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Chapter Text

Part One: Recovery

Chapter One
There is no time inside the delirium.

I am a child, a tribute, a mentor. I'm Effie Trinket's cruel crush, and Hazelle Hawthorne's thoughtless lover. I am Katniss's poor replacement for a father, and Finnick's fallen idol. I am drunk and sober and crazy. Katniss claws my face over and over, her eyes burning with hate. Hazelle turns her back on me. I run through Effie's apartment screaming her name while her cat stares at me from under the television. Bugs swarm out of the jungle and engulf Jack Anderson in a living shroud, while Johanna is yanked into a Capitol hovercraft, screaming profanities into the night.

The hospital walls often seem to open up into District Twelve, and I walk through the fiery streets. Ed Mellark burns in the stocks, and Danny throws himself in front of a bomb in a last, futile effort at protection before being wrapped in a sheet of white flame. The shops fall in. I see my mother and Lacklen and Digger in the frantic crowds, and I see their faces in the charred cobblestones outside the bakery. Effie reaches out to me, then disappears into the smoke.

Most often, I see Peeta, ripped from our grasp by the Capitol. I see him pulling back Brutus's head and cutting his throat, the blood spilling over Chaff's body. I see Peeta backing away, covered in blood, screaming, and I see him dragged up into the Capitol craft. Other things are imagined, I know, but I believe them. I see him in a cell, bloodied and beaten. I see him cursing me, and I know I deserve it.

I don't know if all of this is withdrawal, or if I've actually gone crazy. If I have, it's long overdue. All I know for sure is that I'm in a constant nightmare, and no matter what I try, I can't seem to wake up.

Finally, moments start to come when I know where I am: a hospital ward in District Thirteen. I managed to make it half a day after the refugees arrived before the bugs started crawling out of the walls. Primrose Everdeen took one look at me in line for dinner and called for two young men from the Seam to get me down to the hospital as fast as possible. For a long while, I felt ridiculous lying in a hospital bed with an I.V. in my arm, then I passed out, and after that, the nightmare started. I don't know how long ago that was.

Twice, they've had to do something to me because of medical crises, but I don't know what they did or what happened to me to make them do it. Once, there is a great commotion nearby when a Capitol spy is found and arrested. I don't know what happens to him. Prim is sometimes there, tending the cuts on my face and asking doctors if they can't do something about the shakes. Ruth is there frequently, but she doesn't talk to me. Once, I come to the surface and see Hazelle reading a book of poetry in the chair by my bed. I think she rescued it from my house for some reason. She smiles faintly at me, then the reality goes, and the ceiling is a burning firestorm above me.

Katniss never comes. I guess I don't expect her to.

The moments of sanity get longer, start to string together like a pearl necklace, and I know the worst is passing. I am off-balance and when I get up to walk to the bathroom or clean myself, I feel like I’m on a storm-tossed ship, but my mind is back. I wish it weren't.

I sleep a lot while the last of it passes, and when I finally wake up completely, I find Ed Mellark's girl, Delly Cartwright, sitting by the bed.

"You feeling better?" she asks hopefully. She is dressed in something gray and dull, and her curls have been tamed into a braid like Katniss's. All of the girls here, if their hair isn't cropped very short, wear simple, practical styles like this. It doesn't do Delly any favors. She has the sunken look of someone who's lost a fair amount of weight quickly, and her eyes have a kind of grief-haunted look to them. But she smiles. "Mrs. Everdeen thought you'd be coming around soon," she says. "She thinks the crisis is past."

"I'm around," I say.

"Do you need anything? Other than a drink, because I can't do that."

I think about it. "Where's Katniss?" I ask. "Is she all right?"

"I hear she's getting better. She's out of the hospital and living with her family, anyway. I haven't seen her, though. She's not in school. I've just been talking to Prim."

"I didn't know you were friends."

"We made friends during the Games last year. Worrying about them together. She's been checking in on me. We're worried about Peeta now."

I close my eyes. "Me, too. Any word?"

"Not that anyone gives me," she says. "I promised Plutarch Heavensbee I'd let him know when you were in shape to talk. Are you in shape to talk to Mr. Heavensbee?"

"Very rarely," I say. "But you go ahead and get him. You don't need to look after me, Delly."

"I need to look after someone," she says. "You'll do."

But she goes off to a communication station and presses a button. I hear Plutarch's voice come back, officious and slightly prickly. "Is there news?"

"It's Delly," she says. "Haymitch Abernathy is awake."

There is a pause, then Plutarch says, "I'll be right down."

Delly gets me some water, then says, "I'm sorry about your friend Chaff. I always saw you on television with him. I just... I'm sorry he died."

"Me, too," I say. "I'm sorry about Ed. I wish I'd known him better."

"Thank you. I miss him a lot."

I try to think around this. I used to watch Ed -- along with Jonadab and Peeta -- when they were tiny, when Danny and Mir were busy. But I feel like saying that out loud would somehow be claiming an ownership on grief as deep as hers, and the truth is, I hadn't seen Ed in years before Peeta was reaped.

I'd barely seen Danny. I let them fall out of my life. What right do I have to mourn for them now?

"I should've told him not to pass messages. He wouldn't have been in the stocks. I--"

She shakes her head. "Ed was in the stocks because Rhea Squires slapped me across the face. Which she did because I told her to lay off Madge Undersee. And Madge was in trouble for throwing rocks again. Which was because... you know. It just keeps going. Ed punched Squires in the face because of me. That's what ended him up in the stocks. But it's not my fault, either. I think it was Thread's. And President Snow's."

That much, I can agree on. Absolutely none of this would have happened except for Coriolanus Snow and his sadistic need to project power.

There's nothing more to say on the subject.  

Delly gets me a cool cloth to wash my face, and we don't say anything until Plutarch arrives. He sends her away. She gives me a little parting smile as she leaves.

"Is there news about Peeta?" I ask. "Delly said she doesn't know."

"I can't imagine why she would."

"She was his brother's girl. They were friends."

Plutarch doesn't bother trying to process this. "The news isn't good," he says. "We know Peeta was taken to a studio attached to the presidential mansion the day after we destroyed the arena, but nothing has aired yet. The next morning, he was taken from the Training Center. We believe he's in a maximum security wing of the prison, along with Johanna Mason, but no one has been able to get in to see them. Well, none of ours. Apparently, Caesar Flickerman has been there several times."

"Caesar said he'd look after anyone left behind."

Plutarch looks up sharply. "You... discussed the matter with Caesar Flickerman?" he asks.

"No. Caesar guessed something was going on, and promised without any prompting."

Plutarch swears under his breath, then goes on. "At any rate, we don't know what's happening to Peeta. He was in the hospital for a few days, and he was seen on the roof of the training center -- again, in Flickerman's company -- and then he disappeared." He shakes his head, bothered by this line of conversation. "It's Katniss Everdeen I need to talk to you about. She's refusing to act as the Mockingjay."

"Did you show her Cinna's designs?"

"Cinna was adamant in his will -- a document he put in my care before the final interviews -- that she not be shown anything until she agreed to do it without knowing he was involved. Apparently, he didn't want her to feel pressured." Plutarch wrinkles his nose. "If she doesn't get in line soon, I may have to disregard his wishes. There's a lot of pressure on Fulvia and me to get the propaganda shorts filming. Thirteen took a lot of risks to rescue her, and it was on our say-so. They would have preferred to rescue Peeta. They don't realize what an impact Katniss's image has in the districts."

I frown. "Why, exactly, is Katniss not cooperating?"

He waves his hand impatiently. "She's still upset, of course, but you'd think that with Peeta in Capitol hands, she'd want to be doing everything she can!"

"Upset? How do you mean, upset?" I hear my voice getting louder. "Do you mean she's still like she was when we first got here, and you're pressuring her to shoot propos?"

"She's much better than she was. She's talking. She spends time with her friend Gale. She'd still be in the hospital if she wasn't better!" He waits, at least having the decency to look somewhat ashamed of this fairly blatant lie. Finally, he sighs. "She demanded to be allowed to go to District Twelve and see it for herself," he says. "They're out there now. She's got hovercrafts covering her from every angle. It's a huge expense, as I'm reminded on an hourly basis, and she still hasn't given us any promises. I need to get through to her."

"Good luck with that."

"You know how to reach her. You could talk to her."

I point to the healing scratches on my face. "I think she made it pretty clear what she thinks of me these days. I can't blame her."

"Then what could I say? Or Gale?"

"Gale's in on this?"

"He's assigned to Command. President Coin is impressed with him. But he says we can't pressure Katniss, too."

"There's a conspiracy talking about getting Katniss to do something, and Gale is in on it." I shake my head. "Here's hoping she's more forgiving of Gale's conspiracy than mine."

"What can we say to her?"

"Not a damned thing. She has all the facts. She'll make the call when she's ready to make it."

"Haymitch, we no longer have the luxury of waiting until you decide she's ready! The war is happening. We need a rallying point."

"Get Peeta back for her. That's the only thing that will make a difference."

But this is a dead end. I have been urging everyone who sees me to send a party to the Capitol to collect Peeta, along with Johanna Mason and Annie Cresta, since we got here. At the height of the delirium, I think I offered to go myself, since I could see them right through my walls and it wouldn't take but a minute. Thirteen's command structure has decreed a mission too costly. When I snapped that it wouldn’t be so costly if they hadn't bungled the rescue in the first place, I was met with less than an enthusiastic agreement.

So I'm not surprised when Plutarch says, "That's out of the question. We'd hoped that reconnecting with Gale would fill that need for her -- "

"You think it's just about having some boy around? That's not Katniss. She's worried about Peeta. She loves the boy."

"I realize that," Plutarch says. "If I hadn't realized it before, I certainly realized it when she continually woke up in the hospital crying for the pearl he gave her. The doctors here think she's fixating on it. They're considering taking it from her for her own good."

I narrow my eyes. "If they take that away from Katniss, I will personally --"

"Cut their damned throats?" Plutarch says wearily. "Or maybe bash in their heads? Your threats aren't making you any friends here."

"Who've I been threatening other than you and those doctors?"

"Everyone." He shakes his head. "Haymitch, you've been raving. People are under instructions not to talk about you, but they're talking anyway. You've been screaming at people not to hurt Peeta. Telling them that if Katniss doesn't get better, you'll kill them."

I don't remember doing any of this. It must have been during the height of the delirium. "That was the lack of booze talking," I tell him. "But I'm better now. And I do mean it about the pearl."

"Well, your threats are unnecessary. Finnick Odair threatened them over it, too, and they've already capitulated." He shakes his head. "You victors really need to find another way to relate to people."

"But you Gamemakers trained us so well," I say.

Plutarch looks down. "Fine, all right. That's fair. But you're not in the arena anymore."

"Then why do I feel like I'm staring at the Cornucopia?"

"Because you're drying out and it's doing nothing for your mental state," Plutarch says. He goes back to pressing for some idea to reach Katniss that doesn't involve an assault on a maximum security prison in the heart of the Capitol, and I don't have one to give him. "You're just going to have to wait for her," I tell him. "She's a kid, not a machine you can turn on and off when you feel like it. If she's not doing this of her own free will, it's not going to work anyway."

"They don't think like that here," Plutarch says carefully. "I mean, in terms of kids. Small children are expected to be obedient. Teenagers do service. Most seventeen-year-olds have work assignments after school. Katniss is having none of it. She's… willful."

"If all the kids have work assignments, what was Delly Cartwright doing here?"

"This is her work assignment. She helps cheer up patients."

With that, he heads out, muttering to himself about trying to run a psy-op without a trigger.

Half an hour after he leaves, Ruth Everdeen comes to check on me. She's cool and clinical, but in much better shape than she was when she first arrived. I ask her about Katniss. She tells me to mind my business. The Games are over, and so are my responsibilities to her daughter. She leaves it unsaid, but perfectly plain, that she considers those responsibilities to have been neglected.

During the rest of the afternoon, I get visits from various other people in Command, which is apparently my assignment once I get out of the hospital. I'll be working with Plutarch and Fulvia on the propaganda pieces, and I need to be brought up to speed. Fulvia proudly presents her scripts, and takes personal offense when I start editing them, which confuses me, since she seems to think I know something about writing. I'd have guessed that was what I was supposed to be doing.

Finnick comes to see me after Fulvia leaves, and promptly falls asleep in the visitor's chair, though he first manages to tell me more about Katniss's state of mind (severely damaged) than anyone else who's been in. He looks worse than when he got here. We need to get Annie, before he ends up in worse shape than she's in.

My pool of visitors dries up before supper, and it is strangely quiet for a long time. From another ward, I can hear the faint sounds of televisions, but they don't have one in my room, having deemed peace and quiet an important part of the recovery of drunks. I lie awake listening to the hum of it for a long time, wishing I had my books if I can't have a drink (both would be ideal). The lights fade slightly, a sign that I've learned means we're supposed to be slowing down and getting ready to sleep. I don't pay any attention to it.

There is a soft knock at the side of the door. I look up.

Hazelle Hawthorne is standing there, looking over her shoulder toward the rest of the hospital.

"Hazelle?"

She comes in quickly and sits on the side of my bed. "Someone ought to tell you," she says. "Since you aren't getting the news. I think I ought to tell you, instead of someone from Thirteen."

I frown. "Tell me what?"

"Haymitch, it's Peeta."

Panic twists through me like a wire. "What about him? Have they killed him? Is Peeta dead?"

She shakes her head. "No, Haymitch. He's... he was just on television."

"Yeah?"

"Calling a for a cease-fire. Spouting Capitol propaganda. They're calling him a traitor."

"He's a captive," I say. "We have to assume that anything he says --"

"He looks to be in good shape."

"He's still a captive."

"I know," Hazelle says, and looks over her shoulder again. "I think all of us from Twelve know. Gale says he's probably under duress, and Katniss is just glad he's alive. But not everyone is saying that. Some people are saying he should have died instead of spouting Snow's lines. That he's a traitor for not fighting."

I sit up straight. "Who in the hell is saying that? What do they know about what Snow does to people?"

"People, Haymitch." Hazelle shakes her head. "I wanted to make sure you heard it from someone who doesn't believe it before you heard it from someone who does."

I ball my hands into fists and squeeze, trying not to let anger out at Hazelle, since none of this is her fault. "Thank you," I say. "For warning me."

"He may be safer if they don't rescue him."

"I somehow doubt that."

She nods and bites her lip. "There's something else. He... " She looks down. "He said he doesn't know you and was wrong to trust you."

"Bet Katniss cheered for that," I mutter.

Hazelle shakes her head. "She's still not right, Haymitch. When she is, she'll see you did what you had to do. I did."

I chance a glance up. Hazelle hasn't talked to me, really, since the burning of Twelve. When she got here, she turned her back on me in the hangar. I saw a lot of blame in her eyes first. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry about what I did. The way I acted when we first got here. None of this is your fault. You even tried to warn me. I just couldn't handle it. I’m handling things better now." She gives me a sad, tired kind of smile. "As well as any of us can be handling it, anyway."

We sit quietly for a while, then I say, "You said Peeta looked in decent shape?"

She nods. "Physically. He did go off the wall a few times. Attacked Caesar Flickerman for suggesting that Katniss had anything to do with the break out. And he gave a rambling history lesson about the cost of war."

"But he seemed healthy."

"Yes."

"Good," I say. "I don't care if he's fetching Snow's slippers, if he's healthy enough to do it. We'll fix any other damage. It can be done once we rescue him."

"Haymitch, they're not going to launch a rescue after that."

"Like hell they won't."

"With more than half the district calling him a traitor, he'll be lucky if they don't shoot him on sight."

"Leaving the path free for Gale?" I ask. It's low, and I know it's low, but I can't stop myself this time. The business of Gale and Peeta and Katniss was always there between Hazelle and me.

"That's not fair, Haymitch," she says. "I'm not rooting for anything bad to happen to that boy! He's a nice kid."

I know it's not fair. I know Hazelle doesn't wish Peeta harm. I know I shouldn't lash out at her. "Sure is convenient for your son, though, isn't it?" I say.

She stands up and goes to the door, but stops before leaving. "For your information," she says, "Gale has been fighting with Command every day to get them to launch a rescue." She leaves.

"Hazelle!" I call. "Come on, I'm sorry!"

She doesn't come back.

I stare pointlessly at the door for a long time, then try to get to sleep. No luck. I page for a nurse and ask for a book.

"What kind of book?"

"I honestly don't care," I tell him. "If it's got words on the page and I can read them, it's fine."

He comes back a few minutes later with his gross anatomy textbook. "Finished my assignments anyway," he says. "Enjoy your light reading."

I choose a chapter on the brain and read. I don't know all the words, and can't parse all of them out by their smaller bits. I wish for my dictionary. But I keep reading until they turn the lights out and I can't see the page anymore. I put it on my night stand and lean back onto the pillows. Sleep doesn't come for a long time, and when it does, it's haunted by images of Peeta in the Capitol. I don't wake up rested.

Breakfast comes and goes. I find I can deal with District Thirteen food better if I don't pay attention to it. I read about the spinal cord and the respiratory system.

Ruth Everdeen comes in to check my vitals just before noon. She seems to be clenching her teeth against saying something. I grab her wrist before she leaves, and we look at each other for a long time.

Finally, she says, "Katniss is going to do what you people want. I hope you're happy." She pulls away and leaves.

I am not surprised to get a visit from Command an hour later. I am surprised to see that it includes Alma Coin, the president of District Thirteen, and she does not look pleased. Not that I've ever actually seen her look pleased, but she looks more displeased than usual.

"I heard Katniss agreed to be the Mockingjay," I say.

One of her staff, a commander named Boggs, raises an eyebrow. "Word travels fast."

Coin, her lips pressed together firmly and her arms crossed, steps forward, "The Mockingjay is meant to support the rebellion."

"What does that mean?" I ask.

"She's given... conditions."

"Seems fair," I say.

"Does it." Coin sits down in the visitor's chair. "Tell me, Soldier Abernathy, after everything that's been done for her, how you consider it fair that she adds conditions for paying it back."

"First, I'm no one's soldier," I tell her. "Second, Katniss never asked for any of the things that have been done for her. She doesn't even know most of them. You never did anything for her. You did it for the Rebellion. The Rebellion is grateful. Katniss doesn't have any reason to be."

"She's demanding concessions be made publicly."

"Makes sense."

I can almost hear Coin's teeth grinding as she struggles not to say something that she'll regret. "Soldier Abernathy," she says, "we cannot afford a Mockingjay who thinks she's negotiating a job contract. If she isn't devoted to the cause -- "

"She's devoted to the cause," I say. "I doubt there's anyone in Panem who wants to overthrow the Capitol more than Katniss does."

"There is more to winning a war than hating Coriolanus Snow."

"Maybe so. But it helps."

"We need her under control. That's why you'll be present when she starts filming the propaganda pieces. No one else has been able to control her."

"I haven't controlled her, either."

"You were her mentor in the arena. You got her to do what she needed to do to win. Plutarch Heavensbee is certainly under the impression that you were able to convey to her the need to drug the Mellark boy --"

"She was looking for a way to save him, and I suggested one." I sit up and turn around so I’m sitting on the edge of my bed and facing her. "Katniss understands what I tell her. That's all there is to it. We speak the same language."

"Then speak it, Soldier Abernathy."

"She's not listening to me anymore."

"Find a way to make her listen." Coin leans forward. "People are putting their lives on the line to get the districts of Panem out of the clutches of the Capitol. We can't afford for soldiers to put their personal interests ahead of the interests of the war effort. And it is not helpful to anyone for me to capitulate to the whims of a teenage girl."

"Making an honest deal with someone who has something you want isn't capitulating," I tell her. "It's paying a fair price. What's she asking for, anyway?"

"Among other things, she wants to control our law enforcement."

"She wants amnesty for Peeta Mellark," Boggs explains. "He did a propo --"

"I've heard about it. You know that was under duress."

"It doesn't matter," Coin says. "The damage he could do is immeasurable. People will not be happy with a decision not to punish him. But she's holding the war effort hostage on his behalf."

"And the others," Boggs says. "If they're forced to participate."

"She shouldn't have had to force that issue," I say. "If we'd pulled Peeta out earlier -- " A sharp look from Coin tells me that this will not be a useful approach. "Try telling people that you want to be fair to a kid who's being tortured by Snow."

"I don't need your advice on dealing with my own people," Coin says, standing up. "Just get her to behave. I have a speech to prepare." She starts to leave, beckoning Boggs, but stops at the end of my bed. "I think I have these memorized. These are the great issues that your Mockingjay is holding over us."

She throws a sheet of paper to me, on which someone has typed out Katniss's demands.

Amnesty for the captured victors. Hunting time with Gale.

And a home for her family's cat.

"That's my girl," I say, folding the paper up. "Nice job, sweetheart."

Chapter Text

Chapter Two
Though Katniss's demands included a declaration of immunity for the captured victors in front of all of District Thirteen, I am still not invited for the actual declaration. This is declared a medical exception. It's also not broadcast into my room, since, again, I have no video screens. It occurs to me that Katniss may have intentionally disinvited me, but I decide that's probably not true. It's not her style.

