A/N: Once again, thanks for the support. :D I'm uploading this chapter now—starting with Cato's POV. Reviews are ADORED.

After lying there for a few minutes, I say, "Peeta?" ~

"Yeah?" ~

I sit up. "You probably need to sleep more than I do." ~

"Maybe." I look over at him. "But you're more useful, so you need to sleep." ~

"You're useful..." I say. He doesn't move, so I stand up and walk over to him. "Come on," I tap his shoulder, "I can handle watch from here." ~

"But I can't sleep. If they wake up..." ~

"If they wake up, I'll cover for you. Now go sleep." I point to my sleep area. "Go on, don't feel guilty. Your eyes are starting to look a little bloodshot." ~

"Fine.." I stand, before leaning down to kiss him once more. "Thank you...good night." ~

"Goodnight. Sweet dreams." I laugh. Well, I have a long night ahead of me. ~

I go and lay in his sleeping bag, and fall asleep smiling the moment my head hits the ground. ~

He wasn't kidding. Watch is boring as hell. Every few minutes, I find myself looking back to Peeta. He still has that same, stupid smile on his face. I like his smile, though. It's a good thing to see after he cried so much. As I think about the events of the night, an hour or so passes and I feel myself drifting off to sleep. I shoot up every time I notice my eyes closing, but the fifth or sixth time is too much to handle, so I just collapse into a deep sleep. ~

I usually dream when I go to bed, but I'm so exhausted from the first day in the Games that I can barely think about anything. I'm just so happy that, even though it's the end of my life, I'm finally getting those bits of happiness I never had. ~

My sleep is cut short by an intense, high-pitched, shrieking voice that can only belong to Clove. I know because she wouldn't stop talking yesterday. "What the fuck is this?"

Shit. ~

I jolt up as soon as I hear the screaming. I'm terrified of Clove, even if she is two years younger than me. She's lethal. I don't want to get on her bad side, but I think it's too late for that. I snap my eyes open. ~

"Get up! Get up!" She kicks Peeta in the side-or back, it's hard to tell.

I casually rise up from the ground and stretch. "Hey, guys." ~

I feel something hit my back hard, and yelp in pain before scrambling to my feet and looking around me. Everyone was awake. "Good..morning?" I give a weak smile, rubbing my back. ~

"Good morning!" I call over to him with a cheery tone in my voice.

"What were you doing sleeping in Cato's spot, you worthless piece of scum?" Clove says, shooting him the nastiest look. ~

"Uhm..." I swallow nervously. "Sleeping?" ~

He barely even has time to say that before she slaps him across the face, hard. "Why there? Hmm?"

"Because he fell asleep on watch." I say, hoping it would calm her down just a little bit if I intervened. "So I took over so that we wouldn't get attacked. I wasn't cold last night, so I let him have my stuff. Can't have his feet frozen if we want him to carry our shit, right?" ~

I nod quickly, taking a step away from Cato's things and Clove. "I'm sorry. I swear, it won't happen again." I glance over at Cato, my eyes expressing thanks. ~

"It better not," she says bitterly, then looks at me. "You are so brave to have given up sleep to protect the rest of us." As if right on cue, she runs over to me and clings to my arm, with Peeta and the other two watching.

"Of course," I smile, "I'm always here to save the day." When I say that, I look to Peeta. ~

At first, I become jealous when Clove goes over to cling on Cato, though I'm relieved that she's a good distance away from me. But then, I see him look at me, and I know he's doing it for me. To help me. I give a small nod in appreciation. ~

"Well, come on." She finally loosens her grip on me, which is a relief because now my arm is sweaty where she was grabbing me, and runs over to our packs. "We have a long day ahead of us."

"Right." I sigh and begin to roll up the sleeping bag that Peeta spent the night in. As I do so, I look up at him awkwardly standing there, and I smile. I told him I'd cover for him. ~

"Thank you." I whisper to him, going to pick up a few things before I get yelled at again. My face still really stings where Clove hit me, but I'll live. ~

"Um, guys?" Please, just shut up.

"What is it?" Glimmer asks.

