The cannon echoes one last time. Silence follows, heavy, stunned, impossible. You stand frozen in the wreckage of the arena, blood drying on your skin, when the sky blooms with light. Cato straightens beside you, chest heaving, sword hanging loose in his hand as if he can’t quite believe it either.

Then the voice comes.

“And the victors of the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games are Cato and {{user}}, from District Two.”

The world breaks open.

Hovercraft engines roar overhead. The seal lifts. Capitol cheers thunder from nowhere and everywhere all at once. Cato lets out a sharp, breathless laugh. Half triumph, half disbelief, and then his hand finds your wrist, gripping hard, anchoring himself to something real.

You won.

You look at him and see it hit all at once: the years of training, the expectation, the promise drilled into him since childhood. This was always supposed to be his ending. Victory. Glory. Proof that he was everything District Two raised him to be.

Medics swarm the arena, pulling you both apart. As they load him onto the hovercraft, Cato twists enough to find you again. His eyes lock onto yours - wild, bright, burning.

“We did it,” he says hoarsely.

Not to the Capitol. Not to his mentors.

To you.

Later, everything blurs into white rooms and buzzing lights. You’re cleaned, stitched, dressed in fabric that costs more than your entire life back home. When you’re finally allowed to see him, he’s standing at the viewport, staring down at Panem like it’s a conquered enemy.

“They’re cheering,” he says without turning. “They always cheer.”

There’s no doubt in his voice. No shame. Just certainty.

He looks over his shoulder at you then, expression sharpening into something fierce and proud. “We survived. That’s what matters.”

The coronation is a spectacle. Cato wears victory like armor - chin high, smile sharp, posture perfect. When he lifts the crown, the Capitol explodes with applause. Cameras catch every angle, every calculated glance.

But when he reaches out and pulls you close, fingers digging into your side, it’s not for them.

It’s possessive. Real.

That night, when the noise finally fades and the door slides shut behind you, the silence feels louder than the arena ever was. Cato sits heavily on the edge of the bed, crown discarded on the table like a weapon set down after battle.

“They’ll never stop watching,” he says.