Finnick comes down immediately afterward and says, "Katniss saved Annie, too." He smiles broadly, like a proud big brother, bragging about his sister's great negotiating skills. "Coin said her name specifically."

"That's great," I say. "Did they mention a rescue?"

He shakes his head, deflating. "No. Same as it's been. And I think…" He sighs. "I'm pretty sure the deal is off if Katniss's propos don't work.

"I had the impression Coin wasn't thrilled about the deal."

"I think she's used to people obeying her without conditions." He seems troubled for a minute, but pushes it away. "She looks better. Katniss, I mean. After she went to Twelve. It's like someone woke her up. Maybe you should go."

I imagine the dust and the bodies and the ghosts, and I shake my head firmly. "They wouldn't let me, anyway."

"You should send someone for your things. Snow's had people in and out. They took things."

I hid the important things in places no one knows about, and, as long as they don't decide to burn Victors' Village after all, they should be safe. The easy hiding places, like the hidden cubbies under the floor, have enough contraband in them that Snow will think he's hit the jackpot. I'd like to get my parents' quilt and my dictionary and Mimi's statue, but at the same time, I don't want them to be here. I don't think anyone would understand them here.

Finnick gives up whatever scheme he has to get me to Twelve. He gives up easily these days. Instead, he tells me about Mags's house, and the way she liked to dance on the beach. Then he falls asleep in the visitor's chair. I pull the blanket off my bed and toss it over him. They come in to escort him back to his bed before dinner. I ask if he can stay and eat with me, but for some reason, this time, they say no.

Just before lights out, two doctors come in with an orderly I've only met once before -- when he slipped me an illegal detox pill to put off the shakes until the rescue crafts got back from Twelve. I don't know why he's here, and half expect him to turn me in for that pill, but instead, he smiles affably and says, "Doctors say you're ready to live out of the hospital."

"Great. I'll pack my things."

"Not by yourself," one of the doctors announces. "You are still in recovery."

"Which is where I come in," the orderly says. He extends his hand. "Luzon Dalton," he says. "I'm imported from District Ten. They reckon I've been enjoying my solitary splendor long enough, and there's room in my place."

"Much obliged," I say, though the idea of sharing housing with anyone, let alone a complete stranger, isn't my idea of freedom. "Haymitch Abernathy."

"You're expected to check in daily," the other doctor says. "It will be encoded on your schedule, and if you fail to check in, you may be re-admitted."

They begin a long list of forbidden activities. I nod a lot and try not to laugh, since behind them, Luzon Dalton is mimicking them with exaggerated expressions. Every time one of them turns enough to see him, he arranges his face in a pleasant grin.

They finally let me go, and issue me a few sets of the gray clothes everyone else wears, along with soap and a razor and an instruction to shave daily. Apparently, "rakish" is not a valid style choice in District Thirteen. The idea of cutting my hair very short is brought up, but I pretend not to hear it. There's also an envelope marked "Abernathy -- Personal Effects," though I have no idea what's in it. I wasn't even wearing any jewelry when I left the Capitol.

Dalton leads the way down one of Thirteen's bland corridors to a bland door, behind which is a bland little one-room apartment. There is a television, a pair of dressers, and two bunks. The bathroom is off to the side. Hanging on the wall, given pride of place above the television, is a large, truly awful painting of a cow in a pasture. The perspective is off, and it looks like it's about to tumble down into the room. Dalton goes to the side of the room that looks occupied and sits down at a desk, on which he's placed a white hat with a wide brim. "Reckon you'll want something of Twelve here," he says. "I could paint you a coal mine, if you tell me what one looks like."

"I don't need a coal mine," I say. I think about my home, and the beautiful painting Peeta did of me with Katniss. That's about the only piece of art I want, and it's completely out of reach. So I tip an invisible glass to the giant cow painting and say, "I'll just learn to love Ten."

"I paint during Reflection. I had to get special permits for luxury equipment, but the doctors said it's part of my recovery."

"Recovery?"

"We have a few of the same demons, as you might have guessed from the interaction we never had involving a pill that you absolutely didn't take since I never would have given it to you."

"Gotcha."

He shrugs. "You get used to it after a while. You don't stop wanting the stuff, but you learn to tell yourself that it's not coming, so you may as well get on with things."

"Thanks," I say. I put my gray clothes in the drawers of the empty dresser, then look curiously at the personal effects envelope. "What happened to my clothes?" I ask, opening the envelope.

"Oh, they take that sort of thing down to Command, in case someone needs to go out under cover." He nods at the envelope. "Your friend Hazelle rescued that stuff from the pockets. Had herself a good eye-roll at it, too."

Curiously, I slide a stack of photographs out of the envelope. The top one shows a girl in a sparkly headdress marching in a parade. The next shows the same girl at a school ceremony, wearing a fancy hat and a dress with lit-up buttons. The next shows her standing with me (I look very drunk and very grumpy) in a room in the Viewing Center.

Effie Trinket.

I remember scooping a handful of pictures up off of her floor when I went to her apartment, meaning to rescue her and failing miserably. I don't know why I took them. I didn't even look at them then, and haven't thought about them since. I wasn't thinking about anything other than her absence, and the mess they'd made of her apartment, and that she was being held by Snow's people. That I hadn't gotten there in time. That she'd kissed me and I wanted her and I'd let Snow destroy her the same as I let him destroy everyone else.

I go through them more slowly, looking at her through the years. Some of the pictures I snagged are formal portraits. Others are more candid. There is one of her at the shore of the Capitol lake, holding on a long blue wig against the wind with one hand and laughing. I took this one. She was trying to prove that there was something worth seeing in the Capitol. It was the day she kissed me and I laughed at her.

I look up and find Dalton watching me, the goofy country-boy face replaced by a thoughtful and intelligent one. "Your lady?" he asks.

I shake my head. "Effie's my friend." I look through the pictures again. "She's irritating as hell, really. I tried to get her out, but I was too late. Of course I was late. Effie's the one who keeps me on time for things. She used to say that if she wasn't with me when I died, I'd be late for my funeral. She was probably right." I put the pictures in a drawer.

Dalton takes a picture out of his own drawer and shows it to me. It's a plain woman in blue jeans and a chambray shirt. "My wife," he says. "Also irritating as hell."

"What happened to her?" I ask.

He shrugs. "Nothing, as far as I know. She finally got sick of me crawling home drunk, and kicked me out. Which prompted me to drink more, and call the feed master some nasty names. My son told me he heard in school that they had it in for me, so I slipped the fence and went on the run. After packing up the important things, of course."

"The booze?"

"Well, I couldn't very well afford the DTs out in the wilderness, could I?" He smirks, and I realize that he actually does know this song. "Three weeks out, I hit on the train tracks. A rebel from District Six hid me until I got to Twelve" -- he looks up sharply, apparently thinking that the mention of Twelve will start me screaming. "Um, sorry."

"It's okay. You had to have gone through there to get here."

"Yeah. Anyway, they dumped me in the woods and told me to follow the broken tracks north. I was out of booze when I got here. There never seems to be enough, does there?"

I smile in recognition. Once you really get started, the concept of enough becomes a joke.

"Anyway," Dalton says, "I was completely raving by then."

"And they introduced you to the fascinating world of hospital janitorial services?"

"I did animal husbandry back in Ten. It's no worse than being up to my elbow in a cow's private parts." He shrugs. "They did ask me to go back into husbandry. Had me looking at a huge genetic information bank."

"But you didn't stick with it?"

"Not when I found out it was the genetic bank of the human population here."

"What?"

"Oh, they're not trying to create a master race or anything. No one's being forced into anything. They're just trying to get up to viable levels of fertile people, because frankly, they're in a death spiral. I was telling your girl Katniss about it last week -- they lost a lot of their population in a viral outbreak, and a lot of the ones left are infertile. That's why they're so glad to have newcomers. As a genetic scientist, I get it. If we were talking about cattle, I'd be leading the charge. But I can't bring myself to treat people like breeding stock."

"What did they want you to do?"

"Mostly create file tags to indicate reproductively useful people with no genetic abnormalities. There was some talk about setting up matchmaking, which never went anywhere. Mostly, it's about who gets approved for married quarters, who gets to use the jugs --"

"The jugs?"

Dalton laughs. "Conjugal visit rooms. The young fellows call them the jugs. I mean, come on, these apartments for non-marrieds aren't exactly conducive to fooling around, unless you happen to be fooling around with the person you bunk with, I guess. You're not my cup of tea, personally, but I suspect a few of the young roommates out there might be sharing more than space. I reckon Coin will get testy about that eventually, with population levels dropping, but for now, they ignore it."

I nod awkwardly, and think about Jack's husband, Linden, out in Seven. He's got a good head on his shoulders, and I hope he was smart enough -- and in his right mind enough after what happened in the arena -- to get out of Victors' Village before Snow's people showed up. Or maybe he was watching from town or the loggers' camps; it must have been pretty empty out there to watch alone. "You're not really my type, either," I say.

Dalton smiles. "At any rate, there are rooms up on the fourth level that you can sign up for, but only if there's a chance of a baby and if the people are stable and healthy enough to be parents. Though, trust me, people find ways around it."

"How do they… know?"

"You have to be on an approved list to sign up. If you want to be on the list, you get tested at the hospital to make sure everything's working like it's supposed to." He grins. "They test regular patients routinely. You passed, if you're interested, though I'd guess Coin would want to weed out that pesky drinking problem if she could afford to."

"Great." I do not want to think too carefully about this subject. Something else he said snags in my mind, and I take it gratefully. "You said you talked to Katniss?"

"Yeah. She's a nice kid."

"How is she? Really?"

"She's in shock. She's had to absorb a lot, and she's worried as hell about that boy she loves. I think she thinks it's her fault what Snow did to Twelve."

"She's going to have to get in line there," I say. "There are quite a few of us ahead of her."

"Hey," Dalton says. "That line starts and ends with Snow."

I don't bother arguing. "Finnick thinks she's seriously damaged."

Dalton sighs. "I'd still have her in the hospital if it were up to me. Maybe talking to one of those head doctors. We have one who got here from the Capitol. But I don't think she's broken. I found her hiding out in a storage room when I went to get supplies."

"Hiding?"

"A perfectly sane activity sometimes, if you ask me," he says. "She's got people yakking at her from every direction. I think she just needs time to get her head straight. I saw her in her Games. She's a tough girl. Maybe not as tough as she thought, but still tough. I respect her. We talked about Thirteen. She sees it pretty clearly, which is more than I can say for some of the people who aren't considered unstable."

I consider asking who he thinks isn't seeing things clearly, then decide to have a look for myself without any preconceptions. We talk a little bit more before lights-out, then he goes to sleep. He snores like some kind of mutt engineered to shake a house down, and I stay awake for a long time after, looking up into the near absolute darkness (a set of tiny lights marks the base of the bathroom door). I try to remember my way through one of my books to keep my mind active, but once I've read the things, they become singular experiences, and all of their events seem to happen at once… meaning that it doesn't take long to remember a whole one. Mostly, I think about the people I left behind. I think of Peeta. I think of Jo.

But for the first time, I really think of Effie, and I wish she were here with me. She would be utterly shocked by the things Dalton has said, and I imagine her wide, startled eyes at the notion of the jugs, or who was deemed worthy to make use of them. I imagine telling her that I "qualify," and how she'd blush and roll her eyes, nervous and exasperated at the same time. Why did I tell Dalton that she just irritates me? It's not like he didn't see right through me. It's habit, I guess.

And it's not like we were together, not beyond a couple of kisses.

Finally, I fall asleep. It feels very late, since it's been dark so long, but I have a feeling it's probably still earlier than I habitually go to bed.

Dalton wakes me up at six-thirty, and teaches me to stick my arm in a contraption that tattoos the day's schedule on it. I promptly name the contraption "Effie," and stick one of the stuffy formal pictures of her under the lip of a screw that holds it to the wall. Wall-Effie tells me that after my shower and breakfast, I'm to report to Command for the next several hours, only taking a break at lunchtime for my daily check-in at the hospital. Dalton helps me figure how to get there, since I can't tell one gray hallway from another yet.

When I get to Command, I find Fulvia and Plutarch, who I expected, with Finnick, who I didn't. Commander Boggs is there as well, looking more relaxed than the last few times I've seen him. To my surprise, Gale Hawthorne is present, though he keeps checking his schedule and the clock.

"I have training," he says. "I can't stay all day. How long does prep take? They've already been down there twenty minutes!"

I laugh. "Oh, you really haven't been paying attention to the Games. They might have decided what they're going to do by now. I wouldn’t expect her to be out for a while."

"Especially with quite a lot of arena damage to repair," Fulvia says. "Her hair was damaged by the acid fog," she explains to me, looking reproachfully at Plutarch. "And her skin is not in good condition."

"Her preps know what they're doing," Plutarch says. "And hopefully, they're still able to do it."

"What does that mean?" I ask.

Plutarch shakes his head and waves it off to Fulvia, who tells me that the preps were caught stealing bread and were punished for it.

"We found them chained to a wall," Gale says. "It was a little extreme. But Katniss and Plutarch took care of it."

I have no idea what to say to this. I've gotten the impression that Thirteen is strict, but chaining people to the wall over stolen bread seems, as Gale put it, extreme. I look at Plutarch. "What the hell have you been doing?"

"I didn't know about it," he says. "As soon as I found out, I did something."

"Didn't anyone check on them?" I look at Fulvia, who arranged their abduction from the Capitol. "Did you even talk to them after you got them here?"

"Plutarch and I have been involved in important war duties," she says. "I was told they had been settled. They weren't interested in talking to me."

"Katniss was pretty upset," Gale says.

"I don't doubt it."

He frowns. "I really don't understand it. They worked for the Games. Not as secret rebels like Plutarch or Cinna. They actually worked for them."

I have a feeling that Gale tried this conversation with Katniss and got an earful of things that made no sense to him. He's never been in the Games. I think about trying to explain it -- trying to express what it means that there are people there trying to help you, that they can be kind, and that kindness means everything when you think you're about to die -- but I can see that he doesn't want an argument. He wants me to say that she's obviously crazy. I remember Hazelle saying, about Effie, that she was never going to like someone who called on two kids to die every year. As if nothing else could matter.

I say, "Let her decide who she's going to get upset over," and leave it at that. People who haven't been there are never going to understand it, anyway.

Ten minutes later, Gale grumbles and heads off to training. Once he's gone, Plutarch and Fulvia pull up a program with renderings of the propaganda piece they mean to film today. In them, Katniss is wearing Cinna's armor and walking through a smoky battle.

"And she'll turn here," Fulvia says, pulling up the last picture, "and she'll say our line." She smiles giddily, obviously pleased with herself.

"Line?"

"It's carefully crafted to include everything she represents -- bravery, the fight against hunger, the fight for justice, an address directly to the people. It'll be carved in stone someday."

I look at the script she hands me. The line, centered and highlighted, is People of Panem, we fight, we dare, we end our hunger for justice!

It's even worse than the scripts she tried to hand me earlier. "You're kidding, right?" I say.

She bristles. "What do you mean?"

"Who would say this? When have you ever heard Katniss Everdeen talk like this?"

"I will have you know," she says, "that experts have analyzed the imagery surrounding Katniss Everdeen. They have isolated the themes that she represents to people. Those themes are the very essence of the poetry, both verbal and visual!"

I don't know which annoys me more -- that they're putting this garbage in the mouth of a seventeen-year-old who would never say it, or that Fulvia has the gall to call it poetry. I accept that we have to do propaganda. The Capitol has had seventy-five years to set up its narrative, and we have a few weeks to break it. But to call it poetry is an insult to every real poet I've ever read.

Plutarch apparently senses that I'm about to insult Fulvia, who looks on the brink of tears at my response already, and says, "Now, Haymitch, you know how it is with scripts. They always look empty until the actors are there. You'll see. It'll be amazing." He gives me a pointed sort of glare, and I close my mouth for the remainder of the presentation.

Once we've finished, I have a look around the set. Boggs comes with me. He seemed disgusted by me when I first met him, but now he's behaving normally. Maybe he's fine with me sober. Or maybe I was already starting to get paranoid before.

"You think they're right?" he asks, gesturing around the set.

"The experts certainly seem to think so," I say.

"Guess I’m no expert," Boggs tells me. "This isn't really what I had in mind when I was thinking about that mockingjay."

"What were you thinking about?"

"That little girl Rue. How Katniss sang to her." He shrugs. "I have a daughter. I just kept thinking, that child could be her. And if she had been, I'd have wanted someone like Katniss to be with her at the end. Someone who cared."

"They didn't show it, but Katniss actually covered her in flowers," I say.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And then Peeta painted it during his evaluation to rub the judges' noses in it."

"You're worried about him, aren't you?"

"I'd be kind of crazy not to be. Snow's got him."

"Did you see his interview last night?"

"No, but I heard enough about it. You don't really think that was spontaneous, do you?"

Boggs thinks about it. "There were a lot of hints that we should think it."

"What do you mean?"

"They let him talk about how awful it was in the arena. What it's like to be a tribute, and have to kill people. He said it destroys everything you are."

"Melodramatic, but not wrong."

"The point is, if he was allowed to say something like that, he did have some freedom."

I think about it, then shake my head. "That would make it look more sincere. Which is probably why he was allowed to do it. Make it sound like he had some freedom, and suddenly the rest of it seems more real. If I had to make a guess, I'd say something like that was Caesar's idea. He's almost as good at playing a narrative out as Peeta is, and he wants to make sure the Games end."

This obviously confuses Boggs. I don't care. I am thinking about what he said, about what Katniss meant to him personally. I wonder what everyone else -- other than Fulvia's experts -- would say.

At lunchtime, I go back up to the hospital to have my blood checked so they can make sure I haven't used the last few hours to invent a still and get drunk, possibly on distilled watery oatmeal. Ruth Everdeen does the test.

"I’m sorry I snapped at you," she says coolly. "You were handy."

"It's okay."

"What are they doing with my daughter?"

"It's complicated," I tell her. "And possibly kind of stupid. But we're all there watching out for her."

She looks over her shoulder, then whispers, "What are they going to do about Peeta?"

"Well, Katniss protected him from any punishment… at least from us."

"Can't they rescue him?" She bites her lip. "I don't know what to make of him with Katniss, but he's Dannel's son. He's all that's left of a man I used to love quite a lot. No one listens when I say that he's a good boy. They're all angry at him."

I close my eyes and think of Danny, burning in the night. "I know."

"You'll do what you can for him, too, won't you?"

"Every single thing there is, plus anything else I think of."

She nods and retrieves my test results. I am negative for alcohol and any other drugs they think I may have somehow found. She marks this on my chart. I ask if I get a special gold star for it. I don't, but if I get enough accumulated checkmarks, I will be qualified to live on my own. Dalton arrives in time to hear this, and pretends to be deeply offended as he gets me down to a small dining hall on our level for lunch.

He pushes his stew around. "Your stomach strong enough to handle this stuff?"

"Here's hoping," I say.

I manage to choke the whole bowl down, but I'm still feeling queasy when I get back to the studio in Command. I spend the first hour of the afternoon huddled up in the back of the production booth, trying to hold it down. At some point, Katniss is brought up from her own lunch. I go to the window and look at her. It's the first time I've seen her close up since the hovercraft, when she scratched my face and blamed me for Peeta's captivity. She is thinner than she was, and her face has taken on a hollow sort of look that makes the bird armor look somewhat alarming. They've made her up heavily, and put a bandage over the place on her arm where Johanna dug out her tracker. She's carrying a shiny black bow.

I don't know why Coin thinks she needs me to control her. She's compliant to a fault as they prod and paint her, set her up with strange lighting, set off smoke bombs around her, and pose her like a shop window mannequin. Fulvia and Plutarch walk around her repeatedly, like carrion birds contemplating a particularly tasty bit of offal. She doesn't even glare at them. Coin's threat to negate their deal if she steps out of line has clearly been effective. This is the girl who dutifully memorized the Capitol's canned speech on the Victory Tour. Unfortunately, she has about the same level of passion for her performance here.

I amuse myself while they film her by trying to imagine what I'd send her if she were in the arena. Something decent to eat might perk her up, but wouldn't really get that passion out of her. What she really needs is something to direct her anger at. Getting nebulously angry isn't her style, any more than being sentimental and mawkish over her love life is. She needs something concrete.

They watch some proofs of her down on the floor. I see her staring at the odd looking creature on screen. There's no real recognition in her eyes.

When she reads her script, I see her wince at the line she'll need to say, but as they set up the cameras around her, she mutters it under her breath until she has it committed to memory. I watch the monitors around me as they turn up the smoke and flip on a fan to simulate a windy day. Fulvia and Plutarch don't come back to the booth.