"Did either of you eat food last night?"

The other two shake their heads while I look up at him. We ate a lot last night.

"Well, there's some missing." She rips the pack of crackers from the bag and shows that there are only a few individually wrapped snacks left. "Cato?"

I hesitate for a second, thinking of what they would do to Peeta if they knew he ate most of it. "I was hungry." ~

I stand up straight and look at Cato before sticking my hands in my pockets. All of the wrappers are still there. Shit. If they catch me, I don't know what they'll do. I give him a nervous look. ~

When Peeta sticks his hands in his pockets, one of the wrappers manages to fall to the ground. I notice them getting angry with him, so I say, "I gave him my trash."

"Bullshit!" Marvel says.

"Yeah." Clove walks over to where Peeta's standing and picks up the wrapper, examining it closely. "Cato doesn't tear things open like this, down the back. More on the one side, and he slips the food out that way. It's just neater like that." Really? Of all things, that's what she noticed? ~

"That's almost unhealthy, that you notice things like that." I manage to get out, smiling a bit and attempting to make a joke, though I know she's probably not in the mood for jokes, and definitely not with me. "Cato, you don't have to cover for me. I'm sorry guys, I just...You didn't let me eat yesterday. I may come from Twelve, but I can't just starve here." Even if it is the Hunger Games. ~

"You know what? You're right." She walks back to our camp and retrieves my sword, handing it to me. "I think you should kill him."

"A-are you sure?" I stutter, looking at him. "We can't just kill him over that...can we?"

"Yes!" She screams. "We rationed our food out perfectly so that we could go on for another day. Now we have to waste time by going back to the Cornucopia!" She angrily shoves me forward. ~

My eyes widen and I take back a step from the group of them. I know Cato doesn't want to kill me, and he said he'd cover me, right? But he also said nothing was going to get in the way of him winning this...and he also said he couldn't kill me. Oh god. ~

"Well, we can't kill him. We need him." I need him.

"Listen, sweetie. I know you don't want to carry your own things, but we can do without him." She pushes me a little bit more. "Just get it over with so we can move on."

"No!" I walk away from the two of them and over to my own bags. "I'm in charge around here, and I say we keep him for now." ~

Everyone looks shocked at his insistence on keeping me alive, including myself. But they don't object, at first. They merely go to grab their things. I don't have anything of my own, but I've been designated as the pack mule, because they were apparently impressed with my strength. So this is how they take advantage of it. ~

"Whatever, Cato. WHATEVER." Clove whines.

After they all collect their things, they dump it into Peeta's arms and onto his back. He can barely stand under the weight of everything at this point. Then, they all look at me, so I pick up one of the packs and throw it to Peeta to let them think I'm on their side. ~

The packs are already so heavy, that I can barely see a thing besides Cato through a small hole. I barely see him toss the pack before I feel the pack. It's the last bit of weight I can handle. That one bag knocks me over, forcing my head to slam into the ground and burying my head and torso beneath all of the heavy packs. As the impact hits, everything goes black. ~

Everyone laughs at how weak he seems just collapsing to the ground like that. "Come on, Cato! He'll catch up!"

"Did you see how hard he hit the ground?"

"'Oh, you can't let me starve here!'"

They continue walking away towards the direction where we came from yesterday, laughing and mocking him. When they're a little bit ahead of us, I walk over to Peeta. "Sorry about that, but you can get up now." ~

Am I dead? No, I can't be if I'm thinking to myself. I must be in some lucid, unconscious state. All there is is darkness, silence, and a warm, wet feeling near my head that had to be blood. Those jerks. ~

"Hello?" I kneel down beside him and shake him a little bit. "Peeta, they're gone. You can stop pretending." ~

I can feel it getting harder and harder to breathe because of the weight of all of the packs on top of me, but I can't move to push them off. I can't tell anyone that I'm in pain. Goddamnit. ~

Then, I notice a pool of red stuff around his head. "Fuck!" I push all the bags to the side and pick him up a little bit by the back of his head, staining my fingers with blood. "Peeta? I'm sorry! Can you hear me?" ~

