To Whom Evil is Done

Summary: Peeta never meant to be a killer, and he's trying to figure out when exactly that changed. Set mid-Mockingjay.

Author's Note: I don't own any characters, etc. The quote is taken from W.H. Auden's poem "September 1, 1939".

I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return

-W.H Auden-

The girl from district 8 could have been his first. She was supposed to be. When he snapped at the careers and told them, in no uncertain terms, that he would go and finish her off, Peeta meant it. He had told himself already that only Katniss would come out of this arena alive, and that meant twenty-three others, including himself, would have to die. He wasn't eager to kill, like Cato, but he could do it, he told himself.

But when he walked back to where she had set up a camp, and a fire – a lethal mistake - he recalled what he had told Katniss just the night before.

"I don't want them to change me into some sort of monster I'm not. . . "

The girl was already dying rapidly. Her labored breathing and small cries made him lose all willpower. Maybe it would be best if he killed her, to make the pain go away faster, but he didn't think he could. He didn't want to subject her to more pain, and he wasn't sure he was skilled enough with the knife to guarantee a painless end. He threw the knife aside, vowing she wouldn't be his first kill.

As he walked over, blue eyes, fighting to hold on to the world, gazed back at him. She panicked, recognizing him as one of the pack who had just attacked her. Peeta knew she probably thought he was back to make her death more gruesome and therefore more entertaining for the audience. Her hands were weak but she flailed around, trying to grab anything that could be use as some sort of defense, but her fingers came into contact with only the dirt and leaves beneath her.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Peeta said softly, almost reassuring. She shook her head. Hadn't he hurt her all ready, simply by being there when she was struck the first time? Didn't all the tributes hurt each other just by being alive? None of them were innocent, or perhaps they all were, she told herself, but it didn't really matter, because she was dying, and he was here, whole and alive but perhaps already dying himself, he just didn't know it yet. No, she couldn't believe him.

"Just do what you came for," She grounded out through her teeth, despite the pain. Maybe she could die with her last bit of dignity left intact.

Instead of attacking her, though, he sat down beside her.

"You'll be all right," Peeta said, stroking her hair, "Soon." So he knows as well as she does, she thinks, he know she's already gone. These last few minutes of life are merely a formality.

She reaches for any remaining strength as her vision starts to go blurry and stops his hand, her own dying body connecting with a healthy one.

"What do you think happens. . . when you die?" She asked. Oh, if only it had fallen for her to get a quick death, where she didn't have to travel into this unknown fear. If she had thought about it, she would have vaguely wondered how riveted the audience was at this exchange, but right now, she could care less about the Capitol or even about the games. The only thing that mattered was that she was staring at her own mortality long before any girl her age should.

"I don't know," Peeta admitted as he resumed stroking her hair, knowing it must bring comfort to die with some sort of warm or gentle gesture, "but I like to think we don't stop existing. That we go to a place without anything like these Hunger Games." Maybe it's just the foolish wish of a dying man, but he'll hold on to it. He has nothing else. And the girl, the girl from district 8, this is what she's holding on to as well, because she'll know, soon, what happens after death.

She gasps, trying to get her last few breaths as full of air as possible, and the world has gone dark around her.

"My name is Laura," She wants desperately for someone to know this, to know that she had a name and a family and that she mattered.

"I'll remember," Peeta whispered, and felt the girl – no, Laura—he reminds himself tense beneath him and then go slack as all breathing stopped.

"I'll remember," He whispered again, if only to the air, as he picked his knife back up and set out to return to Cato and the others.

Technically, Foxface was his kill, but no one – besides himself – thought of it as his. They didn't put her death down to any tribute on the official list. Still, he couldn't feel but to blame for it. His mind told him not to be too upset about this – she had to die at some point, right? She was so clever, and smart, and though he would never say it out loud, he wished she could have had a better life in her district, that she had never been reaped for these games.