Katniss stands up stiffly, pretending (per Fulvia's instructions) that she's just lost a comrade in arms. She looks nothing like Katniss Everdeen after having lost someone. For one thing, she's not trying to kill anyone or screaming or making a gesture of respect to the body, possibly because they neglected to have one on set. She just makes a face like she has a mildly upset stomach, clenches her fists, and says, "People of Panem, we fight, we dare, we end our hunger for justice!"

Fulvia holds her hands to her heart, transported with ecstasy. No one else on set looks transported by anything. The shaven-headed director looks irritated. One of the cameramen yawns and sits down.

I go to the microphone on the control panel, which I haven't been given permission to use, and turn it on. "And that, my friends," I say, "is how a revolution dies."

Katniss turns around and looks up at the booth, her face a study in shock. Apparently no one told her I was here.

And apparently, she still hates me.

Chapter Text

Chapter Three
Katniss storms out of the studio as soon as she hears my voice, which doesn't endear me to anyone else. Fulvia is already furious at me for discounting her writing skills. Plutarch and the crew are annoyed at me for throwing off the schedule. Finnick, at least, doesn't much care, but that's because he's been sleeping all day anyway.

I am excused from my heavy schedule here in the production booth and sent down about a million staircases to talk to Beetee, who is clearly supposed to make me feel guilty for disrupting the proceedings, as he has been working on her special weaponry from his wheelchair. Beetee doesn't cooperate, if this is, in fact, the plan. He just gives me a hearty greeting.

Gale Hawthorne is with him. They're working with several bow designs, and seem to be pretty well at ease with each other. I've always had a vague notion that Gale was smart -- Hazelle said so, and he does have that look about him -- but I haven't spent enough time with him to have a real sense of it. The fact that Beetee is working with him easily and respectfully is the first proof I've seen… and the only proof I really need.

"They wanted her to say what?" Gale asks when I tell him the line.

I repeat it.

He grins. "Did she manage to resist saying it in a Capitol accent?"

"Barely," I say.

"Then she's a step ahead of me. I definitely couldn't have kept from cracking up."

"So, anyway, I managed to annoy Command on my first day out of the hospital."

"Oh, you annoyed them long before that," Beetee assures me. "I've had an earful about not arming you."

"What, I don't get a magical knife?"

This leads into some desultory joking about what kind of properties a magical knife might have, then Gale steers things back to Katniss. "She's about as scared as I've seen her," he says. "She has no idea what they want from her."

"They have no idea what they want from her," I point out. "I don't think there's one of them in that room that understands why people believed in Katniss in the first place. Katniss least of all. She --" I stop talking, as my head is suddenly buzzing, my mind grasping at the various pieces I've left lying around in my skull.

"You okay?" Gale asks nervously.

"Let him be," Beetee says. "The brain is kicking in, isn't it?"

I nod and close my eyes.

The problem isn't just that Fulvia's line is awkward and Plutarch's concept is ridiculous. It's not even that Katniss can't act to save her life, and can barely act to save anyone else's. She only got away with her occasional moments of performance in the Games because people were predisposed to like her after she volunteered for Prim. Between that act and Peeta's devotion to her, they were willing to believe her stilted girl-in-love act, which often looked stilted even after it stopped being an act. The Capitol fell in love with the girl who volunteered for her sister; the districts fell in love with the one who held up the berries.

Both of those things were just Katniss being Katniss. The people watching understood that. They don't want to see her making a commercial to sell the rebellion like a fancy new car.

They want to see her being a rebel. Like she was when she volunteered. Like she was with the berries. They were inspired by her courage and her sacrifice. It made them feel like they wanted to live up to that image. No one's going to want to live up to a slogan-spouting snake-oil salesgirl. Even if she performed a great line perfectly, it wouldn't be what the Mockingjay represents… or what Katniss Everdeen wants to be.

She needs to go out into the field. It's the only way. I know without needing to ask her that she'll go along with it, that she'll even be enthusiastic about it. That's who she is.

"The problem's everyone else," I say.

Beetee raises his eyebrows. "Anything you want to share with the class?"

I take a deep breath and explain my thoughts as well as I can, not looking at them until I finish. I'm not sure how they'll react. It's all solid, but I am talking about throwing a traumatized seventeen-year-old girl into a war zone in order to make videos of her.

When I look up, Beetee is a little green. He just got out of the arena; he knows perfectly well that this is a Gamemaker's move.

Gale looks resigned. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, that's the right way. But she's not going without me. You get me in there. I'll watch her back."

"So, will you convince Command?" I ask him.

Beetee shakes his head. "You will," he says to me.

"Me? Why would they listen to me? Even Plutarch won't."

"Yes he will." Beetee puts down a screwdriver and carefully sets down the black bow he's working on. "Gale, will you excuse us for a moment?"

"I -- "

"Haymitch will be in touch with you shortly. But I need to speak to him privately."

Gale nods and leaves, though he looks frustrated.

"What's that about?" I ask.

"He'll argue." Beetee wheels around the table and points to a chair, indicating that I should sit down. When I do, he leans forward. "Command doesn't like you or trust you," he says. "But they believe that you have an almost magical understanding of Katniss. Compared to anyone else in this compound they are, in a manner of speaking, right. That's why they were eager to get you through your rehabilitation. They'll never admit it in so many words, but they believe -- just as Plutarch does -- that if she's a puppet, you're the one who knows how to move her strings."

"That's nuts. For one thing, Katniss isn't a puppet. For another, Gale's known her longer -- "

" -- but he hasn't known her better. Which is why I assume he would start arguing this point, since he thinks himself in love with her." He considers this. "Well, maybe he is. I'm not well versed in the area. But at any rate, he considers himself an expert on her, but you need to take the lead. He's a smart young man, but he's inexperienced with politicians, and will be too deferential, even if he agrees with your position."

"And what do you think I can do?"

He smiles. "As always, anything you decide needs to be done." He picks up his screwdriver again. "Go somewhere and let your brain work. I have an office over there." He nods toward the opposite wall. "You'll come up with something."

He starts tinkering ostentatiously with a bow, and I take the hint to retreat to his office. I always thought his workspace would be meticulously neat, but it isn't. Sloppy sketches of ideas are strewn over a gray metal desk, and three different computers are running different programs while he works outside. The door to a supply cabinet is open, and I can see boxes of pencils and clips shoved around at skewed angles, probably because he was in there fishing for something he didn't find right away.

I sit down at the desk and put my hand over my eyes, so I can concentrate. Normally, I let things like this come to me on their own, but I don't have time any more than Plutarch does. If Katniss doesn't succeed in getting the rebellion rallied, we'll lose our momentum.

And Coin will decide she's useless, and negate her bargain, even though none of this is Katniss's fault, and she's trying as hard as it's possible for anyone to try.

It's just that the approach is going nowhere.

Ideally, I should convince Plutarch and Fulvia, since the propos are their baby, but they think they have all the answers, and will be hardest to convince. I think my real target is Alma Coin, which isn't a cheerful thought. I don't think it will take more than a single viewing of this morning's horrible shoot to convince her that Plutarch's idea isn't going to work, so it's really just a question of convincing her that it's worth the risk to try mine.

This is how you take care of your kids? a voice in my head pipes up. I've made it Danny's voice, but I think that's because I miss him, and because I feel guilty about Peeta. And Ed and Jonadab. And Danny himself. But it's just me. You trick them and lie to them, and put them in mortal danger for the sake of some high-blown cause?

I dig my short fingernails in the skin of my face to force that away, not because it's not true, but because it is. I know I'm a bastard, and if I ever had a soul, it's long-since sold in my war on Snow. All I can do right now is make the sale worth it for everyone, including the kids. The only way I can do that is to get this war won.

They have to remember who she is, and why people wanted to follow her. She has to remember. I have to make sure that she keeps her soul, because it's her soul that matters, both to her, and to the rebellion.

The idea I finally come up with is only half-baked, but experience tells me not to tinker with it. I'll need to make adjustments as I go anyway.

I spend the rest of the afternoon going around District Thirteen, talking to the people I know who've spoken to me about Katniss, getting more names from them. I find Katniss's preps first, and apologize to them for their captivity, then ask them if they still love Katniss. They do. They'll help. Dalton will help. Delly Cartwright is tied up with her hospital work during the days when she's not at school, but she suggests that I speak to her foster sister, Leevy Cooley, who was Katniss's neighbor. Leevy is amenable to the project. Greasy Sae is eager to talk about her, and Finnick can't seem to stop himself from giving me a soliloquy on the spot about how she defended Peeta, and understands about Annie, and kept shooting the jabberjays long after he gave up. With some trepidation, I bring the subject up with Boggs at dinner and find him quite willing to help out. Once I get my string of performers ready, I go for the audience: Plutarch and Fulvia, Coin, a group of lackeys from the government.

Great. We manage to break the arena, commit high treason, and start a war, and I still have to convince the head Gamemaker to give my tribute a break.

And of course, the most important audience member of all: Katniss.

Unfortunately, Wall-Effie can't get everyone's schedules to mesh until lunchtime, so we spend the next morning going through the same useless motions. Plutarch and Fulvia won't let me on the floor, for fear of "upsetting" Katniss, and she's so determined to follow their every direction -- mostly to spite me today, I think -- that she looks like a life-sized posable doll being handled by a pair of overexcited little girls.

I go to the conference room a few minutes early. No one is there. People in Thirteen don't have the luxury of wandering into places on their own time. I set up chairs and set up the video they've been shooting down the hall. I don't think that will leave much of an argument.

Ruth Everdeen will most likely try to kill me over the idea I plan to sell today, but I don't think Katniss will run it by her. She hasn't run anything by Ruth for years.

Gale arrives first, coming in from some kind of physical training. He's sweaty and still a little overactive. He glances at the screen where I'm watching the videos and starts to say, "Who is--" Then his eyes widen and he wrinkles his nose. "We need to fix that."

"Yeah."

"Tell me what you need me to say."

"Just tell the truth."

He nods and sits down, then gets up and goes to another chair. He doesn't settle.

Alma Coin and her little security entourage appear next, then Katniss's preps. After that, I lose track of who's coming in when. Dalton gives me a nod and asks how I'm doing, but gets swept away with the crowd before I answer. Katniss arrives last, and doesn't look at me.

I take a deep breath and imagine Effie getting me prettified for a sponsor meeting, then say, "Thanks for coming, everyone. A lot of you have heard that Katniss will be serving as the Mockingjay, to rally the districts. But I think we might need to re-think how we're approaching it. I'd like to show all of you what we shot this morning."

I start the video. Before Katniss has even reached her line, I see people squirming, and when she actually says it, Boggs winces. Even Plutarch and Fulvia aren't deluded enough to look pleased, though I am close enough to them to hear Fulvia whisper, "It's not fair. We haven't had a chance to rehearse."

I let it run its course, then turn it off and say, "All right. Would anyone like to argue that this is of use to us in winning the war?" I don't really wait for answers. Katniss looks mortified. Everyone else just seems uncomfortable. When this has sunk in, I challenge each person to tell me one moment when Katniss moved them -- by herself, not with Peeta's help, not with Cinna's, not with Rue's. Not because of her skill with a bow, or because she's beautiful. None of those things matter in the end.

The first person to speak is Leevy Cooley. She brings up the first thing that everyone in Panem knew about Katniss: that she volunteered in her sister's place, assuming it was a death sentence.

That's it. It's everything, in a nutshell. The first real rebellion. She didn't put her own safety above all, and that, in Snow's Panem, is the most seditious act possible. If people aren't acting in their immediate self-interest, making decisions based on fear, then everything else falls apart. Everything that happened later grew from this act, and she hasn't been reminded of it enough. Somewhere, she's forgotten who she is, and that, of all of her actions, is the one she needs to remember.

"Good," I say. "Excellent example." I take out a bright marker and write it down, large enough for Katniss to see across the table, though this kind of wastefulness gets me bitter looks from a few citizens of Thirteen. I leave it at an angle where she can see it.

Other people come forward, their confessions in varying degrees of scriptedness. Octavia the manicurist is terrified of the company she's in -- and I can't blame her, given that I can still see the sores on her arms -- but she manages to pipe up and mention Katniss drugging Peeta to save him before shrinking back into the shadows. That took some guts, and I respect her for it.

As each person comes forward, I glance at Coin now and then, but her face is blank. Mostly, I watch Katniss trying to process all of it. I don't care about the stories myself. I know them all. I prodded most of the participants into sharing them. Katniss doesn't know them. As Peeta said, she has no idea the effect she has on people. But as she listens, I watch her face change. The wax-figure compliance she had this morning starts to disappear, replaced by signs of the real girl underneath. By the time Venia gathers her courage and says that she was most moved "when she stood up for us, against people who wanted to hurt us" -- glaring defiantly at the guards from Thirteen, though they aren't looking at her -- Katniss seems fully awake for the first time since she said goodbye to Peeta in the arena.

After about half an hour, I hold up my hand and say, "So the question is, what do all of these have in common?"

"They were Katniss's," Gale says, looking coldly at Fulvia and Plutarch. "No one told her what to do or say."

"Unscripted, yes!" Beetee agrees, maybe a little quickly, too on point, but it gets us down to brass tacks. He pats her hand. "So we should just leave you alone, right?"

Most of the room laughs. I don't. I look at Plutarch, who seems to be piecing together what I'm saying. He should. He's done it in the Games for years.

Fulvia, on the other hand, is not getting it at all. Willfully not getting it, I'd guess -- an unscripted Mockingjay is a Mockingjay she doesn't control. "Well, that's all very nice, but not very helpful. Unfortunately, her opportunities for being wonderful are rather limited here in Thirteen. So unless you're suggesting we toss her into the middle of combat -- "

"That's exactly what I'm suggesting," I say. "Put her out in the field and just keep the cameras rolling."

There is stunned silence, into which Gale speaks. "But people think she's pregnant."

It's a calculated statement, and not one we discussed. He has a vested interest in breaking down Peeta's narrative. It's also a good point. Peeta's gambit was a good one in the service of the Capitol rebellion (a part of me really wants to know what's been going on in the streets of the Capitol as they process all of this), but now that she's going to the front lines, it's a little inconvenient. A girl who voluntarily goes into combat while carrying a baby becomes less sympathetic to the general audience, especially with Peeta captured and speaking for the other side.

Plutarch chimes in, suggesting that we spread it around that she miscarried. Snow won't be fooled, and if people outside this room ever hear it, she'll be in trouble. But it's the best we can do.

People protest vehemently, but Katniss isn't one of them. In fact, when Boggs points out that they can't guarantee her safety, she makes her position clear. "I want to go," she says. "I'm no help to the rebels here."

"And if you die?" Coin asks, unconcerned.

"Make sure you get some footage," Katniss tells her. "You can use that, anyway."

It's a perfectly Katniss thing to say, and I am glad to hear it. I'm ready to start going over possibilities, start talking about where we can best place her strategically, when Coin co-opts my meeting and announces that, as long as we're doing this, she can head out to Eight this afternoon. They were bombed this morning. It should be safe by now.

I had meant to wait until she had a little bit of training, maybe one dry run, but the whole thing is decided before I catch my balance from the sudden usurpation of any kind of authority I had. I don't even get a chance to tell them to include Gale, though he behaves as though there is no question on the matter. Coin asks for further ideas.

Dalton says to wash the makeup off of Katniss's face.

I decide that he's my friend.

I ask to speak to Katniss alone. It will be the first time since before the Quell that I've had a chance to do so. Gale almost doesn't let me, but I remind him that Katniss can take care of herself.

I look at her. She is glaring at me. Somewhere between us, there's a cold, empty space where Peeta belongs. I made her a promise. I broke it. I let Peeta be taken, and we both know that something is being done to him if he's spouting Capitol propaganda on television. "We're going to have to work together again," I say. "So, go ahead. Just say it."

She says it: "I can't believe you didn't rescue Peeta."

"I know," I say. I wait to see what she needs me to do. An apology hardly seems sufficient, and if I tell her that I tried, that I actually went into the arena -- that I was, in fact, the last one out of the arena -- then it will sound like a justification.

We stand silently. She looks at me expectantly for a long time, then finally says, "Now you say it."

It takes a minute, but it finally hits me: She assumes I blame her. I said something like that while she was clawing me. I haven't thought of it since. She has. She wants me to say it again. She needs to be blamed. She needs to feel like she had some kind of control. I understand this absolutely, and I say, "I can't believe you let him out of your sight that night."

She nods solemnly. We each know the other couldn't have done anything differently. We both know that we ourselves couldn't have done anything differently. The space between us remains, but it isn't as chillingly cold. I remind her that we are still in the Game -- all of us, Peeta included -- and I am still her mentor. She needs to do as I say in combat.

I don't have much hope of this as she heads away to get ready.

I'm instructed to go back to my quarters for a change of clothes. Now, along with the normal casual outfit for Thirteen, I have a high-necked military uniform. Dalton comes in just as I finish putting it on and gives me a sarcastic salute.

"That didn't take long," he says.

I tug at the neck. "I never knew why military people wanted to strangle their soldiers."

"Discourages talking back." He flops down onto his bunk. "Is that what you wanted to do? Put her in battle?"

"Eventually," I say. "I wasn't thinking it would be this afternoon."

"Yeah, well. Alma Coin doesn't believe in procrastination."

"I noticed."

"How are you doing?"

"Booze-wise? Are you going to ask me that every time we come in?"

"Yeah. It's a condition for you being out of the hospital. So you may as well have your answer ready."

"Haven't thought about it all morning. Until you brought it up."

"So you're a downtime drinker."

"Huh?"

"You get bored, you pick up the bottle. You're busy with anything, no worries, even if it's crazed."

"Well, there's no time to get drunk when I'm busy."

"Stay busy."

I snort. "Now you sound like Effie. She's always telling me I need a hobby. She suggested wood-carving once."

He raises an eyebrow. "She's got a lot of functions in your life, doesn't she?"

"None of the ones you're thinking of."

"I wasn't thinking of any of them. But if she says you need a hobby, and I say you need a hobby, and you know you need a hobby, maybe you ought to have one."

"My hobby is overthrowing the Capitol."

"Maybe something a little less ambitious and more spare time consuming."

"I read," I say. "Fiction and poetry, mostly. Not that I have much worth reading here. Anyone have a good stash of old books?"

"Who do you like?"

"I'm not picky. Just no one who's been published by the government of Panem since the Dark Days. They don't have to actually be banned, but it's a plus."

He nods. "I'll see what I can find while you're gone. I'm afraid they'll have recycled most of the paper ones, and they have pretty tight control over the digital versions. Will you share, if I dig some up?"

"Sure." I pull uselessly at my collar again, give it up as a bad job, and leave.

I meet Plutarch and Fulvia in the lifts, and Plutarch guides us around a maze of pathways.

"I suppose this is a reasonable idea," Fulvia says bitterly. "But with Peeta saying the things he's saying, maybe we really ought to consider how we're portraying Gale. We could say she was forced into the charade with Peeta, and -- "

"Don't try it," I tell her. "I mean that. The whole situation is complicated enough."

"Oh, I wouldn't force it," she says. "But if she were more associated in the public mind with a fellow rebel..."

"And if Snow decides to show that to Peeta?" I ask.

She looks confused by such minor worries, but Plutarch reminds her, again, that the audience is invested in Katniss's love for Peeta, and it would be a much bigger problem for her to seem fickle.

Fulvia apparently doesn't take this as a directive, because when we settle into the hovercraft, I can see her trying to force Gale and Katniss together. I can't hear them, but Boggs, who came down with them, manages to break the tension. Katniss smiles.

We strap in and head for Eight. On the way, Plutarch fills Katniss in on the state of the war, and brings up his crazy idea of re-instating a republic. I've read the same books he has, and the rhetoric is always soaring and uplifting. I've also read other books, books he deems useless because they are about things that never happened to people who never existed. But these books were written by people who were there, and I know that there was never the utopia he imagines. The People -- Plutarch's fetish -- are no more reliable than any tyrant that's ever lived.

Then, just as we're landing, Plutarch pulls out a vial of purple pills, and tells Katniss to kill herself before she gets captured. There's even a little pocket on the suit for one.

After she disembarks with her camera crew and bodyguards, I pull him aside. "Suicide pills?"

"We can't afford for anyone to be captured, least of all the Mockingjay."

"If she's captured, we can rescue her. Or is the no-rescue rule for everyone?"

"Haymitch, what do you think the Capitol will do to that girl if they get their hands on her? Rescue or no rescue, they'll make her wish she was dead."

"She can wish all she wants. As long as she's alive, she can heal."

Plutarch sighs. "Somehow, that's less than convincing from a man who's been trying to poison himself for twenty-five years. And don't tell me it's all been accidental."

"That's different."

He looks at me for a long time, then says, "She'll be okay, Haymitch. We have no reason to believe that the Capitol will get anywhere near her. She has a lot of people protecting her."

"So did Peeta."

"And do you imagine he's glad to be alive right now?"

"No. But I imagine that a day might come when he will be."

There's nothing else to say. Katniss goes to a makeshift hospital where the morning's wounded are gathered. I can tell by her voice in my ear that she's panicking, and the young woman who's commanding the troops here doesn't help when she looks down her nose at Katniss.

