I've never been more relieved to see someone in my life.

I stand, lips sore, body feeling disgusting, tears steaming from my eyes, cheek stinging and heart racing, as I watch Cato's anger reach its peak.

He strides towards Jasper, and before the boy can even speak, Cato is punching him in the nose. There's a scream, and a CRACK, and then Jasper is falling and Cato is yelling and I'm collapsing.

"HOW DARE YOU TOUCH HER!" Cato screams, falling to the ground and punching Jasper again and again. "HOW DARE YOU EVEN LOOK AT HER!"

I let out a sob as Jasper screams over and over, and cover my mouth.

"Cato!" I cry, as I watch him beat up the boy who raped me, who assaulted me, who pretended to love me-

"YOU WON'T EVER HURT HER AGAIN!" Cato screams in absolute anger, face red and panting heavily. Jasper is now a bloody mess on the ground, and he will die in time.

Cato has killed him. Or as good as.

And all because of... me.

"Cato-" I sob, still on the floor. "Cato, please-"

He runs towards me, diving to the ground and taking me in his arms. I don't even know what to think but all I can register is how gentle he is, despite having just punched the hell out of a boy two seconds prior.

"Hey, I'm here, I'm here," he tells me, grabbing my hands despite his knuckles being cracked and his palms being calloused.

"I-I'm sorry," I sob, rambling now. "I- I blew up the food, and then R-Rue died, and when I got to the cave you weren't there but then I heard about the rule change and I knew I had to find you, but I found him instead, and-"

"Shhhh, shhh, it's okay," Cato murmurs. "It's okay, he can't hurt you now."

"Y-you were right," I sob into him. "You were always right, Cato, he- he raped me. He raped me when we were thirteen years old."

This hangs between us as I continue to sob. I hear Cato breathe heavily, but I don't say anything more.

"I'm sorry," he finally says, and he sounds so sincere. "I'm so, so sorry, Sage. You don't deserve that."

"B-but-" I shake my head.

"No, there's no 'but'," Cato tells me earnestly. "What he did was unacceptable, and you should've just told me about it, then I'd've killed him a lot sooner."

I finally look up at him, because I need his piercing ocean eyes to keep myself sane. He stares back at me, and I don't know what to do.

And it's in that moment that I realise what has to happen.

I want to get Cato home.

Cato wants to get me home.

And as I almost learned from Jasper, a good way to be successful at keeping someone alive is to pretend to be in love with them.

To pretend.

So, without thinking, without breathing, without even taking a second, I sit up, cup his face and kiss him.

I don't know what I expect. Maybe for him to pull back, or to push me off, but he doesn't. Instead, his hands come up to my face and he leans in, kissing me back harder.

But it isn't like Jasper. Jasper's lips were cold, and Cato's are warm. His hands are calloused, yet gentle. His whole body is a work of art, yet I'm being trusted with it.

It's not my first kiss, but it's the first kiss I have experienced willingly. I try to dissociate myself from the situation, however, because I'm don't want to enjoy it. I'm not enjoying it. I am doing this purely because I want to get Cato and I out of here alive.

When we pull apart, the way he looks at me is somewhere between awe and, well, I think love.

Good, he's caught on already.

I thought it would take longer, but clearly Cato has figured me out, because there's no way he would be looking at me like that if he wasn't acting.

"Sage..." he murmurs, eyes locked on mine. "Sage listen, I-"

I shake my head. "You don't have to say anything," I tell him, reaching for his hand and grabbing it. "We're in this together, okay? And we're going to get home."

He nods, lifting our hands up and kissing mine. Just from the way he does that, I immediately know he's going to be way better at acting this than I am.

"Come on," Cato says. "Do you think you can stand?"

I nod, but let him help me up anyways as he leads me back to the cave. My heart is hammering against my chest still, the adrenaline from the past twenty minutes still not having worn off. I'm surprised Cato doesn't comment on it as we walk, his hand rested in the small of my back, helping me as I need it.

When we arrive at the small cave, our own little sanction, Cato gently puts me down, letting my back rest against the wall. I'm not as worried now, and the adrenaline is slowly wearing off, allowing me to now realise how much my body is aching and how harshly Jasper hit me.

The cannon firing jerks my head up and I am suddenly reminded of Rue, so innocent and sweet, dying in my arms. The thought sends tears spiking into my eyes and I rapidly blink to send them away.

That was for Jasper, not Rue. You're in the cave, not the meadow. And he deserved it.

(Unlike her).

"Hey," Cato kneels down next to me. "Hey, you're with me, Sage, you're not there."

"I know," my voice is strangled and strained, and not at all like I meant it to sound. "Cato, I- I know-"

"Look at me," he raises his hand to cup my face and I look at him, a tear streaking its way down my cheek as I stare into those bright blue eyes. "Look at me, Sage, and listen."

I nod, my mouth suddenly feeling dry.

"Whatever happened with Rue was not your fault- look at me," Cato cuts himself off as my eyes stray from his. They snap back and he continues. "It wasn't your fault, Sage, I promise."

