It's two days before Katniss wakes up, but Peeta is fussing over her the entire time, so I don't worry about her safety. Just watching him with her makes me feel guilty about saying that it was all just a ruse. He obviously, very obviously cares about her. I actually find myself wondering what he would have done without the rule change, if it had ever come down to the two of them.

I don't think that he would have had to think too hard before letting her kill him.

What bothers me about the whole thing is Katniss. Sure, she went to get the medicine for him, but watching their kisses in the cave, watching the way they talked and interacted, the whole thing seemed very forced on her part. I'd ask Haymitch about it, but I really don't think it'd be too smart with the Capitol listening in. Besides, most of the other people in the room are as captivated as the Capitol, so it probably wouldn't be too smart of me to mention anything about fake feelings.

I actually start wondering whether they're real or not myself, after she starts fidgeting. At first, with her eyes still closed, her expression turns to confusion, and I know that she's out of it. It reminds me of when I had pneumonia, of how I thought that I'd died and went to hell.

"Katniss," Peeta says gently. "Katniss, can you hear me?" Very cautiously, her silver eyes open, and I can see that confusion turning to wariness. Not because of Peeta, but because of where she's at. No, when she sees Peeta, her eyes light up.

"Peeta." Her voice is hoarse, but she caresses the name as it comes out of her mouth. I don't know if anyone else notices, but I start wondering, because it sounds an awful lot like the way that Annie sounds when she says my name.

The two of them talk for a while, and I analyze the whole thing, trying to figure out if it's real or not real. Sometimes, it seems so genuine, but then it's like she'll remember something, maybe even subconsciously, and her manner changes just the slightest degree, and I find myself thoroughly confused.

I'm also slightly worried at the girl's obvious concern over Thresh. Great. Now there's another person I doubt if she'll be able to kill. My eyes dart to his screen, hoping that he's near death so she won't face him, but it looks like he has a perfect hiding place in a little shelter of rocks that lie in the field of grains he'd been hiding out in.

"She'd kill him if she had to, wouldn't she?" I ask, obviously referring to Thresh, because there's no question about what she'd do to Cato if she found him.

"She'd be able to, if not for herself, for Peeta," Haymitch answers me. That answer doesn't help me much, because I have to wonder just how much Katniss does care about them. I hear their conversation progressing.

"He let you go because he didn't want to owe you anything?" Peeta asked incredulously after she'd finished explaining everything to him.

"Yes. I don't expect you to understand it. You've always had enough. But if you'd lived in the Seam, I wouldn't have to explain." Yeah, definitely not convinced that she'd kill Thresh for Peeta. I wince as they continue arguing.

"And don't try. Obviously I'm too dim to get it."

"Can't you send her a muzzle?" Johanna asks. "She's got a dream boat sitting right in front of her, and she's being a total bitch about it." I slap her arm, getting defensive of the future rebel leader.

"Would you and your boyfriend quit adding commentary," Haymitch snapped at Johanna and I. "I'm trying to listen."

"What?" both of us snapped at the same time, which got the rest of the room to yell at us to shut up. Johanna opened her mouth to speak, but I put a hand on her arm. I did want to listen to the rest of this conversation.

"It's like the bread. How I never seem to get over owing you for that." I give Haymitch a questioning look, but he shushes me quickly, his eyes saying that he'll explain it later.

"The bread? What? From when we were kids? I think we can let that go. I mean, you just brought me back from the dead."

"But you didn't know me. We had never even spoken. Besides, it's the first gift that's always the hardest to pay back. I wouldn't even have been here to do it if you hadn't helped me then. Why did you, anyway?"

Haymitch curses.

"She's blind, isn't she?" he wonders out loud.

"Why? You know why." She shakes her head. Peeta's, face falls just slightly, and I know what he's talking about. She doesn't believe that she really likes him. She thinks that it's part of the Games, like it is for her. Or like I think it is for her. God, this is way too confusing. I doubt that the Capitol will let them lose anyway. It'd be better for my mind if the Games just ended now before their stinking relationship drives me crazy. "Haymitch said you would take a lot of convincing."