"That's Baize Paylor," Plutarch says. "She's been on the front lines since the uprisings started last year. Cecelia got me in to see her before the Quell. Smart girl. I wish she'd be a little more impressed with Katniss, though. It doesn't make for good footage if the local commander isn't enthusiastic."

"It doesn't help Katniss much, either," I say.

Plutarch nods. We watch nervously for the first few minutes, as Katniss takes tentative steps into the hospital. She seems stiff and nervous, and I wonder for a moment if I've done the right thing.

Then patients begin to recognize her, come to her, beg her to talk to them and touch them and prove that she's alive. She responds to it. It's nothing I've seen from her before. I expect righteous anger from her. I expect extreme grief. But this kind of reaching out to people in pain...

It's Peeta, I realize. I've seen him do exactly this in District Twelve, going among the starving. Katniss has taken this part of him into herself, made it part of her soul, and the result is remarkable. I don't coach her at all. I don't need to. Shy, defensive Katniss Everdeen is allowing complete strangers to touch her, to love her. Whatever the cameras are catching will be more subversive to Snow's reign of terror than anything they could have done in a studio.

When she leaves, Boggs and Gale both assure her she did well.

The light in the hovercraft suddenly goes red.

"Incoming bombers!" a soldier calls over the intercom. "Incoming bombers, recall surface troops!"

As he speaks, I see Boggs responding to the order, pulling Katniss and Gale along with him.

I grab my speaker and press for Command. "Do they know she's here?"

"Negative," someone in Thirteen tells me. "No chatter. It seems to be unrelated. The Capitol must have been planning a second bombing all along."

The Capitol bombers appear in formation and begin to batter the street below.

"Katniss!" I yell, then realize that my microphone is still tuned to the Command desk. I switch it.

Katniss runs, but the pressure from a nearby blast throws her into a building. Something is sticking out of her leg, but I can't see it before Boggs dives over her, shielding her from flying debris.

"We have to get her," I say.

"We can't land during the bombing," Plutarch says. "There's no safe place. I'll find a place for her to hide. You tell her to make sure no one sees her."

I gulp in air as the first wave of bombers passes, and I see Katniss get out from under Boggs.

"Katniss!" I say.

She staggers to her feet. "Yes? What? Yes, I'm here."

I try to force my voice under control. I need her to not panic. "Listen to me. We can't land during the bombing, but it's imperative that you're not spotted."

"So they don't know I'm here?" she asks, and I can hear in her voice that she's already worked out how many of the dead she will blame herself for.

"Intelligence thinks no," I tell her. "That this raid was already scheduled." Something catches in my brain. Something I can't afford to think about.

Plutarch finds a warehouse for them to hide in and orders all of them to it. Here, for the first time in a long while, I respect him. This isn't one of his woolly-headed propos. This is a leader who knows damned well what he's doing.

The second wave of bombers comes in, and our craft has to engage in evasive maneuvers to avoid being detected. I can't see for a minute, and when I do, all I can glimpse is Gale Hawthorne's back as he shelters Katniss from another series of explosions.

When it dies down, Gale asks if she's alright, and she answers that no one has seen her and no one is following, which doesn't answer the question.

"They've targeted something else," Gale says.

"I know," Katniss says. "But there's nothing back there but -- "

They look at each other. I look at Plutarch.

The only thing to bomb is the hospital.

Plutarch doesn't need any explanation of human behavior this time. He just needs to short-circuit it. "Not your problem," he says. "Get to the bunker."

"But there's nothing there but the wounded!" Katniss cries.

I know what she means to do. I know it because there's nothing else she can do, not as long as she really is Katniss Everdeen. "Katniss," I say. "Don't you even think about--"

And that's when she rips out her earpiece, leaving me alone with a screeching whistle in my ear.

Chapter Text

Chapter Four
"Katniss!" I yell uselessly. "Dammit!"

"What's she doing?" Plutarch whispers urgently.

I look at the monitor, where she's climbing up the side of a building toward Baize Paylor's team of sharpshooters. "She's joining the fight." I look around quickly. "Did anyone hear me yell just now?"

"I don't think so, not with all this going on."

I grind my teeth. This was the only thing Katniss could have done, and it's what we should have given orders for in the first place. It's the only decent thing to do. But if she looks out of control, her deal falls apart. Coin will start by taking her cat and end up executing Peeta. "She's following orders," I tell Plutarch quietly. "She's doing exactly what we want her to do. She's going right up front. Being wonderful, as Fulvia would put it."

Plutarch stares at me, then the full implications hit him. He pushes a series of buttons that give him access to everyone's earpieces. "We have engaged the Mockingjay in battle," he says, though I doubt anyone on her team is fooled. "Give her cover if you can. And fight the bombers, like she is." He turns the microphone off and looks at me. "She can't do that again, Haymitch. You need to control her."

"I told Coin, I don't control Katniss. I talk to Katniss. She understands me. She doesn't always agree with me."

He leans forward and hisses, "This is not the arena, Haymitch. It's not 'anything goes' down there. She's not just responsible for surviving, or getting Peeta out of something. When she goes off script, it puts strategies in danger that she doesn't even know about, and it's likely to cost lives."

"I know. But Plutarch, this is her. This is your Mockingjay. This is the Katniss Everdeen that people believe in. If you wanted a dress-up doll, you picked the wrong girl."

He nods.

When I look back, I see that we now have a viewpoint from behind a ventilation pipe on top of a factory. I can see Katniss's film crew as they try to get out of each other's way. Finally, they get two clear shots, one on Katniss and the other on Gale. The two of them are shooting fire-tipped arrows at camouflaged Capitol bombers. The bombers can only be seen when they break the camouflage to drop bombs, so no one has an easy target.

Katniss and Gale don't do any less than the guns from the District Eight rebels, but that's not saying much. A cold corner of my brain tells me that this will be unbeatable footage for the propo.

Katniss raises her bow and fires at a hovercraft. The arrow hits it cleanly, sending out a plume of flame. The craft wobbles, and suddenly, the electronic camouflage wavers. It doesn't seem to be able to get the cloaking back on.

"Shielding is vulnerable," Plutarch says calmly into his microphone. "Hits to the skin will keep them where we can see them."

I start to tell Katniss she's doing a good job, but her earpiece is out. I switch to Gale. "Did you see them lose their shielding?" I ask.

"Read you," Gale says. He levels his bow at another plane.

"Keep her covered," I tell him.

"Every day," he says.

After that, it would be crazy to keep talking to him in the middle of a battle. A second wave comes, and Gale and Katniss switch over to Beetee's explosive-tipped arrows. These are far beyond anything Paylor's guns are doing; they're the equivalent of small ground-to-air missiles. Katniss takes out the lead plane, and Gale takes out another. A third wave appears, and three more planes go down. The guns manage to take out another, then the wave stops.

The silence drifts below us like smoke.

"Clear!" a voice says into everyone's ears, and Paylor repeats it to her crew. They all straighten up and look out at the wreckage.

"Did they hit the hospital?" Katniss asks.

Paylor nods. She's not miked, so I can only hear her faintly from Katniss's microphone: "Must have."

The film crew emerges from behind the air duct, and Katniss is obviously surprised by them. I doubt it occurred to her that she was being filmed.

They start down from the building.

Plutarch switches back to general broadcast. "That's it," he tells everyone. "We're getting everyone out. The medical cargo transport can pick up the" -- he grinds his teeth -- "the survivors at the emergency rendezvous point."

"Survivors?" I repeat.

"Our medics were in the hospital," he says. Something flashes and he turns a dial. "No, Cressida, it's too dangerous -- yes -- well, I -- the fires are still burning -- Snow's running it live on the Capitol feed --"

Katniss reaches street level, and her microphone picks up Cressida's side of the conversation. "I don't care, Plutarch! Just give me five more minutes!"

Katniss doesn't wait to see what Plutarch tells Cressida. She just sees that someone else has our attention (well, Plutarch's, anyway), and bolts off into the blown-apart streets before anyone has a chance to order her back.

Gale follows her to the site of the hospital, now a burning crater. It reminds me of a poem by Abrianna Fabbri that I read in school. It was from the Catastrophe era, about the Santorini eruption: "Inferno Arriva" -- hell arrives. I don't remember the whole poem, but I do remember that the poet looks down a hovercraft at the burning sea, at the dying figures swimming in it, and says,

In agony they stretch their bony hands
to heaven's final, deadly retribution.
Condemned for sins they never contemplated,
they cry in vain for wretched absolution.

My teacher said the verse was about unconsidered sin, the crimes of thoughtlessness that catch up to us, but I know now as I look down at the hospital, at the flame-ringed people struggling beneath the burning roof, that it wasn't about their sins at all. They are innocents, caught in the crossfire of the gods, while I stand by, doing nothing, like always.

They cease their struggles as I watch, and fade into the raging flames.

I think of Danny, throwing himself in front of a bomb.

"Gale," I say, forcing my voice to be even, "we have a hovercraft. Get out of there."

He can't get Katniss to move. She's transfixed by the flames, trying to understand why the Capitol would do such a thing. Gale comes up with some strategic reasons, which don't seem to settle on Katniss much more than they settle on me.

They bombed the hospital because it's what they do, the same way Katniss ran in because it's what she does. The way I watch from the sidelines, because it's what I do.

While they talk, Plutarch, horrified, flips a screen up from the command table. President Snow is claiming that the bombing of innocents was a message to the districts. Plutarch speaks to Cressida again. "Do we have enough? Can we make an answer for him quickly? I'll... I'll come up with something to say back in Thirteen. We can't leave it unanswered..."

Katniss turns away slowly, heading back for her film crew, and that's when it happens.

Cressida steps forward. Plutarch keeps asking her what she's doing, but she doesn't answer him. She just goes to Katniss and says, "President Snow has just had them air the bombing live. Then he made an appearance to say that this was his way of sending a message to the rebels. What about you? Would you like to tell the rebels anything?"

"Yes," Katniss whispers.

Then she erases any notion of what Plutarch might have written.

"I want to tell the rebels that I'm alive," she says, and I can see her coming back to life even as she says it. "That I'm right here in District Eight, where the Capitol has just bombed a hospital full of unarmed men, women, and children. There will be no survivors."

Across the table, Plutarch is watching her, wide-eyed. I may be a little wide-eyed myself. There's nothing here I didn't know, but Katniss has always been so much more about action than words. That's why she let Peeta do the talking. But now, as in the hospital, she's finding that part of him inside her own heart… though Peeta never channeled rage, not like this. The creature I'm seeing now isn't just Katniss, or just Katniss pretending to be Peeta.

The creature down there, in front of the cameras, is the Mockingjay.

It's what I wanted, and it's terrifying.

What are you doing to this girl? I ask myself, not bothering to conjure anyone else's voice. What have you already done?

She steps forward, burning in the smoky afternoon. "I want to tell people that if you think for one second the Capitol will treat us fairly if there's a cease-fire, you're deluding yourself. Because you know who they are, and you know what they do. This is what they do!" She points at the hospital. "And we must fight back! President Snow says he's sending us a message? Well, I have one for him. You can torture us and bomb us and burn our cities to the ground, but do you see that?" She thrusts her arm back at the wreckage of the bombers. "Fire is catching," she says. "And if we burn, you burn with us!"

There is silence in the hovercraft. I look up and see the crew standing in front of the broadcast screen, dumbfounded.

Plutarch looks at me. "Haymitch, when it comes to Katniss, I will not doubt your judgment again."

"Then get her out of there," I say, as she collapses from the wound in her leg. Plutarch gives the order (again).

I've gotten what I wanted. The Mockingjay is singing, as beautifully as I always knew she could. But at the moment, all I can see is Boggs carrying her small, limp body to the medical cargo ship, and I hate everything I've done.

Plutarch and I don't speak on the way back to Eight. It has been a long day, filled with too many things. When we land, I can't really process that the sun is still up.

The wounded are taken to the hospital, where the staff is reeling from the loss of the medics. Coin is going among them, promising vengeance. She ignores me altogether, which I'm glad of. I can follow Katniss as far as the treatment room, then she's swept away. A distracted doctor tells me that the wound isn't severe, and she probably just passed out from stress.

I am not prepared when something small and hard shoves me into the wall.

I turn around and find Ruth Everdeen, her hands still extended into claws. I'd forgotten about her entirely. I raise my hands for defense if necessary. I don't underestimate the fingernails on Everdeen women. "She's going to be okay," I say.

"You took her into a combat zone? You said you'd take care of her!"

"Ruth, she needs to do this. She needs to fight. She took down three Capitol planes --"

I'm glad I have my arms up protectively, because Ruth moves fast. She makes a sound somewhere between a scream and a snarl and I barely catch her by the wrists. I look around and find an empty exam room, then drag her inside and close the door.

"Listen to me," I say.

"No! I am done listening to you, Haymitch. You got her through the arena, but the Games are over. Do you hear me? They're over, and you can't take these kinds of risks anymore! She's not your little girl!"

Katniss hasn't been anyone's "little girl" since she was eleven and had to take over the family because Ruth checked out, but I hold my tongue on saying this. Katniss has been trying, albeit inexpertly, to mend that rift. So I say, "She's about the closest thing I've got. You know that, and you know why." She doesn't argue. She was one of the people who helped me get through it when Digger was murdered. She knows I don't attach to people lightly, and I never risked having children because I was afraid of what would happen to them. She might even know that I agree with every word she said, but I'm not sure she does. Danny would know, but Ruth never knew me as well, and I don't want her to. "Will you listen to me?"

Ruth fumes to herself, but calms down enough to sit stiffly on an examination stool.

I pull myself up onto the exam table. "It was dangerous. I was a little worried, especially when she pulled that earpiece out."

"She did... what?"

"She cut herself off so I couldn't tell her what to do." I shake my head. That has to stop. "But she was really herself today," I tell Ruth. "None of this lurking around in closets. No refusing to speak. She was being what she needs to be."

"She's seventeen, Haymitch. It's not a place for a seventeen year old."

I sigh. "Ruth, why do you let Primrose work here in the hospital?"

"That's different."

"She sees bad injuries. Gets exposed to some nasty bugs. And I don't even know what cranky old drunks with the shakes expose her to."

"It's different."

"It's different because you understand it. You were doing this when you were her age. Katniss is a fighter. Like Glen. How old was Glen when you started patching him up?"

"Seventeen," she says reluctantly. "It was right after you came back. The stupid tantrums we threw over Lucretia Beckett. Glen got himself whipped three times."

"Exactly. And Katniss is Glen's little girl. Always was."

She looks into a corner for a long time, apparently meditating on a cracked tile, then says, "You're a bastard sometimes, Haymitch. I hate that you just did that."

"Did what?"

"Tried to make me choose between my daughter's safety and my husband's memory."

"I wasn't trying to make you do anything. There's nothing you need to do. Katniss already agreed to this."

"Because you told her to!"

I laugh. "Right. Because she always does what I tell her."

"Do you really think I haven't seen the way she goes to you when she has a problem? She doesn’t come to me. She goes to you the same way she'd have gone to her father. That she's angry at you doesn't change that. And she will always do what she thinks will please you. She'll make up reasons to do it for herself, but --"

"That's not even close to true," I say.

"It's exactly true." Ruth sighs and leans forward, the fight going out of her. "She trusts you. Maybe not with the truth, but with her life. She hasn't trusted me for years. And you used that to throw her into combat."

"It wasn't supposed to be combat. Not today."

"Of course it was. I've read the reports from the other districts, at least the ones they put in the daily news here. There's always a second bombing run. All they were talking about here before it hit was whether or not our staff would get out in time."

"I didn't know that. They didn't give me any news while I was out, and they didn't brief me on that." This doesn't change the fact that my intent was to send Katniss into combat -- eventually -- and I don't try to argue otherwise. "But you've seen her, Ruth. You've seen the way she's been since they took Peeta. She wasn't like that today. She was herself."

Ruth stands up and crosses her arms over her chest. "Who's told you about the way she's been? You've been out of commission."

"Who hasn't told me?" I ask. "Everyone's seen it."

She closes her eyes. "Fine. Not that it makes a difference whether I say it's fine or not. You'll keep doing what you do. But fine. I'll let Katniss be Katniss. And if it gets her killed, I will never forgive you."

"I wouldn't forgive myself, either."

"But that's not going to stop you, is it?" She sighs, then opens her eyes and heads back out into the hospital, where grief-dazed doctors, missing their colleagues, are swearing revenge on the Capitol as they patch up the wounded.

I wait a few minutes, then leave as well. Katniss is still in treatment for the shrapnel in her leg, and there's no good waiting area, so I decide to do my daily check-in to prove I'm not drunk. While I'm waiting for the results, I spot a huddled form in a chair far back in the nurses' lounge -- a blond girl, tired-looking, not terribly pretty, her shoulders hunched down, her hands over her eyes.

I frown. "Delly?"

She looks up and creates a smile out of thin air. "Haymitch! I'm glad you're all right. I've been hearing about the battle."

"I was never on the ground. Katniss took some shrapnel."

"Is she okay?"

"Yeah, it's not serious. At least that's what I've heard."

"Good."

I lean over the counter. "What about you? You don't look very good."

"I'm supposed to be cheering people up," she says. "But we all saw the bombing. My head keeps going back to District Twelve. I saw the people burning." She takes a shaky breath. "I keep thinking about my folks and Ed. And everyone."

"You should get out of here. Go someplace, have a cry. Or whatever you need to do."

"They won't let me out. It's my job." She shrugs. "Anyway, if I start with that, I won't stop." She forces another smile. "So, I do my job. Do you need anything?"

I can't think of a thing I need that Delly Cartwright could help with. A couple of months ago, I'd have found messages for her to carry, or maybe a spy to hide. She and Ed helped hide Winnow Robinson last winter, before we sent her on to District Four. But now, she's outside the structure of the rebellion, and I can't think of anything she can do. I just shake my head.

"Well, give me a holler if that changes," she says, as the nurse comes back with my negative result for the day. "I’m generally around here somewhere." She smiles brightly at the nurse.

The nurse glowers back and says, "Thanks, Soldier Cartwright, but the only thing that's going to cheer me up is seeing Coriolanus Snow hung from a yardarm for the birds to eat."

"Okay," Delly says. She waves to me as I leave. "See you, Haymitch."

"That's Soldier Abernathy," the nurse hisses.

"Not to my old friends," I say. "I'll see you around, Delly."

I check my schedule and discover that I'm meant to be at dinner. I go to the dining hall and consider joining Hazelle and her kids (minus Gale), but decide that she's surrounded by too many other people. I'm probably not permitted to sit away from my assigned spot, anyway, which happens to be with Dalton and a few of the people who live down the hall from us, I guess. Dalton introduces the woman he's talking to as Harriet Peale. She and her sister Letitia live across the hall from us. Letitia is on duty in the hospital. There are four men. Their names are Felix Bonnet, Harold James, Walter Bass, and Hector Grimm, but I don't learn which is which. Two more women arrive during the meal, late from their assignments, and introduce themselves as Soldiers Miller and Kinney. The others have a joke of trying to learn their first names, and they play along. Today's guesses seem to be "Rosalind" (for Miller) and "Prudence" (for Kinney). There's an elaborate game of some kind in which it's determined that these names aren't right, but everyone still calls them Rosie and Pru until we head back to our hall.

Before I can get to my apartment for any grilling Dalton is obliged to give me about my drinking, I'm interrupted by a breathless messenger who has obviously been running for quite a long way. "Soldier Abernathy," he manages, "you're needed in Command."

"It's half past seven," I say. "Who needs me?"

"Orders from Colonel Heavensbee, sir. You're to report to production."

"Tell them to give you a rank," Kinney says, grinning. "If they're going to pull you around like that off-schedule, you should be an officer."

I have a feeling that they're going to force a rank onto me one way or another eventually, but I'm certainly not going to ask for one. I just roll my eyes and start down toward Command, hoping I don't manage to get myself lost.

It's close to seven-forty-five when I get to the booth, where Plutarch is huddled with Katniss's director, Cressida, and her assistant, Messalla. Fulvia is sitting in a corner in a large chair, scribbling something in her notebook. There are several screens lit up around them, all with different images of Katniss from this afternoon. A moment after I arrive, Alma Coin comes in, without her usual entourage.

"We have the first propo cut," Plutarch says. "Cressida's brilliant. Wait until you see it."

"You could do it that quickly?" I ask. "We've only been back a couple of hours."

"She gave us everything we need to work with," Cressida says. "It was just a question of picking the best shots. I'm using Fulvia's graphics idea for the very end, but with Katniss's new line instead of the old one. We had the special effects ready."

"Her new line?" Coin asks.

"'If we burn, you burn with us,'" Plutarch says. "Simple. To the point. And it tells Snow that every horror he tries to inflict is going to be answered. No more fear in the districts. He can't keep power without that."

Coin presses her lips together. "If that line airs, then she's committed us to a policy."

"Wasn't that the policy anyway?" I ask. "To fight Snow instead of bending to him?"

"Yes, but I prefer to state my policies myself. We may not be able to respond to every attack."