At least I can breathe a bit now in a shallow sense, but my head is pounding and it's getting harder and harder to think straight. Is Cato even here anymore? Did he go with them, not realizing what happened? I can't just die here. ~

I put my hand to his chest. I can still feel a heartbeat. Or maybe it's just my hand shaking. "Peeta, I'm sorry...please don't die." Not after last night. Not on my account. Now, all my feelings are starting to come up. Maybe I like him a little more than I said I did. He said he loves me, and I said I like him, and that doesn't seem right. "Not now...come on!" ~

Why did everything get so cold all of a sudden? No, no, I can't die. I have to protect him. No matter what. Isn't that what I said I'd do? I can't get taken out this early like this. Not when there's so much more time to be had. So many things I never said or did. ~

"We have to go before they come back! They have their weapons for the most part, Peeta. That means we gotta go!" I sit him upright and hold him there, attempting to wake him up. But he still won't come to. "I...really liked you. I wanted you to win, honestly...you're the only good left in the world. We have to go, come on!" When I realize my efforts are pointless, I lay him back down and rearrange everything into only two packs instead of six. It takes a lot of squeezing and such, but I manage it. "We're going, Peeta...I'm sorry if I've killed you." I sling one pack over my shoulder, tie the other around my waist, and hoist Peeta over my other shoulder. He isn't too heavy, but then again, he's a small person. "I have you." ~

Suddenly, I feel my body get lifted into the air. I'm pretty sure I'm not dead, so this has to be a person carrying me. I hope with everything in me that it's Cato and not Marvel or someone else. ~

I start limping down the road in the opposite direction everyone else went in. I really hope he isn't in a coma or something. "Peeta, come on. Wake up. I'm sorry..." ~

All I can think about is Cato while I'm out. What we could have had, if it's him carrying me, how I'm going to lose him soon anyway... I wish, more than anything, that last part wasn't true. ~

"Goddamn it, Peeta, wake up!" I start to slow down a little bit because my shortened sleep has made me exhausted. "I don't want you to die...I really liked our time last night. It was nice, you know?" ~

I hate not being able to see or hear anything.. I feel more useless than normal. I try to speak, but just end up coughing and taste immense amounts of blood in my mouth. Ugh. ~

Then, I hear it. A noise coming from the mouth of the person I'm carrying to who-knows-where. "Peeta?" I drop the two bags and carefully lean him against a tree. "Are you up?" ~

I feel the person let go of me, and now I'm on ground. I feel woozy, and whatever was in my mouth was falling down my face now. I manage to let out a painful groan, and try to reach out to whoever is there. ~

First, I wipe the blood away from his mouth with the sleeve of my jacket. Now, my arm and back are soaked with it. I take Peeta's hands and kiss him. "Wake up." ~

Lips on mine. "Cato?" I manage to crack out of my voice. ~

"Yes, Peeta, it's me. Open your eyes." ~

"My head hurts..." I crack my eyes open and he's there.. But the light makes the pounding worse. "Ugh..." ~

"I'm sorry..." Now I'm the one who won't stop apologizing. "I think you fell on a sharp rock when I hit you." I rip a long strip of cloth from the hem of my shirt and wrap it around the back of his head. "This should stop the bleeding." ~

"Don't be sorry...I'm just clumsy and not strong enough." You could have died, Peeta. Because of your uselessness. Then he'd be alone. ~

"No, I was a douchebag. You weren't anticipating that shot." Don't blame yourself, Peeta. Please. ~

"It would've been worse if you hadn't, and they suspected something.. Don't worry about it. I'll be okay..right?" ~

"Yes. With me here, you'll be fine." ~

"I believe that..I do feel safe around you. Safer than I ever have." ~

I start cleaning the rest of the blood off of his face. "You were out for a while. You scared me." ~

"I'm sorry..." I break eye contact. "I'm here now though." I smile Weakly. ~

"What did I say about that word?" ~

A/N: So, yeah! That's that. Sorry to ya'll Clato shippers, but Pato's love is way stronger, in my opinion. So, review and lemme know what you think! xx