Only Katniss could walk out of these games alive, he told himself. Now, Katniss and himself, because of the rule change, but in either case, there was never an option for Foxface's life.

Even if he didn't mean to kill the girl, he envelops himself in the guilt he feels because it's the only way to know he's not a monster. He won't change; he vows again, he won't walk out of this arena a cold-blooded killer. He doesn't let himself fully release his emotion, because he knows there are cameras everywhere, but he turns his back to the world for just a moment to grieve, and he wonders why after all this time he still doesn't know Foxface's real name.

The moans of agony aren't loud, but they seem deafening to Peeta because he knows what's causing them. He holds on tighter to Katniss, and she to him, and they cling for their sanity, because he knows neither one of them will be able to take much more of this. Peeta remembers how much he wanted to kill Cato, after he came back after the trackerjacker attack, and how much he pities his former enemy and fellow tribute now.

He gently tugs Katniss' last arrow from her makeshift tourniquet on his leg, and she wipes it clean.

"Make it count," he tells her. Peeta knows she understands what he's subconsciously saying, what he could never actually say because of the cameras. End it, please, because not even Cato, who tried to kill both of us more than once, deserves to die like this.

Katniss' arrow is true as always, and when he looks down at what remains of Cato, he wonders how he could ever hate him, this tribute who was just a product of his circumstances. This was all Cato had ever been trained for, to fight and kill. Only, he thought he was doing it for his district, a district that had probably already abandoned him as new teenagers trained for next year's games.

As he turns to look back at Katniss, he realizes that her face also holds no trace of a grudge, but only pity. They hold on tight to each other and wait, neither feeling safe while still in the arena, even if there are no more tributes.

Then there's the announcement that the rule changed has been revoked, and Katniss holds out the berries, and he understands. If they don't announce them both victors, then the Capitol just won't have a victor for the 74th annual hunger game.

He glances down at the same berries he collected that had inadvertently killed Foxface, and he summons all his courage as he looks at Katniss.

"One. . . "

"Two. . . " Soon. That's what he said to the girl from district 8. Now it's his turn. He hopes he was right about what he told her he hoped the afterlife, if there was one, was like.

And then Claudius Templesmith's booming voice rings out, and he's confused, but coherent enough to wash his mouth out and gaze skyward, still holding Katniss, waiting for the rescue, and for the first time, he thinks that maybe he really isn't dead after all.

He tries to take the news about the Quarter Quell in stride. After all, it's not like he ever really left the arena the first time. This life of supposed normalcy for a victor he's living now is just a part in some production he's acting out, but he feels like most of his soul, or heart, or wherever in the human body the actual person with thoughts, dreams, hopes, and fears resides, is still back in the arena, lying in the muddy bank next to the river or watching the mutts with the human eyes tear Cato to death.

He thought it would be more of the same, and in some ways it is, but it's more intensified. More brutal, more bloody, more terrifying, and all-together more evil in its execution because these games are the literal symbol of the flame of a last, dying hope of a hopeless nation being snuffed out by the Capitol.

Peeta thinks that maybe he can give the people back this hope, if he can successfully get Katniss out alive. What could symbolize hope better than Katniss Everdeen, the Girl who was on Fire, bringing new life into this world after surviving two brutal hunger games? The pregnancy's a lie, of course, but initially they wouldn't know that. She could keep it up for a few months, fake it until most of the cameras disappeared, and then she could find out she'd lost the baby somehow. A sad ending, but for those few months, she could give everyone in the districts the hope that a good life was still possible.

It's a moot point, and he knows it. Peeta knows that there's no way Katniss or him are making it out of this arena alive, no matter how much they push themselves to sacrifice for the other, because the Capitol won't allow it. To hell with it, though, he thinks. He'll go down fighting. Katniss has inspired rebellion because she is rebellion, all in human form, telling everyone the truth and making them see the Capitol for what it really is. Peeta doesn't have the same kind of fire he loves to see in Katniss so much, but he's choose his own rebellion. This, his protectiveness, his refusal to think only of his basic instinct of self-preservation, is how he rebels. He's determined to show Panem something different.