"People understand that," Cressida says. "If we win, then everyone will be avenged, whether any given slight is answered or not." She shakes her head. "It's a propo. It's good. And even if Snow guesses that you can't answer every bombing, he doesn’t know which ones you're going to answer. So it'll put a little fear in him. Personally, after all these years, I think 'scared' is a good look for him."

"Very well," Coin says. "Show me what you have."

With as much of a flourish as he can put into pressing a button, Plutarch starts his propo. It opens with a blank screen, then he grins and says, "I borrowed a little something from the Games."

Claudius Templesmith's voice comes up as flames etch out an image of Katniss's pin: "Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire, burns on."

Coin smiles faintly. "Good choice."

"It'll make Claudius crazy, at any rate," Cressida says. "That's always a plus."

Katniss, bloodied and dirty on the broken streets of District Eight, replaces the image of the pin and begins the speech she gave this afternoon. As she talks about the bombing of the hospital, Plutarch has inserted pictures of her talking to the patients earlier in the afternoon. "This is what they do!" she cries. "And we must fight back!" After it, Cressida and Plutarch have created a montage of the battle, showing her in action, showing the planes going down. She delivers her line, then flames burn up the image and the words appear:

The flames then consume them as well, and the screen is black again.

"I'm convinced," Coin says, without much emotion. "I believe this will rally the districts, at any rate. A voice of one of their own, reminding them of what they all know. It's quite striking." She presses a button on the console. "Soldier Latier, are you prepared?"

I haven't heard anyone use Beetee's surname for years. The Capitol press treats all victors on a first name basis, and we rarely use last names among ourselves, either. I'm sure it showed up on the Quell screens, but I didn't pay attention; after all, I already knew everyone.

He grins at me, probably guessing my train of thought. "Just about, if Plutarch is."

"Ready to go here," Plutarch tells him.

"We can really do this?" I ask. "Right now?"

"You would prefer to wait?" Coin asks.

"No. It all just seems to be moving very quickly."

"Haven't we been taking it slow long enough?" Plutarch says. "I seem to recall a District Twelve mentor this spring being a little annoyed with me for taking things too slowly." He smiles. "Shall we do it?"

"Maybe we should wake Katniss up for it."

"There's no need," Coin says. "She'll see it when she's been healed from her injury. She's done her part."

For about ten minutes, Beetee and Plutarch do some kind of technical dance that I don't entirely understand, then, at eight o'clock sharp, they manage to cut into the feeds of every district in Panem -- though not the Capitol -- with our propo.

It airs here in Thirteen as well, and when I go out into the halls, I find people fiercely happy, chanting anti-Capitol slogans. A young man in a public area sees me and gives me a sharp military salute. There are even cheers, of a regimented sort. I promise to pass them on to Katniss, though I really don't have much intention of doing so. That's a sponsor promise. If she seems to need it, I'll tell her, but I have a feeling it would disturb her.

When I get back to my apartment, Dalton has the television on under the giant cow. It's the only light in the place, and it casts flickering shadows over everything. I sit down on my bunk, next to the picture of Effie that I've put on the scheduler.

"They're going to show it again," Dalton says. "I can't wait. I love it. She's great."

Beetee may or may not be able to break in again. For now, programming has gone back to the regularly scheduled silliness of Capitol-approved television. It's currently running a series about a too-cute-to-be-believed little orphan boy who's been informally adopted by a squadron of Peacekeepers, who of course are always and forever being recruited to find lost dogs and rescue kids from dire circumstances. In this episode, the squadron commander is trying to arrange for a popular young dancer to come and entertain the troops. The little boy is involved in a crazy scheme to help get around the red tape. He has just, for some reason, dressed up as a high society schoolboy, when the screen goes black and a high whistle signals a break-in broadcast.

"Here she is," Dalton says.

But it's not Katniss's propo.

Instead, an image of a forest at sunset appears. Peacekeepers rush through the trees, guns drawn. Lumberjacks run at them with axes. As the camera draws back, it shows bodies strewn across the ground. Some are rebels, some are Peacekeepers. The screen splits, and shows another battle, this one seemingly in District Ten, where a few horses are among the dead. (Dalton draws back in horror.) A third split shows the shoreline in District Four. I can actually see Winnow Robinson on a boat in the harbor, firing at the beach. Peacekeepers and fishermen lie dead together in the sand.

Claudius Templesmith's voice comes over the images. "Violent riots have erupted in several districts. Our brave Peacekeepers are trying to restore order, but current reports indicate up to one hundred deaths so far. No estimate can yet be made on the destruction of property, both Capitol and District owned."

The cameras linger heavily on the bodies, then the screen fills with choking black smoke. Words appear in white:

The screen goes black, then returns to the ridiculous show. Dalton turns it off.

I go to bed, looking at my picture of Effie, thinking of Peeta, of Johanna, of Winnow.

I dream of death.

Chapter Text

Chapter Five
I'm not ready to wake up at the time District Thirteen deems appropriate for me, but I manage to drag myself out of bed, stick my arm out for Wall-Effie to give me my schedule, and stumble to the shower before I'm due in Command. There is supposed to be room for breakfast, but I'm not sure at which point in the half-asleep lurching around that was going to happen.

My head is pounding by the time I get to the nine o'clock meeting, and I can't really concentrate on the re-showing of the propo or Fulvia's new idea -- better than her last one -- of dedicating district specific propos to fallen tributes. At one point, everyone claps, and I think my head is going to explode. Coin pretends to be concerned for Katniss's safety. The whole thing grates on me. I want to sleep more. And, if I'm going to be honest, I want a drink. Something strong, with the smell of juniper. I want to hole up somewhere with a bottle of it and not think about people dying in the woods and on the beach because I struck a match in our little powder keg. No one mentions the Capitol propo to Katniss, and I follow the lead for now. I'll talk to her about it later. This crew doesn't need to know the details of that conversation.

After the main part of the meeting, Gale wheels Katniss back to the hospital. I ask why she's in a wheelchair and get a curt assurance that it's just a precaution. "There are other matters to discuss," one of the command staff from Thirteen says. "New numbers on the war."

I sit back down. I don't know that I want to hear numbers, but I guess I should.

Within minutes of the first airtime assault, rioting broke out in Four, Seven, Ten, and Eleven. In Four, the naval force managed to keep the Peacekeepers under control, with the loss of only two fishing boats. We're able to reach Winnow Robinson at sea.

"It was pretty bad here," she says, "but the fighting's over now. We lost a lot of people. And they torched Finnick Odair's house. I'm sorry. We tried."

I look up, expecting Finnick to say something, but I realize he's not in the upper Command structure. I sigh and say, "The house was empty, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, but his things..." She sighs. "Now that I've got things, I get why people get annoyed about losing them."

I doubt Finnick is worried right now about his things, but Winnow's probably right. At the very least, I think his father's fishing net was on the wall, and he'll mourn that later, I'm sure. "I'll let him know. The Capitol showed a lot of casualties."

She nods solemnly. "Bobby Neill -- he's the captain of this boat? -- went ashore this morning. We're looking at a hundred lost, at least."

"And how many Peacekeepers?" Coin asks.

"We haven't gone through the bodies yet," Winnow says. "I'm not sure how many of each there are. I know we lost touch with Lora Trillo's crew in town. I think our chief Peacekeeper was on the beach when I hit it with a firebomb." She bites her lip. "Have you heard from my people in Eleven? I couldn't reach anyone. I don't know where my grandmother is."

"Communications are down," Boggs says. "Have you managed to sweep the mines in the gulf?"

"Yeah, we got them all."

"Then maybe you could spare a boat or two to sail up the coast toward Eleven. See if you can help out and get a report in."

"I'll have to run it by Bobby. But I think we should be able to. The district is pretty secure now."

"Where's Finnick's mother?" I ask.

"Captain Cresta… maybe he's a commodore now; I don't follow ranks much… gave her one of his ships. She's got a crew up at the mouth of River Bay." Winnow shrugs. "The Capitol doesn't have much of a navy, does it? Mr. Cresta sabotaged one of theirs and commandeered it. Now, we've got better sea power than they do."

"They never expected a sea war," Coin says, uninterested. I get the impression that she didn't expect a sea war, either, and doesn't care much for successes that are outside her plans. "We have other districts to check in on. Please send the data on your damages to Command."

Winnow sends data on the damages, then Boggs brings up Damien Grove in Seven. He's a scared-looking kid, maybe eighteen, maybe not. He reminds me sharply of Johanna during her first few days in the arena. The fighting is still going on there, and I can hear explosions not too far away from his location. Our side alone has over a hundred confirmed deaths. A blast shakes headquarters, and Grove says, "I have a feeling that I'm joining the casualty list pretty soon. It's bad."

"Don't you give up," I say. "What do you need?"

He laughs wildly. "Transport out of here."

"Retreat and regroup if you can't hold your base. Do you have a rendezvous point?"

"It's burned," he says.

I open my mouth to tell him to find an identifiable marker to send his troops to, but I'm interrupted by a higher up in the military structure, a general named Donaldson, who says, "Hold your ground, son. We're right behind you."

He cuts the connection.

"We're sending backup?" Boggs asks. "I thought we didn't have troops to spare."

"We don't," Donaldson says. He glares at me. "You don't have the authority to order a retreat, Soldier Abernathy."

"They can regroup their forces if they're not dead."

"We can't afford to retreat right now. If they retreat, the Capitol will show it and portray it as cowardice. They'll tell the rest of the rebellion that we're willing to cut and run."

"Coming from a district that's been playing dead for seventy-five years --"

Plutarch kicks me under the table and says, "Of course. We have to keep that in mind. I'm sorry."

Boggs, who looks disgusted with this himself, calls up District Ten. The woman who answers identifies herself as Polly Dalton, and I realize that she's the same plain-faced woman I saw in Dalton's photograph. His wife. She speaks in the same slow, easy accent. "We're coming around," she says. "Casualties are pretty low. A lot of ways to avoid getting shot at out here. But we've lost a lot of livestock. They burned the Bates ranch. We got out Earl's son and his grandkids. My boys have them out on a spread in the hills. Toffy Taggart's wife is in the Justice Building, trying to get administration under control."

"Who's in control of the district?" Boggs asks.

"Oh, we've got enough control, I guess," Polly says. "I'm in the Peacekeepers' barracks right now. Getting a few glares from them, but that's about the sum of it."

"They're still alive?" Coin asks, shocked.

"They're behaving themselves." Polly looks over her shoulder. "You boys mean to keep behaving yourselves?"

There's some laughter that I assume is from men on her side. She swings the camera around to show about half a dozen sullen-looking Peacekeepers in handcuffs.

She gives us a few more facts and figures from the battle, then we cut things off. I am given permission to tell Dalton that his wife and children are safe, and reminded that nothing else we discuss is for the ears of anyone outside this room.

I am still scheduled in Command after the meeting, and Plutarch pulls me aside. "Production booth," he says, and nods to Beetee.

"Did you have something further to discuss?" Coin asks.

Plutarch gives her a big smile and says, "Oh, I just want to talk to Haymitch and Beetee about some tweaks to Katniss's performance. Little things."

She looks at him suspiciously and says, "Very well. But do report to me if you decide to make changes. At the moment, we have an effective campaign."

"Oh, of course! We'd be nowhere without the support of District Thirteen."

Coin gives him a once-over, then leaves for whatever duty her own schedule has given her.

Plutarch, Beetee, and I go to the production booth. Fulvia is waiting there. She holds up one of her bug detectors from the Capitol, which I don't take as a good sign, then nods to Plutarch.

"Good," he says. "I thought this room was clear, but I wanted to check. Haymitch, we have to talk about Katniss disobeying orders."

"Don't give her orders she won't follow," I suggest.

"She's not always going to be in a position to know everything that's happening," Beetee says. "That's why we have aerial coverage on her."

Fulvia cuts in. "Some of the military in Thirteen noticed that her earpiece was out." She waits for this to sink in, then says, "Commander Boggs covered for her. He said that it must have come out when he covered her during the bombing, and she didn't notice. Which has led to this." She holds out a strange, cage-like device, shaped for the head, with a speaker at ear level and a microphone at mouth level. "It's supposed to make the earpiece more secure. She's not to be out of touch again."

I stare at it. "Are you joking? With Peeta already having told the districts that she's under control of a hostile force? Have they decided we should be doing Capitol propos now?"

"Another suggestion is an implant that couldn't fall out and would always be accessible," Plutarch says, holding up a little chip. "Apparently, some members of the senior staff have them. Boggs used to, but he had a reaction to it."

I can imagine Katniss's reaction to the idea of a voice living in her head, which at least ought to be enough to convince her to keep her earpiece in. I take both of the devices and grab an extra earpiece from the stash under the control panel. I will have a long talk with her later.

"I can't promise she'll follow orders even if she can hear them," I say. "Nothing was going to stop her from trying to defend the hospital yesterday."

"Yes, well, we're going to have to be more careful about where we send her," Plutarch says.

"She was effective." I remind him. "And she wants to fight."

"No one is arguing that she didn't perform well, and fight honorably," Plutarch says. "But she was so effective that she's a real military target now. It's not just Snow's ego about the Games anymore. A dead Mockingjay is going to be as effective for the Capitol now as a live one is for the rebellion. They'll show it on every screen in Panem."

"Speaking of all the screens in Panem," Beetee says after an awkward moment of silence, "I suppose I'm not the only one who saw the Capitol response to us last night."

"Capitol bloviating," Plutarch says dismissively. "They think if they tell rebels that people are going to die in a war, we'll stop fighting. It's not anything we didn't already know."

"Seeing actual dead bodies is different from theorizing about them," I say. "We need to remind people why we're fighting."

"Can we turn on the broadcast?" Beetee says. "Maybe they'll re-run it. We should figure out how to answer it."

"I doubt that one will run again," Fulvia says. "My Capitol sources say that Snow was displeased, and fired his information officer. It showed too many dead Peacekeepers. Apparently Snow's feeling is that it made the rebellion look too effective. He's been on television there suggesting that the rebels tried to steal Peacekeeper uniforms." She rolls her eyes.

"What sources do you have?" I ask.

"Confidential ones," Plutarch tells me. "They aren't in the loop here. I want it to stay that way for now. The fewer people knowing about them, the better."

"Bet Coin's thrilled," I say.

Plutarch cuts off conversation of the subject by switching on the Capitol broadcast as Beetee requested. At the moment, all I see is a feature on the Mutt Zoo, part of the mid-morning news broadcast. Despite the unpopularity of the Quell, the dragon that killed Earl Bates has apparently become quite a hit. Small children toss fish to it and it leaps up to catch them.

I watch this inanity for a minute (it's weirdly soothing), then say, "I'll talk to Katniss. I'll get her to leave her earpiece in. But she's not going to just be a figurehead. That's never going to work. She needs to -- "

I stop.

The feature on the zoo has ended, and a celebrity gossip reporter comes on. I don't care about the reporter. I think I've seen her once or twice. The picture behind her is from the Seventy-Fourth Games, and around it is a projection from City Center, where a mob is surrounding a boy with curly blond hair.

"Peeta," Beetee whispers.

"Guess who's been seen again in the Capitol!" the reporter chirps. "Peeta Mellark was spotted today in City Center, shortly after a traffic accident involving Caesar Flickerman, with whom he seems to have been traveling." The shot goes to Caesar's car, which is crashed into a barrier. It returns to Peeta, surrounded by an adoring Capitol crowd. The security camera zooms in a little. He looks terrified, thin, and in pain. The reporter comes back. "A few fans got a little over enthusiastic, and Peacekeepers had to rescue him from their affections!"

The "rescue" is not shown, but members of the crowd are brought in. An ecstatic girl waving a lock of Peeta's hair says, "I just love him!" Another squeals that she kissed him. A young man waves a gold button around that he claims came off of Peeta's suit.

"Plutarch, did you record that?" I ask. "Let me see him."

"It wasn't a very clear shot," Plutarch says, but winds back to the shot of Peeta in the crowd. It is blurred and fuzzy, but I can see clearly that his eyes are wild and sunken. He's wearing a good suit, though, and has been carefully made up.

"They've had him on camera again," I say. "What happened to him since... it was less than a week ago..."

"Less than a week ago that they showed an interview," Plutarch says. He is pale, and when he speaks, he seems to be expending a lot of energy keeping his voice under control. "It was generic then. But I think Snow's decided on a more pointed response to Katniss."

"What's he going to say?"

"I don't know. Whatever Snow thinks will make her stop."

"We have to get him out of there," I say. "Look at him."

"I'm looking, Haymitch," Plutarch says. He pauses the video on the closest shot they have. Peeta looks like he did when the monkey mutts attacked him in the arena, but there's no Berenice Morrow to jump in and take the fatal blow for him. "Whatever Snow is planning, I don't think we should let Katniss know about it."

"How do you expect to do that?" Beetee asks.

"We'll have to count on some luck."

"We're not overflowing with that."

I only half-hear this, mostly because I can't believe the words. "She should know what's happening. Especially about Peeta."

Plutarch turns to me. His face is strange in the flickering light of the monitors. He opens his mouth to say something, then looks to Fulvia.

"Haymitch, what do you think will happen if she sees him like this?" she asks. "She spent a month in the hospital screaming for a pearl. If she sees what's happening to the boy who gave it to her, she'll go as crazy as Annie Cresta. We need her stable."

"If knowing the truth is enough to send her over the edge, then she's not as stable as you're pretending."

"Just wait, Haymitch," Plutarch says. "We'll see what Snow's got up his sleeve with Peeta, and then we'll decide what to do with Katniss about it."

"But -- "

"Among other things," he reminds me, "if she stops performing, he loses whatever protection he has."

"He shouldn't need protection from our side," Beetee says.

Fulvia takes the image from the screen with the flick of a switch and says, "But he does."

There is nothing more to be said. I gather up the various earpiece devices and head up to the hospital. I've already managed to miss lunch along with breakfast.

When I get to Katniss's bed, Prim is there, taking readings and marking them down on a chart. She's on duty and wearing a bracelet with call lights. She smiles at me. "Hi, Haymitch..." Her eyebrows go up as she notices the cage-shaped earpiece. "What's that?"

"Incentive," I say. "How is she?"

"She's okay." Prim smooths back Katniss's hair. "They had to give her some anesthesia to take out the shrapnel yesterday, and she's a little queasy from it, I think. I guess they had her in a wheelchair this morning."

"Yeah. I wondered why."

"Nothing serious."

I nod, then point to my head. "How is she... up here?"

Prim shrugs. "She's tired. She misses Peeta a lot." She sighs. "I miss all of them, Haymitch. Even Mrs. Mellark. She was kind of a witch and she hated me, but I'd be happy to be hated if she was alive to do it. Mr. Mellark snuck me a few cookies here and there. Ed offered to walk me home during the Games last year when it got late. Jonadab let me hold the baby during the tribute parade this time."

I look away. Prim was there with them. I was engineering the break-out that got them killed. "Yeah," I say. My voice sounds reasonably steady. "Yeah, I know."

"Mr. Mellark said you were his friend."

"He did?"

"Yeah." She sits down in the chair next to me and takes my hand. "He said you stayed with him when his parents died, and you found a way to pay his inheritance taxes on the bakery, and you used to babysit the boys and tell them stories. He said you stuck by him when… well, when Mom left him, though he didn't say that in so many words. He just said you were there when other people weren't anymore."

She makes a sharp sound, and I realize that I've tightened my hand enough that it might be hurting her. I let go. "I'm sorry, Prim."

She nods and pulls her hand away. "You can mourn, you know."

"No."

She doesn't push it. She looks at Katniss, then takes a deep breath. "I keep thinking about the mines, too," she goes on. "We learned about seam fires that burned for decades. One in Asia went for more than a century. There's so much coal down there. How long is it going to burn? We could all be dead and buried before it burns out. And was anyone down there? It was midnight. The shifts were over. But there could have been. Sometimes they made people work crazy hours."

I know this. Lacklen and I were alone overnight more than once while Mom and Dad worked the mines. "I wish I had an answer for you," I say.

"I guess it doesn't matter. They're no more dead than anyone else. I just can't get it out of my head, the way it's just going to keep burning." She shakes it off. "Sorry, Haymitch. Is everything okay in Command?"

"It's fine," I lie. "Don't worry about it. How do you like school here? Learning anything interesting?"

"It's all very different. I'm way behind in history, because history's different here. Who knew history could be different just because you live somewhere new?" A light flashes on her bracelet and she says, "Well, I better go. Other patients. You can stay."

"Unsupervised?" I ask.

"They're not giving her anything you can get high on," she says in a rather frank tone. "Unless you've got a thing for anti-nausea pills these days."

"Well, I guess that's good, then," I say.

She nods and disappears down the ward.

I take a seat by Katniss's bed. She's a little banged up, but I've seen her in worse shape. She's just sleeping off anesthesia now. I settle myself in the chair and watch over her for a long time. I'm bored and I want a drink. Or someone to talk to. Or something to read. I think this isn't the way I'm supposed to feel. If I can't force worry about Katniss, I ought to have my whole mind wrapped up around Peeta and his situation.

