A/N: I'm going to upload some chapters now. Because you deserve them and I hate seeing you all cry and as President Snow said A LITTLE HOPE IS GOOD (Starts Peeta's POV)

The buzzer scares me to death, but that has to mean I have ten minutes. I feel the braces on my wrists and ankles open, and immediately go to stand...and I feel like my legs aren't even there. I slam face first into the ground, hard. ~

"Peeta!" I'm finally free after six hours of sitting almost completely still, so it hurts to move everything, but I run to him anyway. Everybody else is gone now, so he's all mine. "Peeta, I'm right next to you. Please be okay..." ~

"...Hi." I smile weakly and feel around for his hand, trying to grab it. "I'm so broken, love." I can't see, can't stand... I'm pathetic. But he's still here. ~

He reaches out, trying to find my hand, so I take it. "You can't see anything? Not even me?" I look at our hands, stained with each other's blood. ~

"Not a thing... Only black. As if I was covering my eyes." I whisper. "I think it's what they injected into me." I pause, thinking about all of this. "Will I never get to see you again?" ~

"I think it's best that you don't." I sigh. "I took a beating while you were out." ~

"No..." I take my other hand up to feel his face softly with my own burned fingers. "Why?...I didn't want you to get hurt." My voice cracks. ~

"So that they'd stop hurting you." I pick up his head with my hands carefully, because I'm pretty sure my index fingers are broken. "I know you didn't want me to get hurt...but you needed a break." ~

"I'm going to die soon, love... That doesn't matter. I just care about you." I don't want to know what they did to him. I hate them. "We only have a little time left... I must be a sight." I smile sadly. ~

"You won't die, Peeta...I'll get you out." I don't know how I will do it, but I have to get him out. Even if it costs me my life. After all, I'm a rebel now, and they get punished with death. "I won't let you die." I bend down and give him one of the last kisses that we may ever have. ~

I smile immediately as he kisses me. "I love your optimism..." I say to him. "I can't see or walk, love. I'm sprawled here on the ground because I couldn't even get out of the chair." I let our lips meet again. "I'm going to die tomorrow." ~

"Goddamn it, Peeta, you're ruining the moment." I laugh. "You won't die tomorrow, and you won't die today. I'll think of a way...you'll get better. If you can't run, I'll carry you." ~

"Well, I hope I live to experience that." I laugh too. He's the only one who could make me laugh at a time like this. "Just... If it does happen, don't be in such denial about it that we don't get to say goodbye." ~

"But I can't say goodbye." I pull him onto my lap and stroke his head. "Well...when will you get to see me?" ~

"I wish I knew.." I don't care what there is to see. I just want to see again. "If tomorrow's the end, I want to at least see you one more time. No matter what you look like." ~

"I don't look as bad as you." I pause. "No offense." My face is probably worse than his, but overall, he looks like he was put into a meat grinder. "You're still the sexiest guy I've ever seen." ~

"We said no more lies, didn't we?" I joked. "Thank you." ~

"Your smile is still the brightest thing in this room." Maybe four or five minutes have passed, so we're officially at the halfway point. "Speaking of no more lies...there's something I need to tell you." ~

I don't know if I want to hear this or not...but I've got to. "...Okay. Shoot." I say, seemingly unfazed. ~

"I will get you out." I kiss the top of his head. "It's a promise." ~

I swallow hard. "I..Okay." I want to believe him. Especially because he knows how much promises mean to me. "I can't really hold you to it.." I laugh. "But...I hope you keep it." ~

I hope I keep it too. "I will. You're the most important thing in this room-in the entire world." I say to him. "I'm telling you this because you gave me hope." ~

"And you're giving some to me." I smile. "I...the thought of that will help me through the next six hours." ~

"Do you remember when we were talking in the arena the first night, and I said I didn't think I'd ever find love? And I thought it was pointless?" Everything's flooding back to me now, when I need to speak to him the most. "You came along and changed that. I've been so...misguided my entire life." I didn't even want to think about the next six hours for him-how it could possibly be worse than the first six, I have no idea. "And you needed that hope. With how your childhood was..." He just stares at me with a smile on his face. "It's weird seeing you looking at me...when I know you can't actually see me." ~

"I just... I just knew you were worth it. How could I love someone who wasn't capable of love? You were just stubborn." I smile. "I'm glad I made it through your walls." When he says that last part, I start to reface reality. "It...must be odd. At least I've got the general direction right. I could be smiling at a wall for all I know." ~

"Well...it's kinda directed more towards the ceiling, but you're close enough." I laugh. "You're swollen everywhere...does it hurt? Is it numb? Is there any way I can fix you within the next three minutes?" ~

I focus my gaze a little bit lower. "Better?" I smile. "It all hurts... Except my feet. They're just numb. You can kiss me. I think that would help." ~

"Are you begging?" I lean forward and kiss him anyway as to not waste our short little time together. It lasts about twenty seconds because I know how much we both need it to stay sane for as long as we can. Which might not be very long. "Better?" ~