"Haymitch? What's he got to do with it?"

"Nothing," he says quickly, way too obviously avoiding the subject. After that, they switch to things that are a lot less interesting. I start whispering to Johanna before I notice their discussing getting more heated again.

"Well, he probably used up a lot of resources helping me to knock you out," Katniss is saying.

"Yeah, about that. Don't try something like that again."

"Or what?"

"Or… or…. Just give me a minute." Several people in the room chuckle, and I find Johanna smiling.

"Got a crush, Mason?" I whisper to her, to avoid getting snapped at by Haymitch again. She slaps my arm.

"He's too soft for me. I'd say that Cato is more my type." I snort before continuing to listen to them.

"What's the problem?" Katniss asks mischievously.

"The problem is that we're both still alive. Which only reinforces the idea in your mind that you did the right thing."

"They sound like an old married couple," I mutter, low enough that Haymitch can't hear.

"I did do the right thing."

"No! Just don't, Katniss!" The muttering stops as I watch him, just because it's unbelievable to see something like this during the Hunger Games. It isn't like what I had with Arowana. Watching Peeta right now, I realize for the first time that he doesn't just have a stupid crush on her. He's in love with her. "Don't die for me. You won't be doing me any favors. All right?"

Then, to my utter shock, Katniss responds in what appears to me to be complete honesty.

"Maybe I did it for myself, Peeta, did you ever think of that? Maybe you aren't the only one who… who worries about… what it would be like if…"

"If what, Katniss?"

She hesitates, and I know that even in the moment, she can't get herself to forget about all the watching cameras. She's going to stop.

"That's exactly the kind of top Haymitch told me to steer clear of."

"That stupid little chit must have sustained more brain damage than I originally thought," Haymitch grumbled angrily, but I can see that he knows exactly why she said that, and he isn't as mad as he would have been otherwise.

"Then I'll just have to fill in the blanks myself," Peeta said, saving the moment quite nicely. Then he moves in to kiss her.

They've kissed before, but never for more than a second, and they were always horribly cheesy. But this one is different. I can see it in Katniss's eyes when Peeta pulls away.

"She's falling for him," I whisper to Johanna. "For real."

"Yeah, and after that, so am I," she says, but I know she isn't serious. When she'd called him too soft before, she was right. I couldn't imagine her with someone like him. I think Cato would be a better match. I know Peeta isn't a total cream puff, if he's still in the Games now, but she'd still eat him alive.

The next few days drag on impossibly slowly. Outside the cave, Cato and Thresh put on an impressive chase which ends in a sword fight. Like a classic swordfight that they show in movie theaters that they have in the Capitol. I will admit that it's exciting to watch, even though I'd much, much rather be seeing actors doing it than actual people. In the end, Cato, does a very impressive move where he deflects one of Thresh's blows, then spins off of it and brings the blade back through, planting it very firmly in the larger boys side. After that, he stabs him through the heart one more time, just to make sure that he's gone, and walks away.

"That is so stupid," I mutter to Johanna. "No idiot would know moves like that living in District 2." Johanna looks at me like I'm some kind of moron.

"Isn't that just a little hypocritical?" I grin at her.

"But I was one of the good guys, so it didn't matter."

Other than Thresh getting finished off, the arena is quiet. The girl form Five collects food, Cato finally gets food from Thresh's supplies. He wasn't carrying a lot, but it's better than the crap the Cato had been scrounging up. In the cave, Katniss and Peeta sleep while carrying on romantic conversations that were cute at first, but get boring very quickly. I sleep and leave the room for as long as I can before Peacekeepers come and prod me back in like an escaped head of livestock.

After getting forced back into the room one of those times, I'm shocked to see the two tributes actually out of the cave.

"What's going on?"

"They're trying to hunt," Haymitch answers.

"Trying?" Katniss answers that question for me.

"You've got to move more quietly," she tells Peeta. "Forget about Cato, you're chasing off every rabbit in a ten-mile radius."

I laugh.

"Really? Sorry, I didn't know."

"Can you walk with your boots off?"