But no matter how many ways I look at it, there's nothing I can do for him, and she doesn't need anything except a lecture about her earpiece. My brain can't make much work from either situation. It refuses to turn itself off -- a trick I've wished I could do sober more than once -- and occupies itself thinking about coal fires and dead friends and scared kids ordered not to retreat. Annoyed and hungry, I eat Katniss's lunch. If she's nauseated, then she won't want it, anyway.

I decide to tell her that Peeta was on television and didn't look good, but before she wakes up, I realize that the hospital is as likely to be bugged as the apartment at the Training Center, or the tribute train. I'll have to get her someplace else. I try to think of somewhere, but I'm exhausted. We need District Thirteen's weapons if we're going to take down Snow, but it never occurred to me until I got here that I might have all the same problems that I had back home.

By the time she wakes up, I'm frustrated and irritable, and the lecture I give her may well not be one of my great moments of empathy or kindness. I show her the three implements. I threaten her with the head cage and the implant, and she humbly promises to never pull out her earpiece again.

I consider staying to talk, even if it's not about anything important, but I can't think of anything. The look of disgust on her face at the idea of having to listen to me makes me want to snap at her, anyway. I feel miserable.

I go back to my apartment, bark at Dalton that his wife and kids are fine and I'm not allowed to tell him anything else, then try to sleep when he goes to his afternoon assignment. Every time I start to drift off, I see Peeta's face, too thin, too scared. I doubt he was accidentally left wandering. Caesar's car was involved. All I can think of is that there was some kind of half-baked escape attempt, and that means he's going to be punished. Maybe Caesar as well. I decide that sleeping is a bad idea. There could be dreams.

I check my schedule, but it still has me at Command, from which I have definitely been dismissed for the day. I have no idea what people here do during downtime. I try looking through Effie's pictures, but they just make me think of the people I have in the Capitol, waiting to be punished. The pretty young woman grinning demurely at a fashion award she's won is most likely in prison clothes, forced out of the wigs that give her security, and all I can do is hope that's all they've done.

They'd best hope it's all they've done.

Finally, I ask Wall-Effie to see if she can coordinate some time for me to talk to Hazelle. She can't find a good time slot when we're both free, but does inform me that Hazelle is currently scheduled on Level Four, and I am allowed to visit her at her job. She gives me her location.

I follow it up to a level I barely recognize as being in District Thirteen. It's ugly, but not in the usual, sparse way. Instead, it's actively tacky, like a house decorated by someone who's never actually seen a decorated house. There is a large, circular room surrounded by balconies lined with doors, like a hotel. Hazelle is behind a desk here, frowning at a computer. She looks strange at it. We used them occasionally in school, but I doubt she's seen one since.

"Hey," I say.

She raises her eyebrows. "I don't think you're scheduled here," she says.

"Nah, I'm in Command, can't you tell?"

She rolls her eyes. "Fine. Who are you supposed to be meeting?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, someone has to have reserved a room. I know it wasn't me."

"I just came up to say hello to you."

She looks at me a minute, then laughs. "You really have no idea where you are, do you?"

I shake my head. "Wall-Ef... the scheduler said you were here."

"These are the conjugal visit rooms. The jugs?"

"You... work in conjugal visits?"

"I schedule them." She shakes her head. "I could schedule us one if you want. Turns out I'm still qualified."

"Qualif..." I remember what Dalton said about how one "qualifies" for the jugs. It means that Hazelle can still have a baby. The thought of having a baby with Hazelle, or anyone else, doesn't strike me as a good idea. I am not qualified to be anyone's father, and if I forget that, all I have to do is think about Peeta, captured by the Capitol. Or what I'm letting them do to Katniss. "Oh," I say. "I think, um..."

"Yeah, right there." She smiles. "I'm not exactly at an age when I get pregnant by looking at a naked man anymore -- I swear, for a while, that's all it took -- but I don't want to take any more chances."

I feel my face go hot. This is not a subject Hazelle and I ever discussed, though I guess we should have, given that she said "any more chances." I'd rather not discuss it now. "I'll, um..."

"Besides, if I'm going to have another baby, it'll be with someone who rushes through a battle to get pictures of me, not Effie Trinket." She grins at me, and for a second, we both almost laugh at ourselves. She shakes her head. "I'll leave that kind of drama to my offspring." She does laugh now, and pushes out an extra chair. "Sit down, Haymitch. I promise, I won't use the 'b' word again. What did you need?"

I take the chair and sit far down the desk from her. "I guess I just wanted someone to talk to. Sorry I didn't... well, that I was a little out of line in the hospital the other day..."

She waves it off. "I've seen you try to dry out before," she says. "I haven't got so many friends around here that I'm going to hold a grudge over a snit."

"Thanks," I mutter.

"What did you want to talk about?"

"Anything," I say. "Seriously, anything but..." I gesture at the doors above us. Now that I know what they are, I imagine I can hear people behind them. I shake my head. "How are your kids? That should take a while."

It does. I've seen Gale, of course, but we haven't talked about the littler ones. Posy is doing best, making a lot of friends in school. She tried to paint herself green with soap after she met Octavia. "Posy thinks that woman is the be-all, end-all of beauty, if you can believe it. She's nice in her way, though. She did Posy's hair up special for her."

I agree that Octavia is a nice woman.

Rory is not at all fond of his life here, and wants to get into the war. He stays up late writing down everything he remembers about District Twelve in the course of each day, and wants to take down a bomber or two like Katniss and Gale did. Mostly, he occupies himself with the idea of rebuilding Twelve. He's reading construction books and books on wiring and plumbing and farming and planting trees. He and Prim are on the same page about the burning mines, and he's been trying to figure out how to put out the fire. Vick has been getting into fights with other people from Twelve, because he's somehow decided it's our own fault for getting bombed. Hazelle doesn't know what to do with him.

We're interrupted here by the arrival of a young couple in gray, who are very matter-of-fact about signing into their room. A few minutes after they go up, another door opens. It spits out Cressida's assistant, Messalla, and his companion, a young soldier named Leeg. I've met her a few times, but never had a long conversation with her. He chats with me casually while they return the keys. She checks her schedule and says she needs to report to waste disposal. Someone a few levels up makes a particularly loud noise, which we all pretend not to hear, then Messalla says, "Oh, the new propo's ready. We're airing it over dinner tonight. Edited this one myself." He gives me a friendly smile, then leaves.

Hazelle is scheduled through the dinner hour, and asks to have my meal sent up here as well. The kitchen worker who brings it looks at us askance, and I guess it'll pass for a rumor among the District Thirteen set. Hazelle turns on the television to watch Katniss's propo, this one based on "You know who they are and what they do." It's very effective, and I try not to think about who will be dead in an hour because of it.

"She's certainly very good," Hazelle says, reaching for the dial. Her hand stops. "Haymitch..."

I look at the screen. Peeta is on Caesar's set (or something close to it; it seems a little off to me somehow), wearing the same suit, made up heavily. It doesn't hide the strain he's been under. His hands are shaking. He is sweating.

Hazelle puts her hand to her mouth. "Haymitch, he's been hurt..."

"You think?" I put my hand up as an apology for the sarcasm before it can turn into a conversation. She takes it in both of hers and holds it tightly. I'm glad of the comfort.

The interview is brief. It's addressed directly to Katniss, and no matter how badly Peeta is hurt, I can't shake the sense that, on some level, he really is trying to speak to her, to warn her that she's being turned into a weapon as much as he is.

Maybe more to the point -- more dangerously for him -- he goes directly for the war effort. "Ask yourself," he says. "Do you really trust the people you're working with? Do you really know what's going on? And if you don't... find out."

The screen goes black. I reach out and turn it off before anything else can air.

"Are you all right?" Hazelle asks me.

"I don't know," I say.

But that's not true. I know. I know I'm far from all right. I think about Octavia, trembling in the meeting yesterday. I think about Venia trying fruitlessly to defy Coin. I think about orders not to tell Katniss about Peeta, and about the cage they want to put on her head. I think of them holding the lives of people she loves over her head if she makes a mistake.

I don't trust the people I'm working with. Not any further than I can throw them.

But I have nowhere else to go.

Chapter Text

Chapter Six
Half an hour after Peeta's propo airs, a teenage girl in some kind of low ranking training uniform runs up, breathless. "Soldier Abernathy!"

"Haymitch," I correct her absently, standing up.

She takes a deep breath, then looks up at the clock and seems to be jolted with fresh energy. "I couldn't find you! You aren't on your schedule. Colonel Heavensbee needs you in production. Five minutes ago!" She starts to hyperventilate.

I reach across the desk and put my hand on her shoulder to calm her down. "I'll tell Plutarch I made it difficult for you. He's in the booth?"

"Yes, sir!" She salutes, apparently unable to think of anything else to do.

I hold up my hand in a vague gesture that wants to mean Please don't salute me, call me Soldier, or call me sir right now, because I can't handle it, but comes out more like I'm wiping an invisible blackboard. The girl doesn't even try to interpret it. I grimace and say, "I'll get there. You can… um… do whatever you were doing…"

"Dismissed," Hazelle suggests.

"Oh. Right. You're dismissed." The girl runs off. I look at Hazelle. "Thanks. Never did pick up military speak."

"My brothers and I played rebels and Peacekeepers when I was a kid," she says. "I was always the commanding officer. I was very good at it." She gives me a weak smile. "You know they need to meet about that propo."

"Hazelle, what do you think they're doing to him?"

"I don't know," she says. "And I doubt Plutarch's crew is going to care. Right now, you better do damage control."

I nod. I don't need an explanation. Compared to this, Peeta's first appearance was a friendly greeting.

"Go on," she prods. "I'll try and suffer through the evening alone."

Somehow, I actually smile at this. "I'll talk to you later," I say and head off. I walk quickly, but I don't run, partly because I don't want Plutarch to get the idea that he can make me run (never let a Gamemaker think he can do that), but mostly because I want to give myself time to run through the scenario in my head, so I don't run in with nothing but steam coming out of my ears. I don't want to go in there and pick a fight with Alma Coin right away.

But when I get there, Coin isn't among the irritated group of people waiting for me in the flickering light of the television screens. It's just Plutarch, Fulvia, Gale, Beetee, Cressida and her crew, and Boggs.

It is not a discussion. As soon as I walk in, Plutarch flatly orders us not to bring up the propo with Katniss. "She and Finnick Odair were watching together. She was upset by her own segment. They turned it off. It's a piece of luck."

"She needs to know about it," I say. None of my scenarios involved this discussion.

Plutarch shakes his head sharply. "I managed to convince Coin that Katniss doesn't know a thing about it, and it's going to stay that way."

"Why?"

"Because she was demanding that Katniss immediately appear in the studio and renounce Peeta. Entirely. She wants Katniss to cut him off from the mockingjay deal and hurt him as badly as she can." He shakes his head and wrinkles his nose in unconscious disgust. "It took me ten minutes, but I convinced her that Katniss even knowing about it would be a disaster, and it's better to ignore it than risk that. So as far as we're concerned, it would be a disaster. Are we all clear?"

"I'm clear enough on what you want," I say, "but there's no way in hell I'm not telling Katniss. We just tell her to not tell Coin. I don't think she'll have any problem with that." I think about what Peeta said, about finding out who these people are. I think Katniss already has a pretty good idea.

"We can't be sure she won't break down," Beetee says. "You saw her in the arena when he was hurt. She's not rational about him. She may wish later that she had been, but it's not out of the question that she'd simply…"

Plutarch finishes the sentence by bringing up the image of Katniss pounding on the glass and screaming at the medics after her first Games, accusing them of trying to kill him.

"I don't want to lie to her," Gale says. "But this would really hurt her. And she's already not sure who she trusts, except for Peeta." To his credit, he manages to keep the bitterness in his voice to a minimum.

"It's not going to help her trust issues if we all lie to her," I say.

Gale turns on me. "You're such a hypocrite! You lied to her more than anyone."

"I'm not a hypocrite. I'm a person who's already made this mistake once, and learned from it."

I leave the meeting without giving them an answer. I go straight to the hospital, but Katniss is already asleep. Finnick is awake, and asks me if there's anything new happening. I start to obfuscate, but I see him looking at me steadily. Waiting.

My mind goes back to Hazelle's desk at the jugs. The way she reached for the dial at the end of Katniss's propo.

The way she didn't even have time to turn it off.

There wasn't nearly enough time for Katniss to decide she was too upset to go on, find the remote, and turn the television off. She and Finnick are lying, to test us and see if we're going to lie.

I choose not to. I don't say anything at all. I try to reach Plutarch to warn him, but he's in sleep hours and unreachable.

In the morning, I find myself scheduled for a work detail instead of Command. Plutarch assures me at breakfast that it's because there's nothing on schedule today for Command.

"Yeah, right," I whisper. "I'm sure it has nothing to do with conversations you don't want me having with Katniss."

He looks around nervously, then gives a high, yelping sort of laugh. "Don't be so melodramatic. I'm doing a supply inventory, for goodness' sake! There's just nothing happening."

I raise an eyebrow so he understands that I don't believe him, but there's not much I can do at the moment. An irritated-looking labor supervisor comes to collect me, and I'm packed onto an underground train that eventually rises up onto a cold, gray, flat field topside. Camouflage netting of some kind hangs above it. We're gathering up the last crops of the season. It's harder physical work than I've done since I was a kid, but I haven't completely let myself go, and I can keep up. I take the cue from co-workers and don't complain. At least I'm not breathing in coal dust.

It's an all-day affair, and we have only a thirty minute break for lunch, which was brought along on a truck. Everyone gets water and a cheese sandwich. No one suggests adding any of the fresh root vegetables we've been picking.

The singing starts during this break, and continues through the afternoon. The foreman -- whose voice is almost as good as Glen Everdeen's -- leads the songs, which have lyrics like, "No, no, it ain't work, it ain't work if we're building the world" and "A guy from down the hall dropped it all for old Thirteen." There's also one that involves flying grizzly bears, which seems to be a great favorite. I don't know how that turned up in a place where no one drinks.

Everyone else seems to know the words. Most of them seem to enjoy singing. I try to say that I can't sing because I don't know the words, but this leads to being taught the words and lacking an excuse for the rest of the day. I'm not a threat to anyone's singing career, but my voice isn't too awful, and I guess thinking about the song is better than thinking about how my hands are getting cold and chapped, and how I can't talk to Katniss, and how Peeta and Jo and Annie are in the Capitol.

In fact, I wish they'd just keep singing, because whenever the tune stops, they start complaining about "that Mellark kid," and how he deserves to be shot for doing Snow's bidding. I try to point out that he's probably been worse than shot already, but they all think they would stand up to it better. They'd never break.

I decide it's probably healthier for Peeta if I don't share my opinion that the things he's saying are not entirely Snow's doing. He wouldn't be saying them publicly if it weren't for Snow, but I think he's perfectly sincere -- and completely right -- about not knowing who we're working with or if we can trust them.

The train brings us back as the sun sets, and I stare out the window until the sky disappears. I'm assigned for my daily check-in at the hospital. I'm clean.

"Haymitch?"

I am heading out when I hear Delly Cartwright's voice. I turn around. Her ever-present smile is gone. She has a towel in her hands and she has twisted it so hard that her knuckles have turned white. At some point during the day, she has taken down her braid and let her hair fall in the loose curls she generally wore in Twelve.

"Delly," I say. "Did you need something?"

"I need to talk to you. About Peeta."

I look around. I don't trust anywhere in the hospital not to be bugged. I'm not actually sure where I do trust. I go with an old standby that I've used in the Capitol: camouflage. "Is there someplace a lot of people go in the evening?"

She nods. "There's a promenade on level seven. Nothing to do there, but lots of people from school go anyway, if their work assignments are over."

"Lead the way," I say.

When we get there, I realize I may be the only person over the age of twenty, but I don't care that I'm conspicuous. There are enough people having enough conversations to confuse anyone listening. And I think I'm going to say something that really shouldn't be listened to.

The promenade is a long, wide hallway, half-heartedly decorated with potted plants and terrible art. One painfully sincere painting shows gray-clad farmers looking up at the sun as they work, their faces set with the kind of determination usually reserved for three-year-old baker's children trying to get at a fresh cookie tray. Another shows someone in a uniform from the Dark Days, standing atop a hill and waving a rebel flag, and a third is a portrait of Alma Coin on a balcony with her hand raised, probably her inauguration. Each one could have been painted by a robot.

I wonder if their poetry is as bad. Maybe they liked Fulvia's line until they realized Katniss couldn't say it.

There are study tables and computer kiosks set in alcoves around it, and a few game tables in the middle. I find a chess table and sit down at it with Delly. While I line up the pieces, I say, quietly, "I take it you saw the show last night."

She nods. "What are they doing to him, Haymitch? His hands were shaking. Why haven't we recovered him yet?"

"It's complicated. And it got more complicated when that aired."

She slams a pawn down on the table. "I know. I've been hearing it all day. If they'd gotten him out before, this wouldn't have happened."

"I know."

"He's hurt. I don't know how bad. They didn't show him trying to stand up."

"Did you see him on the news earlier?"

"What?"

"He was out and about in City Center. Got mobbed by fans and 'rescued' by Peacekeepers."

The blood drains from her face and she puts her hand over her mouth. "If he got away from them, they'll kill him."

"Not as long as they can hold him against Katniss."

She catches people looking at us, and again pulls that smile of hers out of nowhere. She finishes setting her pawns and makes the first move. Her voice is weak, though, and her hands are shaking almost as much as Peeta's. "What can I do? I'm the closest thing he has left to his family -- his old family, I mean; I know he has you and Katniss now, too. I can't just sit here and watch him get tortured. Just smile and listen to the people in school saying he deserves to die."

"That's exactly what you're going to do, though," I say. I really don't know what I can have her do, but I have to think of something, before she gets herself in trouble. I look around, make sure no one is paying attention, and say, "Do you remember what he said? About who we're with?" I move a knight.

"Yeah. About whether or not Katniss trusts them."

"I don't. You don't either." This is not a question.

She nods and moves another pawn. "Which makes me wonder why I'm just going to smile a lot."

"Because it's less suspicious. Delly, I want you to find out who they are. I can't think of a better place to do that than in school. Find out what they're being taught. Prim says the history classes are different. "

"Well, there's more revolution and less coal."

"I want to find out what makes this place tick."

"How's that going to help Peeta?"

"I don't know yet," I say. "But it can't hurt if we listen to him, can it? And maybe once you get to know them, you can start to tell them about Peeta. Carefully."

She sighs, then grabs her hair and pulls it around. She starts smiling as she braids it, and waves to a girl who's passing. "Hi, Belva!" she calls. "Did you get that assignment in math?"

The girl comes over and starts chatting, and in a few minutes, I'm drowning in teenagers. Some of them guess that I'm Delly's dad, and she claims I'm a distant cousin, a few times removed. For all I know, she's right. The merchants and the Seam have not been nearly as isolated from each other as either side likes to pretend. Delly is gregarious, smiling and friendly. I realize that this must have been what Peeta was like in public before the Games isolated him. No wonder she's his friend. And no wonder Katniss never approached him earlier. I can't even imagine how she'd react to this kind of press of people.

The kids in Thirteen are surprisingly normal. They chat about who's going out and who's broken up, and how much their teachers hate them. I remember my Games, realizing during training that even the Career kids were perfectly recognizable, just like the kids in school in a lot of ways. This didn't make me like them any better. I did not enjoy the company of most of the kids I went to school with. Later, I realized that even Capitol kids could be completely normal under some circumstances. I guess I shouldn't be surprised to find it in Thirteen.

When we get the lights-out warning, I head back toward my apartment. Dalton restricts his booze quiz to "Dry?" and I assure him that I am.

"Found you something," he says, and, grinning, pushes a tattered paperback book into my hands. "It's definitely not published by Panem in the last seventy-five years."

I look at it. There is a picture of a one-eyed giant holding a boulder on the front. "The Odyssey," I say. "Thanks."

"Oh, you know it?"

"One of my favorites," I say. I think about my book of fairy tales, and about Lacklen telling me to be Odysseus in the arena. This doesn't carry any sting anymore. I point to the giant on the cover. "The main guy, Odysseus, gets out of this scrape by blinding the giant, then sneaking out by hiding under his sheep."

"You don't say!"

"And he says his name is 'Nobody,' so that when the other giants ask who blinded him, the blind giant says, 'Nobody did it!' and they don't help him."

Dalton laughs. "That's something. I like it. And that joke made sense thousands of years ago in a different language?"

"That's what I like about old books," I say. "Everything's different, except the people. I think the Greeks knew people better than anyone."

"You don't think people change?"

"Individual people maybe. People as a whole? If you're waiting for that, you're going to wait a long time."

I try to settle into the book and put aside as much as I can of what's happening in the real world, but watching Odysseus steadily lose his crew as he makes his way home doesn’t exactly comfort me. I find it all too easy to think that one of these days, I'll wander back to Twelve with no one I know left alive. There'll be no Penelope or Telemachus waiting for me there, either.