It's different this time, though. He's still determined to show the Capitol he's more than a piece in their games, that he's not a monster, but it's getting increasingly hard as he watches friends turn on each other and is fighting much harder himself.

So it doesn't really surprise him when his first kill, his first deliberate kill, comes in this terrible arena. He sees Brutus and his heart quickens a little, because Brutus, for an older man, is still fit for the games, and Peeta, between his leg and the fact that his heart's stopped once already, shouldn't really try to compete with someone like the career from district 2.

But Peeta has been training like a career too, so he puts everything he knows to use. He's able to use the knife with skill now, and it's his weapon of choice as he lunges, knowing right where to attack at the bottom of the neck, but Brutus is too swift and knocks the knife away like swatting a fly.

Keeping an eye on Brutus, Peeta rolls towards his knife, only to be blocked by Brutus once again, a knife only dangerously inches away from his face. Seeing his only opening, Peeta lunges forward again, hoping Brutus would be startled by the sudden force for just a few seconds. He is, and that's all Peeta needs to grab his knife again and thrust it towards the other tribute.

It connects, which if Peeta was being honest, surprised even him. Blood gathers around Brutus' chests, and he gasps for breath a few times, and then stops, falling backward in the sand. Peeta stares down at Brutus' blank eyes, the knife protruding from his chest. It's an elementary game of cause and effect, but Peeta's having trouble grasping the concept of his first kill.

He hears voices and he shakes his head, trying to clear his muddled mind. In a sudden motion, he pulls his knife out of Brutus and wipes it clean absent-mindedly on his shirt. And he gazes down at the body once more, and he realizes the image is forever sealed in his mind. And then he pauses, just for a moment, out of respect for the dead, because even though Brutus was cold-blooded and thrived in the game, he's still not the real enemy, and Peeta knows and remembers that even if his allies have forgotten.

He thought Brutus was his first real kill, but as he lies on the cold, stone floor in the Capitol, shaky and tormented but still alive, he's not so sure. He thinks that perhaps that title should go to Katniss instead. She had a shot of winning the 74th hunger games, really just winning the whole thing outright, and it was only because of his public confession of love that the rule change had ever occurred. If he hadn't said anything, he could have protected her from the careers silently, she could have hunted them all with her bow, and he would have died in the river, miserable and in pain but still completely himself, and she could have been a happy victor by herself with no reason to incite a rebellion. He wants to be eternally hopeful, but he's realistic enough that deep down, he no longer believes Katniss will make it out of this war alive.

He has more time than he likes, and all he can do is play the loop of events to what lead here in his mind over again, analyzing it every time and coming to the same conclusion. He tried playing the games by his own sets of rules, hoping to do so with enough skill to keep Katniss safe while still playing the Capitol's favorite well-spoken tribute, but the Capitol has managed to turn it against him in every way.

Peeta will say what President Snow wants him to say, in the hopes that perhaps the ruler will keep his promise to let Katniss go when the rebellion is pushed down, but secretly, defiantly, Peeta hopes that Katniss will be Katniss and only retaliate with even more strength.

His brain is slowly becoming more muddled day by day, under the Capitol's torture, but for now, it's still strong enough to fight with all his strength, and he resists by making the success of the rebellion his dying wish. He still wants Katniss to be safe, and to win, but he has another motive now too: vengeance. Because he sees now, for the first time, that even if he dies as himself, which doesn't seem likely anymore, he's still a piece in their games. Still a killer, just not in the way anyone imagined. Katniss has to win, has to survive, because that means he's wrong about this. Because if Katniss dies in this war, Peeta is sure that all the actions leading up to her death can be traced back to the first time he confessed his feelings for her, and his words that affected everything.