"Here?" Johanna and Haymitch and I all laugh at the look on Peeta's face. This is part of what I meant about him being too soft for someone like Johanna. Even Katniss is starting to lose her patience with him.

Before my Games, I was spoiled compared to almost any other kid in the districts. But, I also worked harder than most of them, with a lot of that time on the old, slightly unstable boats that the Capitol provides for us. There were mice, and millions of insects, and bird droppings, and sometimes dead birds, not to mention the mold. Most of the time, like everyone in our district, I was barefoot. Obviously, by the looks on Haymitch and Johanna's faces, they didn't have shoes all the time either. And also obviously, Peeta did. Just that one little comment makes me realize that if he didn't have Katniss beside him, he'd kind of be screwed.

"He's from some merchant's family, isn't he?" Johanna asks in a tone of voice that makes it clear she doesn't appreciate people like that.

"Yeah, he is. Is there a problem with people from families like that?" I asked jokingly. She rolls her eyes.

"Of course, Finnick. You annoy me because you're helpless, and your life has been so sickeningly easy."

"Would you please quit flirting?" Haymitch snaps back at us. "That stupid redhead is getting too close to them for comfort. Katniss is right. Peeta moves like an elephant."

"I love how Haymitch seems to think that we're a couple," Johanna growls under her breath, watching at their argument continues.

"He's lost a lot of brain cells," I whisper back.

The argument has ended, and Peeta slips off his boots. I don't think that it helps at all. I wouldn't doubt it if Haymitch could stumble through the forest in his usual state and not make as much noise as Peeta was.

"Katniss," Peeta finally says. "We need to split up. I know I'm chasing away the game." At least he isn't thick, in addition with being noisy and kind of soft.

Splitting up does help them, and Katniss manages to shoot some a couple rabbits and a squirrel. I'm so busy her that I don't look at Peeta's screen, don't see the other girl sneaking up not twenty yards away from him.

"Oh shit," Haymitch curses. I immediately look, but relax when I see who it is.

"She'll just leave," I say as she grabs a handful of cheese and berries.

"I don't think-" but his words are cut off when she takes off into the forest. Katniss and Peeta start bickering, and I try to tune it out by watching the other tributes. Cato is sitting in another cave across the arena, nursing injuries that Thresh gave him. The girl from District 5 has quit running, and she looks through what she grabbed, smiling and popping a berry into her mouth.

The effect is instant. I can't look away when I watch her stumble, then collapse. Her body seems to sink in on itself, her face shriveling up and turning ghostly white in just seconds. A cannon fires. There was only one thing that could have done that. I turn back to the other screen in horror, convinced that if they collected the berries, that they'd eat them.

Peeta's pulling Katniss towards a tree, looking more than a little freaked out.

"Climb. He'll be here in a second. We'll stand a better chance fighting him from above." Because obviously he doesn't know about the berries, or he wouldn't have grabbed them.

"No, Peeta. She's your kill, not Cato's." I smile in relief. Peeta truly would be dead if it wasn't for her.

"What? I haven't even seen her since the first day. How could I have killed her?"

She holds the berries up to him for an answer.

After that, Peeta goes about apologizing profusely for the berries, which Katniss brushes off. In another one of Katniss's frequent strokes of genius, she keeps the berries, thinking that they could use them on Cato later on. Then they return to the cave.

I know that tomorrow is going to be when the confrontation happens, so I return to my room to sleep until them.

By the time I wake up, they're already on the move, heading from water source to water source, which the Gamemakers have all dried up. It's not a very original idea. They did that in my Games, too. Except in mine, it was a hazard when there were still a few tributes left. In these Games, it's to get Katniss and Peeta to go to the lake. By their conversations, they know this, but they still try anyone.

Once they've come to the quite obvious conclusion that they'll have to face Cato if they want water, they head to the lake.

It's late by the time they get there, and when I look at Cato's screen, he's heading in the same direction. I know it sounds kind of Capitol to think, but I really don't want the last fight to be in the dark, where I couldn't see anything. But that looks increasingly more likely as time goes on, Cato making his way through the forest not very quickly at all.