The lights go out, and I lie awake in the dark long after Dalton starts snoring. I am trying not to think about Peeta. I do believe that they won't kill him as long as he can be used against Katniss, but that's about all I believe they won't do. I try not to imagine Adamaris Brinn cutting a deal for him.

Sleep doesn't seem to be much of an option, so I get up and leave the apartment. I haven't done this during sleep hours before, and I don't know what to expect. The hall outside has pale emergency lighting. There is a small common area with a television a few doors down, and Harriet Peale is there, watching a locally produced show about maximizing efficiency. The host has a weirdly perky attitude about how to squeeze more housework into Reflection time. He is working in family quarters, which I haven't seen before. They look almost like normal homes, though they're very sparse and cramped, like everything else here. The "mess" he's cleaning up seems to be made up of five or six toys that have been left in a corner instead of in their designated box, and a single child's bed that was left unmade.

"I used to do that all the time," Harriet says wistfully. "I got in such trouble for it."

I think of the colossal mess that Hazelle dug me out of in my house in the Victors' Village, and opt not to say anything. The whole thing leaves me with a crazy desire to throw dirty underwear on the floor.

I finally fall asleep on the sofa out here, which is not terribly comfortable. I'm woken up by Plutarch wanting to know if I feel like taking a jaunt out to the ashes of District Twelve today, since Katniss will be filming a propo.

"You're not worried that I'm going to spill the beans?" I ask.

"Er, yes, that. It seems that she and Finnick may have… um…"

"Lied their lips off to test us?"

"You knew?"

"I told you we shouldn't lie to them." I get up. "I better check with Effie to see where I’m supposed to be."

"With Effie?"

"The scheduler. I call it Effie."

"Oh." Plutarch thinks about this for a minute, then apparently decides not to think about it anymore. He shakes his head and says, "That's why I woke you early. Do you want to be scheduled with us for Twelve or not?"

"I'm surprised I get a choice."

"Well, you're not on-camera talent, and we're not expecting to get into any tussles that you'll need to get her out of, so it's not really necessary. I just thought you might like to go."

"Yeah, I can't wait to smell the rotting bodies of people I know."

"I -- "

"No, sorry. I just… unless there's a stash of white liquor there, I'm not going. I can't handle Twelve without a bottle of something."

Plutarch sighs. "I'm sorry, Haymitch. It was just an idea."

"Thanks, but no. I'll go pull radishes and sing about flying bears."

"Is there anything you want from your house?"

"There's a painting on the wall," I say. "Katniss and me. Peeta did it. I could stand that. It's above the sofa. And…" I think about asking for my dictionary and my parents' quilt, but I don't want to explain where they're hidden. "If you can find any of my books, I'd like them," I say, not expecting much.

He leaves. I don't end up scheduled on the farm. Instead, I'm downstairs with Beetee in Special Weaponry all day. We go over some of the more effective improvised weapons in the arenas we've observed over the years. Beetee's trying to work out something that would approximate Finnick's net and trident. All that makes me think of these days is Rue. And, as I point out, Snow already seems to understand the concept. He trapped people in a hospital, then dropped a bomb on them.

"I suppose it's not useful in hot combat, anyway," he says. "Too much planning."

"I doubt they understand the idea of 'too much planning' around here."

Beetee grins. "You've noticed that, have you? I don't think Thirteen would have had a single victor. It's too messy in there."

"Oh, I think they can fight dirty if they need to."

"Maybe. But not in one on one fights. Eno would rip their throats out and call it a day before they finished making a plan."

I think about this. "Is she working for Snow now? Does he have any victors on his side? Voluntarily, I mean."

"Not that I've heard of. There may be a couple in Two, if they didn't die getting out of the Viewing Center. Maybe one of the ones from Nine. But Enobaria's useless in planning, if she's on his side at all, which I doubt."

"You do?"

"Give me a break, Haymitch. Do you really think there aren't a lot of guys in the Capitol with a biting fetish? She's turned out almost as much as Finnick. Personally, I think we should recruit her to assassinate Snow. She'd have fun."

"She'd turn on us the second his heart stopped beating. Maybe before."

"Mm. Probably." He looks down at a rough sketch he's been making of an electrical net. "I wonder if it even occurred to Snow that he's been gathering up a trained force of killers and making them hate him. It would have been a lot smarter for him -- and ultimately cheaper -- to actually pamper us like he promised to."

"It would have been smarter and cheaper to make a more reasonable surrender treaty in the first place."

Eventually, we move on to the airtime assaults. Beetee is sure he's close to a breakthrough that will let him interrupt broadcasts in the Capitol itself. He tries to explain it to me, but he's never been any good at verbalizing his ideas to anyone other than Wiress.

After lunch, I'm scheduled for training. It's the first time this has appeared on my itinerary, and I'm half afraid that I'll end up doing laps with a bunch of kids. Instead, it turns out to be weapons training. Not the one-on-one stuff I learned for the Games, but education about bombs and defenses. It takes the rest of the afternoon, and I'm just finishing up when the transport gets back from Twelve. Katniss looks put out about something and doesn't show up for dinner (Prim says she's sleeping). Plutarch is delighted with whatever she did today. Gale may well have eaten a box of rusty nails at some point, judging by his expression.

After dinner, Plutarch asks if he can see me. I follow him to a little alcove with a work table in it.

"How did it go?" I ask.

"Great. She sang. Literally sang."

This surprises me. "What happened after that? She's sleeping through dinner now."

"No idea. Some kind of fight with Gale." He makes an impatient motion with his hand. "Haymitch, I need to tell you something."

"What?"

"The Capitol has obviously been sending people into the houses in Victors' Village."

"What do you mean?"

"There's a floorboard up in your living room. I'm guessing they took your books."

"I have more than one stash," I say. "The ones in the living room weren't very important. I -- "

"Haymitch."

"What?" I ask. "What else?"

"They slashed the painting you wanted. Slashed it and… befouled it."

I stand there, blinking in the dim light, not processing this. "They did… what?"

"I'm sorry. I wish they hadn't. I know what it must have meant to you. I could see that it was a beautiful piece."

I shake my head. "Did you bring it? Can it be fixed?"

"Haymitch, it's gone."

"Peeta made that."

"I know."

I can't think of a single thing to say that doesn't sound absurd. There are more than eight thousand people dead in District Twelve. Mourning a painting seems selfish.

I go back to my apartment to mourn it. When Dalton asks what's wrong, I don't tell him. I don't want him to offer to paint some lopsided, clumsy replacement. I find Hazelle and try telling her. She remembers the painting, at least. But it's not hers, and her sympathy is exactly like Plutarch's.

I go back to the apartment. Look at pictures of Effie. I imagine her saying, Oh, that's an awful thing! That was Peeta's painting! Why would anyone do something like that?

Of course, these days she'd probably find a way to cap it off by saying something horrible that comes out completely wrong, but I'm used to that from her, and I don't pay attention to it anymore. Just before lights out, I check the digital archives to see if there are any pictures of Katniss and me. Or of Peeta and me. There's just one, taken at the celebration after the Games, where we're all at the Undersees'. I'm glowering at a glass while they stare awkwardly at the camera. I look at this for a long time.

"Are you even going to tell me part of what's wrong?" Dalton asks.

I turn off the computer. "I want my kids," I say. I don't explain, and don't wait for him to ask me to.

The next morning, Katniss is nowhere to be found, certainly nowhere that Wall-Effie thinks she is. I finally go to production and help Plutarch pick out good shots from yesterday. I listen to her singing the old rebel song, "The Hanging Tree." Glen used to sing it all the time. I think the Seam kids sang it during the tussles that sprang up after my Games, the fights with Beckett over her little power games. It never went further than pranks. I remember that Kay Donner was upset about that. Maysilee would have fumed. I ignored it for the most part and got Danny to ignore it, so we'd be free to work on the real rebellion, but for a lot of the town, I guess it was something of a glorious revolution.

Given the whippings, the time spent in the stocks, and the hangings, I guess I can forgive them for wanting to make it more significant.

I'm surprised Ruth let Glen sing that song around the girls. Under Beckett, it would have been cause for a flogging, and Cray was Beckett's second in command. You never knew when he might decide to play by her rules.

But Katniss learned it somewhere, and Glen's the only one I can think of who'd have taught it to her.

There's a lot of discussion of the segment. Everyone loves it. Cressida wants to do an extended propo with it. But it can't be cut down into shorter parts, which means it's less likely to make it through an uninterrupted airing. They finally decide to put together the film later, as part of an extended documentary, which, they optimistically announce, will be aired after the war has been won.

We stick with shorter images. Gale talking about the bombing. Katniss in her house. The two of them chatting on a rock in the woods (there are a few sound bites they can find for separate propos). Most important -- and Beetee decides to air it first if we can break into the Capitol -- a shot of Katniss, looking weary and sad, addressing Peeta directly from the remains of the bakery. I wonder what he'll make of it, if he sees it.

Finnick joins us for the afternoon and puts the voiceovers on a few more "We remember" propos, made particularly short, because Beetee is expecting an all-out duel, and we may not be able to hold on to any given broadcast for a long time.

"When are we going to do this?" I ask.

"Tonight." We look up. President Coin is standing at the door of the production booth. "There's just been an announcement on Capitol television," she says. "There's mandatory live programming. Almost certainly some kind of response by Snow to the actions in the districts. That's what we're going to intercept."

Beetee pales, and heads down to Special Weaponry to finish whatever work needs doing. There is no more chatter as we put together the mini-propos. We work through dinner.

Boggs goes to find Katniss after we eat. I don't know where he finally fishes her out from. She has an odd look on her face, like she's gotten away with something. It ought to be obnoxious, but I just find it a little troubling. Finnick explains the situation to her.

Plutarch has the regular Capitol broadcast going. It's a new show about an honorable Peacekeeper who's tracking a serial killer that he thinks is a rogue victor, based on the patterns of the crimes. It's left on a cliffhanger when he's caught in an electric cage. The screen goes black. The seal of Panem comes up, followed by Snow.

And Peeta.

I thought he looked bad three days ago, but whatever they've done to him since they "rescued" him from the crowd has been extreme. His eyes are sunken and wide, and he keeps glancing over Snow's shoulder. He's developed a nervous tic in his face. The mild shaking in his hands has been replaced by an uncontrolled jittering in all of his limbs, marked by the repeated thumping of his prosthetic leg against a metal rung. The chair he's in approximates standing height, and the only conclusion I can come to is that Peeta can't stand on his own. Across from me, Katniss has lost that strange, smug little girl look. The blood has drained from her face.

I am sitting near Boggs, and I whisper, "We have to get him out of there."

Boggs nods. He doesn't have the authority to do anything about it and neither do I, but I'm glad he agrees.

Peeta has obviously been instructed to talk about the damage from the war. I don't know what it's leading up to. He's already having a hard time concentrating when Beetee breaks in for the first time, cutting to Katniss sitting in the ashes of the bakery. She says Peeta's name.

When they cut back, he's staring, wide-eyed. Beetee has managed to cut directly into the President's home, into whatever filming equipment they're using. Peeta has seen it.

He chokes on a word, then looks again at the spot over Snow's shoulder. He swallows and forces himself onto the script.

"What's he looking at?" Boggs asks.

I start to say I don't know, but I have a horrible feeling that I do. They're keeping him on script by threatening someone off-screen. Johanna. Or Annie, maybe. Peeta doesn't know Annie, but I doubt it matters. He won't let anyone be killed because of him.

Beetee breaks in again. The Capitol cuts him off. Again. And again. It's becoming increasingly obvious that the point here wasn't just to show the propos to the Capitol. It was to mock Snow's power on his own ground.

I think I'd appreciate it a lot more if I couldn't see Peeta flinching back into his chair, struggling to get out lines that he has to say on pain of someone else's injury.

Everyone else is cheering.

Everyone except Finnick and Katniss. I look across at her. She understands. Finnick understands… and I wonder if he has his own ideas about who might be on the far side of that camera, at Snow's mercy.

Finally, Snow wrests control back from us and says he's planning to cut the broadcast feeds until we stop "interfering with the truth." He turns to Peeta and demands that he address Katniss.

Peeta flinches again. He's shaking. Something seems to be going on inside his head. "Katniss," he says. "How do you think this will end? What will be left? And you…" He takes several shaky breaths. "In Thirteen…" He seems to be struggling for words, the boy whose silver tongue never betrayed him before. He clenches his teeth, then spits out, "DEAD BY MORNING!"

"End it!" Snow bellows, but the broadcast goes on. I want Beetee to break in again. I'd rather see anything than the crazy angle as the camera there falls. Rather hear anything than the sounds of Peeta Mellark being beaten, maybe dying in agony, as we stand here watching, unable to help.

Again.

Chapter Text

Chapter Seven
If there is such a thing as chaos in the regimented world of District Thirteen, I see it in the moments after someone finally cuts the feed, hiding the spray of blood on the tiles. Soldiers begin rushing around the room, diving at their computers, shouting meaningless questions at each other.

"What does he mean?"

"Is that a threat?"

They scurry around the room. I look at Coin, who has pulled something up on a computer, but is otherwise not reacting. She might be checking the weather.

"What's Snow trying to trick us into doing?"

"Get the files! Get the damned files!"

Finnick is trying to push his way over to me, and Beetee is furiously working at his controls again, trying, for some reason, to get the terrible image back. Gale Hawthorne is staring, dumbfounded, at the screen.

"It's treason! Cancel the deal!"

"Is it a hint?"

"He wouldn't say anything Snow doesn't approve!"

A movement catches my eye, a minuscule movement in the chaos, but the only one that matters.

Katniss, her eyes wide and glassy, puts her hand to her throat and takes a tiny step toward the now dark screen. I can see from here that she's shaking, and that, above all else, wakes me up.

"Shut up!" I yell.

It's probably just shock at the sound of my voice, but everyone turns in my direction.

"It's not some big mystery," I say. "The boy's telling us we're about to be attacked. Here. In Thirteen."

There's another burst of pointless questioning.

I feel my temper trying to escape its leash. It's closer than it's been for a long while. I've been in fights. I've fought my way out of the Viewing Center. But I don't think I've felt this murderous since the day Lucretia Beckett's Peacekeepers had Danny whipped.

I ball my hands into fists and force myself not to reach out and strangle the nearest questioner. I hear a strange, growling sound coming from myself, and I guess everyone else hears it, too, because they're looking at me like they've just remembered that I'm a killer. I hold my jaw tight. I can't help Peeta if I start killing them here.

"They're beating him bloody while we speak," I hiss. "What more do you need? Katniss" -- she looks up at me -- "help me out here!"

She shakes herself violently, like she's been gripped by a seizure. "Haymitch's right," she says. "I don't know where Peeta got the information. Or if it's true. But he believes it is." She blinks rapidly. "And they're…" She gulps in several quick breaths, but can't make herself say anything else.

I watch her for a minute. She's close to the breaking point, and I have to get her out of this. I shouldn't have asked her to speak.

I look at Coin. No one else really matters here. "You don't know him," I say. "We do. Get your people ready."

Coin looks up from her screen for it, at least, looking a bit confused by all the hullaballoo, as if the crowd was just over-excited about a sporting event. "Of course," she finally says quietly, "we have prepared for such a scenario." It's a perfectly Coin answer: Ignore the crisis to take the opportunity to praise her own systems. And then explain all of the reasons that it's probably nothing to worry about. A Capitol attack would be "counterproductive," and dangerous to the human gene pool. "And of course," she finishes -- and I am really beginning to hate of course as a mode of conversation -- "they invite a counterstrike. It is conceivable that, given our current alliance with the rebels, those would be viewed as acceptable risks."

"You think so?" I ask, but they don't really speak sarcasm here, and she treats it like a regular question, agreeing that she does think so, and that, at this juncture, it would be a good time for a "security drill."

I'll give Coin this: Once she makes a decision, it happens. There is no dithering, no time lost on style. Within seconds of the order going out over her computer, we are in motion. Boggs steers Katniss and Finnick toward the residential bunkers. I start to follow, but Coin's guards grab Plutarch, Fulvia, and me and usher us off in a different direction.

"I want to go with Katniss," I say. "She's in trouble."

"You'll be needed in Command," Coin tells me over her shoulder. "You know the Capitol as well as the natives." She looks at Plutarch. "Gather those beauticians and bring them to the Command bunker. If there's a bombing, we will retaliate. Any information on the Capitol may prove useful."

Plutarch goes off to follow his orders. I hope he thinks to check on Katniss while he's looking for her preps.

Fulvia seems pleased not to be going with the commoners. For a second, I hate them. All of them. I want to send them topside to be burned by the firebombs. Half of them don't believe Peeta, and the other half don't care about the price he's paying. Coin will try to parlay the whole business into heroism for herself if she manages to make a little stab at the Capitol.

I force it down. The anger hits me like white liquor on a cold night -- a burning coal of hate that spreads slowly out along my limbs. Then I think of Peeta. I think of his blood on the tiles. He's being tortured because he didn't want these people to die.

I owe it to him to keep it together now.

Our little group makes its way downward, through harshly lit hallways and dim staircases. We finally reach a large, cavernous room that must be directly beneath Command. The technicians rush to their stations and begin an elaborate routine that I have the impression is about disconnecting us from any topside power and communications lines. With a rush, Beetee is pushed into the room. I have no idea how they got him here in the wheelchair, unless there is a special elevator. The regular ones are shut down. It would be no good to anyone to be stuck in an elevator while the district is bombed.

Maybe someone carried him. It doesn't seem like a very Thirteen thing to do, but he got here somehow.

Beetee surveys the techs. "Good," he says. "There's a redundant communication line. We shouldn't be cut off for long."

"But we will be for a while?" I ask.

He nods. "The main communications equipment is well-hidden and actually far from the installation here, but a serious bombing could temporarily disrupt our remote connection with it. We'll be able to establish private communication again before we can break into the airways, though." He looks up at me. "Are they killing him, do you think?"

The question is so blunt, so plain, that I answer it without thinking. "I don't know," I say. "I didn't think they would. Not with Katniss here. They wouldn't have him to use against her. But this? I don't know anymore, Beetee."

Beetee looks like he's struggling for something comforting to say, but there really isn't anything, and he settles for sighing and closing his eyes.

An officer confirms that we are tracking several airborne objects approaching Thirteen at a rapid pace.

At the table, Coin is scribbling notes for an address to Thirteen. I go to her and wait for her to look up.

"Yes?" she says.

"You tell them who warned them," I say. "You tell them that it's Peeta Mellark who gave them time to get to safety. You owe him that."

"Well, they'll certainly need some sort of explanation," she says, unconcerned.

Boggs runs in a minute later. Someone asks him if his wife and children are settled safely, and he says they are, and that he got Katniss and Finnick to the bunker as well.

"Has she stopped shaking?" I ask.

Boggs sighs. "I don't know. It was dark. She's still frightened."

I start to ask something else, but I'm not sure what it is. Instead, I sit down at one of the Command stations and cover my eyes.

Plutarch arrives last with Katniss's preps in tow, just before the doors lock. They look terrified and out of breath.

While Coin makes her announcement to the district, one of the young techs, who identifies herself as Soldier McCanley, settles us into an adjacent ward on the far side of the command bunker from Special Weaponry. It's lined with cots, each one of which has a foot locker under it with our supplies. The local soldiers try to direct us toward specific cots, but for the most part, we ignore them. Beetee, Fulvia, Plutarch and I get the preps to some cots near the back, and take four cots in front of them, to give them a little bit of a buffer.

Venia directs Octavia to try and get Flavius calmed down (he is all but hiding under his cot, and Octavia seems to have picked up a few yards of guts from hanging around with the Hawthornes), then comes over and demands to know what's going on and why they've been brought in. Plutarch is doing his best to explain when the first bomb falls, stopping everyone's conversations.

The power flickers for only an instant, but it's an instant of total darkness. I'm very aware of how far underground I am. In that instant, I imagine dying a miner's death after all, trapped here in an air pocket, breathing in the fine particles of the falling roof until I suffocate.

The lights come back on, and I go back out to the Command table.

Gauges beep loudly and repeatedly. Boggs is staring into a tube that leads, as far as I can tell, into the bowels of the machines.

He looks up finally. "Conventional," he tells Coin. "There is no residual radiation."

"Thank you, Commander," Coin says. She turns the public address system back on and reassures the population of District Thirteen that the blast was merely an explosive. She doesn’t report what I'm starting to see on the screens around me -- hidden topside cameras that show great, gaping holes in the world, flames bursting from the new trenches like volcanic eruptions in the night. Maps of the underground installation flash with red lights showing the damaged areas. Most of the old housing areas are lost immediately. If people had been in bed like good citizens, instead of rushed down into the bunkers because of Peeta's warning, we would have lost half the population with the first bomb.

