Author's Note: Well, I just really wanted to write. But I didn't know what. So I grabbed Mockingjay and flipped and skimmed and scammed and hummed and hawed until this part poked out and I was like, sure why not?

Do me a favor: I want you to be nice in your reviews and not honest.

And on a completely unrelated note, I'm starting a project, something I hope to get published and that will be discussed later.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Yet.

Evermore
(Alternately: So Long Self)

"Our next move… is to kill me."

When people are yelling it at you, hurling the words with as much force possible against your own proud barrier, trying to break through, it's jumbled. The words mesh together, crushed against the glass in a new order that makes no sense at all to you no matter how hard you try to comprehend. They can cry out all they want, but it's so much easier to block out the noise than to come to terms with what they say.

Relentless, the words that she had been brushing off of her sweet lips, sour and deadly, had made no sense before. You knew that you were afraid, that you said some things about her that you still aren't sure about their accuracy entirely, things you wish you could take back. At least until you can cipher out your life, your history that people assure you is real. But she called you the mutt.

They're the rebels. They lie through their hateful, spiteful teeth. They'll tell you anything to make you believe them.

Maybe they were right.

No; it's no longer a maybe. You're so sure about this; they were right, they were right, they were right.

They hadn't been lying, they couldn't have. You saw it, you know it's true. And it hurts.

In a totally blasé way; in the simplest terms possible: it hurts.

Well fine. No sense in letting this continue on, this… this outrage, this destructive, corrupted, incurable nature that is now yours to behold. No, your one goal now, what you will focus adamantly on for as long as you both shall live, is ending your life or, if that's not at all possible, staying as far away from Katniss as humanly possible.

It just seems that the easier route is to end it all right now. The easiest, quickest, and safest route. The struggle to stay true to who you are will be over and done with, the pressure gone from your shoulders forever. And it'll be better this way. She'll be safe; she and Gale can move on and find a new life, a new love together. Honestly, everyone wins this way.

But mostly you. Your reward is her happiness. Your prize is her safety guaranteed; both Snow and Coin are counting on you to be her end. Your peace is no longer fighting the impossible fight.

You get out clean.

The problem is, you never found your way. You never found what you had been searching for since the seventy-fourth Hunger Games. You never found a way to show them. You never found a way to stay who you are, to not be a piece in their games, to not turn into a monster. Because that's what you've become, that's all you are, that's all you have left to offer.

Just her slightest movement, her eyes focusing on you sets you off and it's a terrible struggle to swallow all the rage, the fear, the hate down into the pit of your gut. Somehow you're managing for her, but this can't go on forever. It can't possibly last.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I just murdered a member of our squad!" You try to say it reasonably but the very words send your mind into a mad frenzy, you can't ever possibly forgive yourself for this.

"You pushed him off you. You couldn't have known he would trigger the net at that exact spot." Finnick's words hold no comfort or remedy to the agony burning in your chest. You have to stop. All of you just has to stop before you really do something too terrible to live with. They'll never give you another opportunity. If you can only convince them…

"Who cares? He's dead, isn't he?" He's dead. That man, dead, because you can't keep claim over your own mind, over your actions. You're strong, you know it, but you don't lash out. That's not what you do, not what you've ever done. To anyone that you can remember. Not like that. And now that man, the only one who made the move to save her is dead because you couldn't control yourself. It's not hard to imagine a better place where they just disposed of the mutt that you've become.

They were right.

"I didn't know."

There's no better time to just tell them all, let them know, help them to understand.

"I've never seen myself like that before. Katniss is right. I'm the monster."

It helps to hear it coming out of your own mouth, like a confirmation you didn't know you had been holding back.

"I'm the mutt. I'm the one Snow has turned into a weapon!"

How can you deny your recreation when you've just witnessed it, the instant replay?

"It's not your fault, Peeta."

"You can't take me with you. It's only a matter of time before I kill someone else." They have no choice, especially if they really care about the shell of you that's been left behind. They must see that, she must see that. She will if she takes the time to consider it. "Maybe you think it's kinder," you try to make contact with each and every one of them, linger longer on her, and help them make the connection, "to just dump me somewhere. Let me take my chances. But that's the same thing as handing me over to the Capitol. Do you think you'd be doing me a favor by sending me back to Snow?"

You know you've got her now. She has to see.

You need to escape this, and she'll be free, and Snow will have no more power over her (you hope) and they can carry out their mission with less needless casualties.

"I'll kill you before that happens. I promise."

Hearing it from Gale, you fear that he'd get some sick satisfaction from the task, and for a moment you start to understand that it would be impossible not to. You 'got the girl' and, besides, now you're a monster with even more reason to be disposed of. But looking at him, you see that he's trying so hard to understand, to help you out, to shake hands and make some sort of peace.

Maybe he thinks you won't survive this anyway. Maybe he's right.

But then of course, that promise can fall through and you tell him just that. You tell him that you want a pill to do it, quick and easy.

You want this to end, you want this to just stop, you just want out. You're done trying to hamper down the beast that's been winning out at every chance it gets. You've now seen your true colors and you don't like it, don't think you can live with it, don't think you should have to.

"It's not about you."

Some strange hidden part of you, hard to recognize but not at all false like the shiny Capitol memories, hopes that she's saying it because it's about her and she doesn't want you gone, dead.

You hold to that part of you as tight as you can.