I shake my head. "Cato, I- I let her get killed, because I wasn't fast enough when Marvel got ahold of her, because I didn't let her catch up with me-"

"Sage, listen to me," Cato murmurs, and I nod. "You are not to blame. Maybe there were things you could've done differently, but I know that in that moment, you did the best you could've."

"Yeah, and that wasn't enou-"

"Maybe it wasn't," Cato says quietly. "But you can damn well guarantee that her family back home will be happy for all you did for their daughter."

I never thought about her family. I never thought about what positive thoughts Rue's family would think of me, because I was too busy thinking about the negatives.

"Thank you," I mutter, not looking directly at him.

Cato smirks slightly, reminding me of how he was when I first met him. Then he leans forwards and captures my lips with his, and he's nothing like that. I kiss back because I know I have to, my lips interlocking and moving in time with his. I shift my body closer to his, knowing that the audience in the Capitol will be eating this up, and that sponsors will perhaps be-

As if on cue, the sound of the parachutes start ringing in my ears. We break the kiss, turning our heads in sync to face the noise coming from outside the cave.

"I'll go and get it," Cato can hardly keep the smile off his face. "You stay here, Sage, lie down if you want."

He gets up, groaning slightly, before walking across the cave and out of it. At this point, I trust him enough to stay here whilst he goes and finds the gift we've got, because if I can't then my life is finished anyway.

Cato returns after about a minute, the small metal container now detached from the parachute and in his hands.

"Message for you," he says, thrusting a small rectangular card in my direction. "Clearly it was your mentors who got us this."

I nod, taking the card and turning it in my hands, looking at it interestedly.

sᴏ ʏᴏᴜ'ʀᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ɴᴇᴡ sᴛᴀʀ ᴄʀᴏssᴇᴅ ʟᴏᴠᴇʀs ɴᴏᴡ, sᴡᴇᴇᴛʜᴇᴀʀᴛ? - H & A

I deliberately do not react to this card, because I am not sure if Cato has read it or not and I certainly don't want the whole world to see it. I do, however, express an interest in the contents of the container. I gesture for Cato to hand it to me, which he does, and I open it.

"Soup," I say, opening up the small pot and feeling my taste buds light up at the smell of the steam coming off it. There's even a small spoon.

"Oh my god," Cato shakes his head disbelievingly, shuffling over to be beside me as I take the spoon from the container, handing it to him.

"Here," I say. "You, uh... you deserve it."

He smiles at me, like a real smile where his whole face lights up, and I wonder for a second whether anyone else in the world truly knows what beautiful means, because I don't know if they haven't seen this.

He takes the spoon, gingerly heaping some soup onto it before lifting it out, aiming it not towards his mouth, but mine.

I lean forward, smiling because this is what I'm supposed to be acting like. I'm supposed to be enjoying this, because I'm in love, despite the whole world being against us, and despite us being in the Hunger Games.

The soup is warm and tasty and sets my insides alight. I smile warmly as I taste it, the first proper meal I've had in days.

"Now you need to have some," I tell him, after I've swallowed down my spoonful. "You're not starving yourself just to keep me alive."

Cato chuckles. "Oh, you have no idea of the things I'd do to keep you alive."

And I know he's pretending, but he sounds so genuine. Like, we could be outside of the arena right now and he could still say it and mean it. But purely because we're in the arena, I'm taking what he says to be fiction.

But that's because I know it is.

As Cato takes a spoonful of soup for himself, I ask, my voice low. "So, what happened to you? Why didn't you meet at the cave like we were supposed to?"

I try not to think about the fact that Cato, Rue and I could have been an alliance, had my scheme gone to plan.

Cato sighs heavily and then looks straight at me. "Thresh," he tells me. "H-he clearly saw the smoke as well, and he came after me. Marvel and Glimmer vanished back to their camp as soon as they realised it was a trap, but he didn't. He decided to try and track me."

"Did- did he know-?"

"I don't think so," Cato shakes his head. "He just wanted an easy kill, that's all. I managed to hide from him, though, but I had to run away from you in order to do that."

He pushes the soup in my direction and looks down, clenching his fists.

"I can't even imagine what you thought when you got back to the cave and saw I wasn't there," he mutters angrily. "I'm sorry."

I shake my head, slowly taking the spoon, which he is holding out for me, from him, and having another mouthful of soup. I have no idea how to do this, how to comfort him. All I know is I have to, because we are making it out of here alive.

"You don't have to be," I say, putting my hand on his shoulder. "It wasn't your fault."

He looks at me, his eyes conveying love and hate and confusion and certainty, and then he leans forward, kissing me softly on my cheek.

I don't know what to say to that, so I stay silent. That silence, however, speaks a thousand words.

So we stay like that. We don't finish the soup, opting to save some of it for later, but even after we stop eating, we sit in silence.

We don't need to talk now, we just need to stay alive.

And to do that, we need to be in love.

So that night, as I fall asleep in his arms, both of our bodies slotted together within the sleeping bag, I decide that I am happy to do it. Happy to play the part. Happy to be in love with him.

Because the other option is too dangerous to even think of.