Then I see the first one. A shimmering red wolf-like creature with flashing green eyes jumps through the break in the trees and appears just fifteen feet away from Cato. Several more step forward to flank it. He turns around, as if sensing their presence, takes one look at the things, and starts running for his life.

Ten minutes later, he bursts into the plain by the lake, completely ignoring Katniss and Peeta and heading straight for the cornucopia.

He gets on first, shaking and sweating, but still managing to climb. Katniss would have gotten there easily, perhaps even easily enough to kill him, then come back for Peeta, but apparently that's a risk she doesn't want to take. She has to stop for her bumbling district partner and shoot down a couple of the wolves… no, not wolves. Most definitely muttations. Their eyes are too intelligent. Their eyes are… their eyes are the eyes of the tributes. Then it all clicks into place. The fur, the size, the eyes. They're all from the dead tributes.

My heart gets stuck in my throat when I see the shimmering auburn hair and blue eyes of Mia Marisco. Except now, the eyes aren't gentle. Well, obviously they aren't going to be gentle. They aren't even her eyes. But despite that, I feel a tiny little pang in my chest when Katniss hits her in the head with an arrow.

She takes down one more, then her and Peeta have enough time to scurry up the golden cornucopia as well. Cato is convulsing on the edge, probably from running over a mile at nearly full speed. I want to yell, to scream at her to just run over and push him off, because it'd be so easy, but she's not thinking about that.

"Can they climb it?" Cato mumbles, and in a moment of horrible weakness I let myself feel bad for him, because at that moment, you can see in his eyes that he isn't crazy like he was making himself out to be. He was just like the other tributes. He wanted to win so he could return to his family, and right now, he isn't even hiding his fear. No. he definitely isn't a Titus.

Then I realize that there are two other tributes who actually do mean something to me, and I focus on them instead.

The mutts continue to attack the cornucopia, using different methods until they split up and attack from the sides instead. That's when one gets Peeta's leg in it's mouth.

Some female mentor shrieks, and I'm sure that he's going to get pulled over, but he stabs it with a knife. For a moment, I'm able to feel relief, but not twenty seconds later, Cato grabs Peeta when Katniss has her back turned and puts him in a headlock.

If they were thinking straight, he'd throw him at Katniss, and either they'd both full off, or they'd be in a vulnerable enough position that he could get them off pretty easily, but instead, he starts choking him.

Katniss raises her arrow and aims it at his face, but he laughs. Now, the fear is gone, and it's much easier to hate him again.

"Shoot me and he goes down with me." She hesitates, then just stands there, deep in thought. But she doesn't have time to think. Peeta is starting to suffocate.

Then Peeta manages to raise his hand at the last second and draws an X on the back of Cato's hand, and I can't help but admit that he isn't as stupid as he seems sometimes.

Katniss realizes what he wants just before Cato does, and fires the arrow into his hand. He reflexively lets go, and Peeta slams into him, causing him to slip off the blood-slick surface. For a moment, I worry that Peeta's going to fall too, but Katniss dives forward and manages to catch him an instant before he's on the ground too.

Then, all that there's left to do is wait. I turn away from the TV and start making small talk with Johanna, not wanting to watch him die.

Only the talk continues for an hour. Then two. Then we stop and see Cato, not dead yet because of that stupid armor they'd given him. We immediately look away, not wanting to see what the mutts are going to do next and continue talking. Part of me worries about Peeta's leg, but then I see that Katniss had put a tourniquet on it, so I stop worrying about that. If he loses the leg, it'll be a small price to pay.

Five more hours pass, and I swear that they're the slowest of my life. Every second, every minutes, seems drawn out. Cato moans, and the sounds are so horrible that if I didn't know that the Games could end any moment, I wouldn't be listening.

Then, finally Cato manages to get himself towards the mouth. I cringe when I finally get a decent look at him, because he looks like a dog's old chew toy, not a human being. Bile rises in my throat when I try to imagine how horrible that pain has to be.

Peeta hands Katniss the arrow in his tourniquet and she loads it, leaning over the edge and aiming it at Cato.