"So much better." I feel and wrap my arms around him, wincing a bit at the pain...but it was worth it. "Please, don't let them hurt you in place of me again. Make them hurt me. They won't kill me...if we're going to escape, one of us has to be in good condition." I whisper into his ear. ~

So he does have hope. He's hoping that we'll be able to escape this place. The truth is, I really don't even know where we are. It's somewhere in the Capitol, but it's impossible for me to guess where. I can probably figure a way out, though. With my father being a Head Peacekeeper, I know more about the inner workings of the Capitol than I should. "No matter what they do to me, I'll be fine. If I think you need a break...I'll convince them to hurt me a little bit. It won't be easy, because they know I'd want that, but it could work. I was just tired of seeing you get so physically and emotionally abused when the most I ever got was a slap to the face." He shakes his head, but I persist. "Honestly, Peeta...I know you don't like that idea, but like you said, I'm stubborn. I'm not giving in to you that easily." ~

"But...if they hurt you, how are you going to carry me?" I pout jokingly. "Please don't... Please. If I ask you anything, it's this." ~

"No. I hate saying this to you, but I have to do it, okay? Not right away...but if you look exhausted, I'd do anything to get them to do it to me instead. I hate seeing you like that...and you can't even see me, so it wouldn't matter if it happened to me." I pull him in for a hug. "If I ask you anything, it's this." ~

"That's not fair." I mutter. "I asked first." I sigh. "Besides, while I was out, I have having a horrible dream...I'd rather the torture than what I had there." ~

"Is that what you were going on about? You were having a bad dream? What happened...?" ~

"I was talking out loud...?" That must've been odd, to say the least. "I..was free. And uninjured. But you were still there, locked up. I ran over to try and get you to leave with me, but you wouldn't talk to me. You wouldn't even look at me...Even when I tugged at you or yelled, you did nothing. Until around the end, when your braces fell off on their own and you..." I couldn't finish the sentence. I knew the nightmare was induced by the Capitol when that part of the dream came up. Because that was beyond a worst fear. That was an impossible horror. ~

"And I what?" I ask. "What happened at the end?" ~

"...You put a match to me." I whispered. "Then I fought all I could to wake up. Because I knew it was something horrific concocted by the Capitol. I don't know what they put in me, but it's hell." ~

"Oh my god." I carefully pull him onto my lap even more and don't let him go. "Peeta, I would never do that to you ever...remember that. No matter what shit they put in you...try to remember that. I love you." ~

"I love you, too. I know you wouldn't...I just don't want to have to see that." I whisper. "To be honest, I don't care what you look like now...I just want to see you again because that's the last image I have of you in my head." ~

"You'll see me soon. I can feel it." I think it's less than a minute now. I can hear their footsteps at the very end of the hallway. "Try to picture the real me instead. Just try it. And stay strong for me. I think they're starting to come back now. I don't know where they'll put us after this, but I know it won't be the same room, so I'll look for you. I have all night and tomorrow morning to get you out." I don't dare say that we'll make it out because I'm only concerned with Peeta escaping. ~

I nod quickly before speaking. "Now just kiss me. One last time. Until they take you away..." I smile just a little. "Now, I'm begging you." ~

I'm just glad that he begged before I had to. I kiss him for what feels like forever all over the place. The very last place I kiss him on is the lips, and this is when the doors open. For the moment, I ignore that fact and continue to make out with him, slipping tongue in here and there. I can feel everybody in the room staring at us, and several of the Peacekeepers try to get our attention by clearing their throats. Rolling my eyes, I pull away from Peeta and ruffle his hair. "I don't know if you noticed, but your blonde sex hair is starting to come back." ~

"Bet you were relieved about that." They're almost all back, but neither of us care. They'll do what they will, and us making out isn't going to change anything. If it makes the torture worse, we won't know-because we don't know what it would've been if we stopped. But I'd rather take the risk at this point. ~

"Are you two finished?" My dad says.

"Not really." I go to kiss Peeta again, but I get lifted by the back of my shirt and put back in my chair. It takes three other Peacekeepers to hold me down while the braces are locked around my ankles and wrists. "You guys don't need to be so assertive with this, geez." I look to Peeta with a smile on my face and I see them standing him up, but it takes someone else to hold him up completely. They don't put him back in the chair, though. Instead, they lay him on a table and lock his limbs to that. ~

This was not how I was before. The sudden change in position scares me. The lack of sight is really what makes it horrible. If I could see, at least this angle would allow me to see most of what's causing my pain. Now, I have no vantage point. "..Six hours?" ~

"Six hours," one of them confirms.

"Oh no..." I start, "What are you going to do to him?"

"We're going to try some new methods." My father says as he walks over to the rest of the men in the room. He's most likely asking them what they want done first. I look all over the room-at the walls, the floor, the ceiling-at least they don't have a pendulum to swing at him. Although, I still wonder what could possibly be better with him lying down. ~

A/N: See? A little hope. PLEASE REVIEW. I promise, you'll be rewarded. PROMISE. We said no lies, remember? ;D xx