/I dunno, this popped into my head while the dogs are wrestling across my legs. It's just a conversation I thought might happen. Nothing too big.

Katniss –

The sun goes down as we find a place to camp for the night. Finnick makes a bed of grass for Maggy to sleep on while Peeta and I make our bed higher on the hill - the better to see. I lay back in the tall grass alongside Peeta who folds his arms behind his head for a pillow.

I'm too wired to sleep and so is Peeta. I roll onto my side, propping my head up on the palm of my hand so that I can stare down into his blue eyes.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Us."

He looks lost. Maybe its the way his eyes dart back and forth across my face. "What about us?"

Peeta's chest puffs out as he sucks in a deep breath. "I wonder what our lives would have been like if we'd been born in the Capitol."

I snort. "I imagine we'd turn out something like Flavius and Octavia. Can you imagine me with green skin?"

A smile creeps across Peeta's face. It's the first time I've seen him smile since the games began. There hasn't been any time or reason to smile. We've been running for our lives. Searching for water which is nowhere to be found. If it weren't for Haymitch's gift, we'd be doomed.

"But we'd be alive," he says. "No one breathing down our backs."

"And we'd be shallow and obsessed with nothing more than how we look," I counter. "Is that any better? Knowing you're living in luxury while millions slave away and starve?"

"They aren't all bad, you know that. What about Effie? And Cinna?"

I wince. I haven't told Peeta what happened to Cinna in the Launch Room. I'm not even sure if Cinna's alive.

"Yes," I tell him. "Some of them are different. But it's a drop in an ocean."

"It's a start."

I shake my head and lay back in the grass. There's no point in arguing with Peeta. He's far better with words than I am.

I know that not all people in the Capitol are cruel. But the truth of it is that the ones who are decent are as doomed as the rest of us.

"Hey."

Peeta rolls onto his side, wrapping his arm around my stomach. I feel the baby kick and Peeta seems to too because his eyes shoot down to my bellybutton.

"I just mean - if we were born in the Capitol, our baby wouldn't be in this mess."

I shift away from him, turning my back on him. "Our baby wouldn't exist."

The air falls silent between us. He knows I'm right and I know it's a heartless thing to say. But, truth be told, I wouldn't have it any other way.

I grew up in the slums of District 12. I had a loving father who sang to me and taught me how to hunt. I nearly starved when he died, but I pulled my family through it - in part thanks to Peeta's generosity. I wouldn't be who I was if I had been born in the Capitol. I'd be another vapid idiot who was sitting in front of their video-screen watching innocent children die for sport. I wouldn't even be smart enough to hate myself.

No. If I'm going to die. I'll die as Katniss - the Girl on Fire.