Stay With Me - A Clato Hunger Games FanFic

Hope

A/N- we've fast forwarded a few scenes! Enjoy!

The wind rushes in my ears, and I can barely breathe. We can both win, we can go home. My feet leave the ground as Cato scoops me up in his muscular arms, spinning me around. We are both grinning excitedly.

Wait, I have forgotten something. You have no idea what's going on do you? Alright, let's back up a bit. Glimmer and Troian were taken out by a tracker jacker nest that Katniss dropped on us. Tracker jackers are genetically enhanced wasps that are extremely painful and cause hallucinations. Marvel, Cato and I ran for the lake, and when we reached the blessed relief the water gave, I passed out. When I awoke the next morning, Cato told me Peeta had gone. Apparently, when we got to the lake, Cato noticed that Peeta wasn't with us, so he went back after him. Upon catching him, he stabbed Peeta with what he thought was a fatal wound. He left him there I die, but no one has heard the cannon, so Peeta obviously managed to take care of it. Marvel was out a couple days later, though we are unsure how. The day of his death, when we heard his cannon, it was followed by a second. We assume he killed his killer, and that night, both he and the little girl from 11, Rue, were shown in the sky.

So now it's just Cato and I. We haven't seen another tribute in days and our sponsors seem to have forgotten about us. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention, all of our supplies got blown to bits. I have a sneaking suspicion it was a certain 'girl on fire', but it's impossible to know for sure. So basically, we're starving, miserable and unable to comfort each other. But seriously it isn't like our sponsors have been all that generous anyway, I'm about ready to give in to my desire for a hug from Cato. I really miss those strong arms around my shoulders, protecting me.

Back to the present situation, Cato is spinning me through the air. I throw my head back, laughing in the wind. We can do it! We're both getting out of here! I assume this rule was made for Katniss and Peeta, but I'll take it anyway. I look down into Cato's beautiful clear blue, bottomless eyes. Before I know it, we're locked in an intense kiss, completely ignoring the world. After what seems like an eternity, we break apart. The clouds in our heads clear and we step apart, the full impact of what we have just done hits us.

We look at each other for a minute before I back up, walking towards the fire. I take a seat facing away from the flames, towards the surrounding woods. There is a huge green lizard thing sitting a few feet away. I distract myself by using it for target practice, repeatedly lodging blades in its broad side. It has been dead for a while now, but that doesn't stop me. What have we done? We got over excited about being able to both get out, and blew our only chance of getting help to get out. Since we're alone anyway, and the secrets out now, I decide to do something else to hurt our case.

I get up and go sit next to Cato, looking him in the eye. "What are you doing?" he asks, giving me a puzzled look. "Something we should have done at the interview, before we got ourselves into this mess." With that, I throw caution to the wind and lean in and kiss him full-on. He pulls back a little, "What are we doing? We won't get any sponsors now," he says. "If you haven't noticed, we haven't had any sponsors lately anyway. Plus, there is a chance we still might not make it out of here alive. Do you really want to spend our last days pretending we aren't in love? Pretending we don't like each other? I don't," I say, wrapping up my little speech. "I love it when you get all deep," is all Cato says, leaning back in for a kiss.

A couple days later finds Cato and I sitting on a log, sharing a rabbit that Cato caught. It's the first bit of food we've had since yesterday. We are silently savoring the tough meat when a loud voice startles us. "Attention tributes! You are each in desperate need of something, and we plan to be generous hosts. There will be a feast tomorrow at dawn, where each of you will find the thing you need in a backpack with your district number on it. Think hard about refusing to show up, for some of you this will be your last chance." The voice disappears as quickly as it came. Cato and I share a glance. "Food," I say at the same time as Cato says, "Tributes." "What? We need food!" I insist. "No, we aren't completely starved yet. We need tributes. We need to kill everyone else off and get out of here. This is a free-for-all that everyone is coming to. That ginger, Katniss, Peeta and Thresh. They'll all be there, because they all need something, and we'll be waiting. Waiting to take them out," Cato seems so sure about this, I believe him. I want to so badly, this is the first time I've felt it. Truly, deeply felt it. Hope.