers. The feeling of foreboding I'd been having flared up again, doubling in intensity.

Finally, something happened: Claudius Templsmith's voice boomed across the arena.

"Greetings to the final contestants of the seventy fourth Hunger Games. The earlier revision has been revoked. Closer examination of the rule book has disclosed that only one winner may be allowed. Good luck and may the odds be ever in your favour."

Prim choked in surprise.

My heart sank. It was exactly the kind of trick I'd been half-expecting. Of course the Capitol wouldn't allow two victors. And what crueller punishment for the districts was there than forcing two district partners, two friends, two lovers to kill one another.

"If you think about it, it's not that surprising," Peeta said finally.

As he dropped his knife into the lake, surrendering his only weapon, Katniss' aim locked onto his heart, before she realised he wasn't going to attack her and lowered her bow.

"No, do it," he told her.

"I can't." His eyes pleaded with her. "I won't," she said emphatically.

"Do it. Before they send those mutts back or something. I don't want to die like Cato."

"Then you shoot me," Katniss replied angrily in response to the begging tone his voice had taken on. "You shoot me and then go home and live with it!"

"You know I can't. Fine, I'll go first anyway," Peeta declared, ripping his bandage away.

"No, you can't kill yourself," she cried, ducking down and re-tying the tourniquet.

"Katniss, it's what I want."

"You're not leaving me here alone."

"Listen, we both know they have to have a victor. It can only be one of us. Please, take it. For me," he begged. Katniss fumbled for the pouch of nightlock on her belt, but Peeta caught her wrist. "No, I won't let you."

"Trust me," she whispered, glancing around for cameras or something. After staring into her arms for a few moments, he released his grip, allowing her to let some of the dangerous berries to roll into his palm. After getting herself a handful, she asked, "On the count of three?"

"The count of three," Peeta agreed after a kiss. As an afterthought he added, "Hold them out. I want everyone to see."

Standing back to back, they clasped their free hands together. "One, two, three!"

Before she could regret it, Katniss threw the berries into her mouth.

"No!" Gale shouted, waking his sleeping brother and sister.

Prim had bucket-loads of tears trickling down her face, as they had been since the announcement.

Suddenly the trumpets blared and Claudius Templesmith shouted frantically, "Stop! Stop! Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present the victors of the seventy fourth Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark! I give you – the tributes of District 12!"

The berries flew from Katniss' mouth as Prim gave a relieved shriek, throwing herself into my arms. Vick and Rory danced around the room, Posey and Hazelle laughing at them. Gale allowed himself a reluctant grin, before lifting Posey into the air and dancing around the room with her.

"Katniss is coming home," they chanted.

Only I didn't celebrate. Whilst my heart beat happily for my daughter's homecoming, my lungs still held the deep sense of foreboding and I knew it wasn't over.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed the chapter. I apologise for the rushed ending – I'm in a hurry to update as I'm heading out to the cinema to see Brave with my Granny (she wants to see it because she's Scottish but doesn't want to be the only person above the age of ten in the cinema). I'd love to hear what you guys think. Plus what do you think the homecoming in two chapters time will be like?!

Thanks for reading! Much love, SabreDae

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