"Please," Cato begs, except he doesn't say it, because his face is so bloody and eaten up that he can't even speak. Then she fires, and mercifully it lands right in between the eyes. The cannon fires, and he's dead. They won.

Only no trumpets blare.

Everyone in the room looks at one another in confusion, much like Katniss and Peeta are doing. Finally the two tributes decide that they need to move so that the Capitol can pick up the body, but I know that's not it.

A feeling of dread starts creeping across my stomach, but I hold it back. The Games are done. They have to be.

Slowly, almost painfully, the two of them make their way to the lake, Peeta's leg bleeding horribly. He's going to die if something doesn't happen soon.

Then, Claudius Templesmith's voice booms through the arena.

"Greetings to the final contestants of the Seventy-Four 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 my the odds be ever in your favor."

You have got to be kidding me.

Moans of anger and disgust build, but I shush them, because what happens next could mean the difference between a successful rebellion and death for the districts.

"If you think about it, it's not that surprising," Peeta says softly. Then he reaches for his knife, and I'm ready to call him every foul name I can think of, and Katniss raises her bow, aiming her last arrow at his heart. Then, he throws the knife into the water. With shame crossing her face, she drops the bow on the ground.

"No," he says. "Do it." He limps towards her and picks up her weapons, thrusting them back into her hands.

"I can't. I won't." I'm ready to kill the Gamemakers when this horrible dramatic music starts softly playing in the background. Johanna snorts loudly.

"Do it. Before they send those mutts back or something. I don't want to die like Cato," he says. I can see his eyes watering with tears, and for once I don't even feel like calling him a wimp for it, because I'm very close to crying myself.

"Then you shoot me," she says furiously, shoving the weapons back at him. "You shoot me and go home and live with it!" Does that mean she actually likes him, or is it fear at living in a District where you killed your partner? Or maybe a little bit of both.

"You know I can't," Peeta says, throwing the bow away. "Fine. I'll go first anyway." He leans down and takes off his bandages, sending blood spilling to the earn. Katniss is on her knees in an instant, desperately trying to plaster the blood soaked bandage back on his wound.

"Katniss," he says. "It's what I want."

"You're not leaving me here alone," she says desperately.

"Listen. We both know they have to have a victor. It can only be one of us. Please, take it. For me." Then he keeps going on, giving reasons for her to live instead, but I can't take my eyes off of her, because suddenly her eyes have lit up like they did before she blew up the supplies.

Her hands go down to the pouch at her belt where she'd stored the berries, and Peeta's eyes widen. His hand clamps onto her wrist.

"No, I won't let you."

"Trust me," she whispers. He lets go. She pours half the berries into his hand, half in hers.

"They're both going to die," Johanna whispers. I swallow. They can't do this, they can't.

"On the count of three?" Katniss asks. Peeta leans down and kisses her gently.

"The count of three."

They stand back to back, they're empty hands tightly entwined.

"Hold them out. I want everyone to see," he says. She spreads her fingers out, making the berries perfectly clear to anyone who hadn't seen them before.

"One. Two. Three."

They put the berries in their mouths, and I feel a million different emotions at once. Fear, horror, sorrow, but mostly awe. Then, the trumpets start blaring, and all of those turn into shock.

"Stop! Stop!" Templesmith cries frantically. "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 Twelve."

The room bursts into cheers, and I gape.

If I thought Katniss Everdeen was perfect before, that's nothing compared to what I'm feeling now. She doesn't even need to actually lead us. She just started a rebellion right there.

She outsmarted the Capitol.

The girl on fire is going to burn down the nation of Panem.

Okay, that is the grand finale for this story. I really, really hope that you enjoyed the entire million chapter story. I thank everyone for their amazing reviews throughout this whole thing, and if I don't hear from you all again when I start posting the sequel in a month or so, you will be punished severely. Jk, but please keep an eye out for the final installment in my Finnick trilogy, which is going to cover Catching Fire-Mockingjay.

Please review, not just for the chapter, but for the story as a whole.

Thank you so much for sticking with it for so long.