The first night, we all stay awake for a long time, waiting for the next strike. It doesn't come until morning. By then, I am so tired that I don't even fight it when Boggs orders me to bed and tells me that I will be taking the night shift. I dream disjointedly about Lucretia Beckett, who is now in charge of District Thirteen. She has brought Peeta back from the Capitol and will forgive his crimes if he offers her a "private apology." Then he's lying face down in an apothecary that Ruth has set up in the bowels of Thirteen, and I am throwing things around uselessly. Danny reminds me that I paid his inheritance taxes, at least, then asks me what I'm trying to tell myself. Maysilee and my mother join him and ask the same thing. I make a few suggestions about just what they can all do with that question. I'm tired of it.

I'm not rested when Boggs wakes me up in the late afternoon to teach me to use the radiation detector and the long range scanners. I spot the next bomb ten minutes before it arrives. It is another conventional warhead.

Coin was right about one thing: Snow is not risking the total destruction of his prize.

Plutarch wakes me up a little earlier after my second sleep period. I have no idea anymore whether it's day or night. Coin is taking her shift at the scanners, and he keeps looking over his shoulder at her. "Can we talk?" he asks quietly.

"Sure." I sit up and rub my eyes. "What?"

"We've managed to re-establish communication with the outside. Contacted the districts -- there'll be a briefing." He looks around nervously. "I was able to reach my other contacts in the Capitol. One of them is Enobaria."

I frown. "Really?"

"Yeah. She's not one of us. Don't think she is. But her brother is a Peacekeeper who works as a guard in the prison. He's heard rumors about the other victors in the Capitol, and she is one of you. She looked for my other informants."

"Who do you have, Plutarch?"

I don't expect him to answer, but I guess he figures that he's trusted me this far. He sighs and says, "Three of my junior Gamemakers. I guess that wasn't too hard for her to figure out. Also, the surgeon who worked on Peeta's leg. Galerius. You remember him?"

I think back to the confusing days after the Seventy-Fourth Games, when I was shuttling back and forth between the kids, shooing the plastic surgeons away from Katniss and trying to figure out how to talk to Peeta about his leg. The doctors implied that they were connected to Plutarch, but I didn't know whether or not I could trust them.

Then I realize why Plutarch has brought the subject up. I sit up straighter. "You've heard something about Peeta, haven't you?"

"He's alive."

"I didn't think Snow would kill him. I hoped not."

"Enobaria says that he's being kept in the maximum security wing of the prison, along with Annie and Johanna. Her brother says that Annie is in fairly decent shape, but Johanna's been put through the wringer."

"Has the doctor seen him?"

"Not since the bombing started," Plutarch says. "But he was called to examine the leg before the interview. The circuits have been shorted out. He wasn't able to stand."

I close my eyes slowly, imagining the kind of electrical jolts it would take to do that. "What else?"

Plutarch shakes his head. "Galerius wasn't given time for a full examination, but he said Peeta seemed confused. Paranoid. He was in the hospital before for some kind of injection that he had a bad reaction to. We don't know what it was."

"If they kill him -- "

"I know. You'll kill them all. I believe you."

I don't know if that was what I meant to say or not. I don't know what I would do if Peeta died right now. He's one of the few completely decent people I know. He's more subversive than I ever dreamed of being, and he doesn't even try.

Ten minutes later, Coin calls a Command briefing. She has been in touch with rebel leaders in all of the Districts. Except for Two, where the Capitol is part of a long-standing culture, everyone has redoubled the war effort.

"It seems Snow miscalculated in showing the bombing," Coin says. "Instead of terrifying them, it's reminded them what will happen if we lose. In District Seven, he even lost a squad of his own Peacekeepers. It appears they've been there long enough that they've gone native. They turned on their own compatriots."

"District One actually rebelled?" Beetee asks, surprised.

"We did a different sort of 'We Remember' spot there," Fulvia says. "I took footage of their young kids in interviews, then showed what they'd been turned into by the Games culture, even when they won. Gloss and Cashmere's parents wanted Snow's blood already, and they led the charge." She smiles like some kind of predatory mutt. "It appears that their children came by their talents naturally enough."

Winnow Robinson has sailed up the coast and managed to make contact with Eleven. Their communications equipment is down, but the rebels have regained control. Six is in complete control of the trains, and they've gotten back-up to Eight and Nine. Ten has disarmed the Peacekeepers and sent their weapons to Five. District Four is preparing to send troops to District One to help get control.

"How far are we from control in Five, Eight, and Nine?" Boggs asks.

"The fighting is still too intense for estimates," Coin says. "Seven, as well, even with the rogue Peacekeepers."

She gives us casualty numbers. These are dry, factual statements. There are a lot of numbers. Thousands dead on our side. I ask about the Capitol forces. She seems confused by the question.

A tech reports a new bomb coming in, and we brace for it. This takes out a backup generator, and we lose power for a few seconds before another one picks up. Apparently, it also takes out a poultry farm, but I can't see any evidence of it from the cameras. The only ones left pointing in that direction have apparently been vaporized.

Later, I see Coin and Boggs questioning Katniss's prep team, with a map of the Capitol projected in front of them. Venia is refusing to participate, but Flavius is eager to please and Octavia is actually enthusiastic. Apparently, being bombed has not endeared the Capitol to her.

The day passes.

A bomb falls on the morning of the third day, while I'm at the monitoring station. It hits close to the Justice Building, and leaves some kind of pinkish-white residue behind. We can't identify it, but it doesn't set off any of the toxicity alarms.

There have been no casualties in Thirteen. The reports from the Districts are getting anxious about this. Is the Mockingjay alive? Did Snow manage to silence her?

"I wonder what they would do if we said she'd been killed," Coin muses. "It could really galvanize them."

A cold thought slithers into my brain: She means to do it. One of these days, when she needs them "galvanized," she'll sacrifice the Mockingjay on national television.

I force the thought back into the swampy, rancid land that it came from. If that's a plan, I'll get in the way of it. But it can't be the plan. It would be an awful plan.

"I don't think that would be a wise experiment," Boggs says. "She's unified them. Her death might galvanize them, but it also might fragment them again, and demoralize them. They love her."

Coin reluctantly agrees, and decides to wait until we've gone twenty-four hours without a bombing, then immediately establish that Katniss is alive and defiant. Fulvia gets to work writing a short line, which we will no doubt throw away. Reports from the residential bunker don't suggest that Katniss is in any place to give an extended performance after what happened to Peeta. Beetee is tasked with re-establishing our connection to the main airwaves in Panem.

I sleep, and dream of Peeta, unable to walk, while they do something to him that shorted out the circuits in a piece of equipment designed to withstand quite a lot.

I wake up unrested the next day to find the Command staff setting up a morning meeting. Boggs is gone, and I realize, for the first time, that the bunker door is open.

The bombing is over.

Plutarch is standing over a pot of what smells like very strong coffee, breathing it in like incense. Coin looks at it distastefully.

Boggs returns with Katniss, Gale, and Finnick in tow. Gale doesn't look any the worse for wear. Finnick looks shaken. Katniss looks like she's walking through a nightmare. Her fingers are swollen red for some reason. So are Finnick's. I don't ask.

I try to catch Katniss's eye, but she doesn't really seem to be registering anyone's presence.

She suits up as the Mockingjay after a brief strategy meeting, and we all go topside to film. She seems jittery and out there. I glance at Boggs and he nods. We put on a little pantomime about how much Peeta helped -- a true story, but one we're performing for her benefit -- and that seems to calm her a little bit.

Cressida decides to film at the Justice Building, to mock the supposed Capitol news reports.

"We should put a fake mockingjay up in the corner," Messalla says, grinning. "Just for old time's sake."

"We don't need a fake one. We have the real one." Cressida smirks.

Even from a distance, I can see the whitish residue left by the final bomb, but it's not until we actually get there that I see what it is: Dozens upon dozens of white and pink roses. The same sort of thing that littered Caesar Flickerman's set during Katniss and Peeta's last interview after their first Games.

Katniss recognizes it immediately and falls back, gagging at the stench, but she manages to rally. Cressida tries to press her to say something defiant. Anything. No one bothers trying to get her to follow Fulvia's script. They try Q-and-A. They try word-by-word recording.

But with each take, it gets worse. She keeps glancing at the roses. Her face gets paler. Her hands are shaking.

"What's wrong with her?" Plutarch asks.

Finnick turns to him. "She's figured out how Snow's using Peeta."

I close my eyes. It never occurred to me that she hadn't known. But now, she does. And she is completely undone by it. She stands at the center of a rough, awkward circle of us, shaking and hyperventilating.

Everyone reaches out to her, but suddenly, she holds out her arms to me and whimpers, "Haymitch..."

Suddenly, everything inside me seems too large for my chest. No one has ever reached out to me like that, not even my little brother before he died. No one has ever needed me for anything other than an occasional snide comment or a handy weapon in the arena. But Katniss Everdeen -- tough, hard-edged Katniss -- is reaching for me, saying my name.

I go to her and I put my arms around her, and I understand everything, everything I've ever heard people say about their children. I've called her one of my kids, been willing to kill for her before, but this is a different thing. All I want to do is hold onto her and not let anything hurt her ever again. I lead her to a fallen pillar, a little bit away from everyone else, and hold her while she cries.

"I can't do this anymore," she says.

"I know."

"All I can think of is... what's he going to do to Peeta... because I'm the Mockingjay!"

"I know," I say again. It doesn't seem enough. I feel like I should be able to give her some kind of advice. But all I can say is that I understand.

"Did you see? How weird he acted? What are they... doing to him?" She bursts into fresh tears. "It's my fault!" Something between a cry and a scream comes from her, and she pitches forward, tearing at her hair. "It's my fault, they're breaking him and it's because of me, because he loved me, because I need him and he's gone and Snow's hurting him..."

I try to hold her still before she hurts herself. "Katniss..."

"I need him. I need Peeta, I can't do this. I can't keep..." She stops talking because she's hyperventilating again, the air whistling in and out of her.

"Hold her still," someone says, and then she is limp in my arms, asleep, as a needle pulls away from us.

I gather her up and carry her to the tunnel that leads back down into Thirteen. Gale helps me balance her as we go down the ladder. The elevators are back in service ten levels down, and we manage to get her to the hospital. Finnick has trailed behind us, not speaking. I think he's all right when he tucks her into her hospital bed, but then Plutarch suggests that he go back topside to do a propo alone.

Finnick throws him across the room.

I don't know who finally manages to drug him, but whoever it was might have done well in the arena.

Once he is sedated and in his bed, Boggs looks at everyone and says, "Meeting."

"I'm not leaving," I say.

"Fine. We'll have it here." He gets on his communicuff and calls for Coin and other members of Command. They arrive within minutes.

"What has happened?" Coin asks, looking furiously at Katniss and Finnick. "Was there an attack on the surface?"

Boggs quickly explains the situation. "There's no way she can keep performing," he finishes. "Odair, either."

"She made a promise," Coin hisses. "She was given --"

I grab her shoulders and push her down into a chair. "You listen to me," I say. "This girl has done everything you could ask for, and more. And the boy -- the man -- she loves is paying for it in the Capitol. And what did he do? He saved half of your damned district, lady. You want your mockingjay back? You recover Peeta Mellark. It's not about a trade-off of services anymore. She's going to fall apart without him."

Coin squares her shoulders. "A mission to the Capitol is not a minor matter -- "

"It can be done," Boggs says. "I've been talking to Cressida and Messalla, and the cameramen -- well, the one who's not an Avox. They know exactly where the high security prison wing is. We can get Peeta Mellark and Annie Cresta. Plutarch? We have a Peacekeeper, don't we?"

"We have more than one," Plutarch says. "And two of my junior Gamemakers have been doing their studies in security. They have to know it to keep the arena secure. They'll be able to help with the break-in. We also have a doctor."

"That's a lot of covers blown," Coin says. "We're not ready for a full scale assault."

"It's not an assault," Boggs says. "It's just an extraction. We get the prisoners out. A small strike team would do it."

"I volunteer," Gale says, an unconscious echo of Katniss at the Seventy-Fourth reaping, and Peeta at the Seventy-Fifth. He is holding Katniss's hand. He looks up fiercely. "I volunteer, and if you don't send the rest of the team, I'll go alone."

"That's hardly necessary," Coin says coolly. "Very well. A strike team and an extraction of Peeta Mellark and Annie Cresta." She stands up. "And since we were unable to get usable footage this morning, Beetee, see to it that the strike team is wired for video. We'll watch it here, and when they get back, we'll show them infiltrating the deepest part of the Capitol."

"They'll retaliate against all the prisoners they have left," I say. "Peeta's preps. Portia. Effie Trinket. Caesar Flickerman. And Johanna Mason. I have no idea what they'll do to Johanna."

"We do not have the resources to save everyone," Coin says. "I wish we did."

I somehow doubt that. She may not wish them any ill, but I don't think she cares in the least if any of them die, as long as she can get Katniss back to her performance.

"We can't order anyone into this," Boggs says. "I want volunteers."

"I volunteer," I say.

Boggs shakes his head. "Sorry, Haymitch. But you haven't had any training that works for a coordinated strike team."

"I've survived the arena."

"This isn't the arena, and you can't get out of it by outsmarting it. You'll stay here. Help in Command, just like you would for Katniss's mockingjay shoots." He looks at me with something approaching respect. "And I think Katniss will need you here when she wakes up. I don't think anyone else will be able to get across to her what's happening. And remember -- Gale will be in the thick of it as well."

This is the end of the meeting. Boggs and Gale go off to recruit more volunteers, and Beetee to set up their video equipment. Coin goes off to do whatever she does when she's not looking down her nose at me. Plutarch sits with me for a while. "I'll run the op," he says. "I'm breaking my contacts' covers. I know they'll go along with it."

"What about the rest?" I ask. "Effie. Portia. Caesar."

Plutarch looks over his shoulder. "Once they're in the Capitol, I'm sure... let's say, that opportunities may present themselves. I'm sure no one would object if part of the team did find a way to get into the minimum security wing for Effie and Portia and the preps while the other part went to maximum for Peeta and Annie. And Johanna, who is also there."

"They'll mind."

"All right, yes. But they won't be able to do a thing about it."

He gives me an earpiece, just like the one I lectured Katniss about, and leaves for Command. I sit between Katniss and Finnick, waiting for them to come back to life.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eight
Plutarch doesn't return for almost two hours. I sit between Katniss and Finnick the whole time. I'm bored. It's absurd to be bored right now, but I am. I'm out of the loop, and I have no project. I can either think about Peeta's blood on the tiles or think about nothing. I opt to think about nothing, but it does have the drawback of making the hours seem to last for days.

I've actually almost nodded off when Plutarch comes back through the door, looking grim.

"Boggs just got them out," he says. "There were more volunteers than he was willing to take. What is it with Twelve and volunteers, all the sudden?"

I frown. "They're all from Twelve?"

"Well, no. Gale's actually the only one from Twelve that he picked. The rest aren't very well trained. But the Cartwright girl and the Leevy girl were fighting to go along right up until the hovercraft launched. Gale's brother wanted to go."

"Rory?"

"Whichever one of the younger two is older. The mother offered, too."

"Hazelle."

He waves this away. "There were others. Apparently, they recognize the service Peeta did for them. There was some talk of 'owing.' I'll never understand Twelve's concept of debt payment." He sighs. "At any rate, it's a seasoned crew. Gale's the only one who hasn't been on a strike squad before."

I frown. "Who have they been fighting?"

"They had their own run-ins with the raiders over the years, and people have been going out to fight in the districts, no matter what you think, Haymitch. Mavis Jackson just got back from a stint in Eleven. She's Boggs's second. Winifred and Wilhelmina Leeg -- the twins -- were in the thick of the fighting in Six. Without Winnifred, we never would have taken the trains. And there's Messalla."

"Messalla? Cressida's assistant? He hasn't been in training any more than I have!"

"He's in better shape otherwise, though. And after working with Cressida for five years, he knows how to take orders."

"You said Gale was the only one who hadn't been in combat."

"Do you think Cressida's team got out of the Capitol and all the way across the country to Thirteen without having to deal with Snow's troops?"

I never thought much about it, and I realize that of course, he's right. Snow doesn't let anyone just wander off. "Right," I say.

He looks around shiftily, then waves one of Fulvia's bug-catchers in a circle. I don't see any red lights. He leans down. "Right now, the plan is to send Gale and three others into the maximum security wing to collect Peeta and Annie, and Johanna if we can get in. Janus Fells -- Enobaria's brother -- will meet them with a security pass, but it won't take anyone very long to figure out what's going on. The other half -- the Leegs and Messalla -- will find a place to break off and go to minimum security to recover Portia, the preps, and Effie. That's off the record until they actually get there."

"Thanks," I say.

"I know you may not believe this, Haymitch, but I like Effie, and I'm sorry that I didn't believe you about keeping her safe. I really thought the Capitol wouldn't bother with her."

There's nothing to say to this, and I don't bother trying to think of anything. Plutarch excuses himself to go back to Command, though I don't imagine he's any more useful than I would be at this point.

Finnick starts thrashing in his sleep about half an hour after Plutarch leaves, and they put up a screen to do a quick exam. They probably shoot him up with something more, too, since he quiets quickly. They don't take down the screen.

Katniss is sleeping uneasily -- her fingertips keep twitching, and her face occasionally contorts in pain -- but she doesn't thrash, so they let her be. I'm still sitting beside her when she wakes up. She starts trembling right away, and I have a crazy desire to cuddle her like an infant. It's not too hard to fight.

"It's all right," I tell her. "They're going to try to get Peeta out."

"What?"

"Plutarch's sending in a rescue team. He has people on the inside. He thinks we can get Peeta back alive."

She blinks owlishly. "Why didn't we before?"

I explain the situation as well as I can, trying not to scream that it doesn't make any sense to me, either. She doesn't need that. She's barely holding it together. I put off telling her that Gale is on the team. I know I shouldn't, but she looks like a good shock will make her jitter apart at the seams, and whatever her romantic entanglements might be, Gale is her best friend.

But I'm stumbling now, trying not to be sarcastic, trying to keep it upbeat, and I mention that Boggs has all volunteers. I tell her that I tried, but Boggs was smart enough not to let me.

But she's not deterred. I think she has an inkling. "So who else volunteered?" she asks.

"I think there were seven altogether," I tell her, honestly enough.

Her eyes narrow. "Who else, Haymitch?"

I sigh. "You know who else, Katniss. You know who stepped up first."

Her jaw clenches, and she nods. Her hands start to shake as violently as Peeta's leg was shaking in the studio, and I try not to see it all again.

If we were at home, I'd offer her a drink. We could sit together in my living room, drinking and trying not to think about Peeta and Gale and what might be happening in the Capitol.

I can't do that here, so I ask if she wants a sedative. She declines. She wants to join the team, but even if Boggs would take her, it's too late. She volunteers for anything I can think of. I promise to talk to Plutarch if she stays put, and try to find a way for her to participate.

She isn't happy, but she agrees.

I go to Plutarch in Command to see if he can think of something. He and Beetee are hunched over video monitors, watching the District Twelve propos.

"That's it," Beetee says when I bring up Katniss's request. "That's what we've been looking for."

"What do you mean?" I ask.

Plutarch frowns. "We've been worried about keeping back any… shall we say, common response."

"Common response?"

"People will defend their homes," Beetee says. "In the Capitol the same as in the districts."

"I know that, but we're not going into their homes."

"They'll know what it means if armed soldiers from the enemy camp break into their prisons. They'll know it means total war, and that we'll come with a bigger invasion force if we get away with it."

I hadn't really considered this, except in a theoretical way. Of course we'd go to the Capitol eventually. But I hadn't really thought of it as invading people's homes.

I have a sudden, very clear image of my sponsors, standing in their front rooms as their colorful glass doors are shattered, holding their beribboned poodles and weeping while wild men ransack their homes.

I force it away. This isn't an invasion, it's just a rescue from a prison none of them have ever seen. Hell, they'll have seen last night's broadcast. They're decent people; they most likely want him rescued as much as I do. More than Coin does.

But it's a sign that the invasion is coming. That's what Plutarch means. They'll realize that we can get into the Capitol, and they'll fight.

I nod. "So you want Katniss to… what, distract them?"

Beetee nods. "The footage we got in District Twelve is good, but I think we can do better. We can do something really sensational. Especially if Finnick helps. He's got a few stories that ought to keep the techs too interested to block us."

"You want Finnick to talk about… what Snow does to him? On television? No. You can't ask him to do that."

"I can, and I will," Plutarch says. "It's time to break the myth that the victors are pampered." He glances at Beetee, then back to me. "But neither of them could perform this morning. Will they be able to keep it together now?"

I consider it. "If they think they're doing it to help in the war, and it'll help get Peeta and Annie back… yes. But don't put that on Finnick if there's anything else to do. There's going to be a time after the war, and he's going to want a regular life."

When I get back down to the hospital, Katniss has woken Finnick up. He's eager to help in any way he can. I don't tell him exactly what Plutarch has in mind. We get them made up again and go back up to the surface.

Cressida positions Katniss and starts filming, and she tells a story that I suspected, but never knew for sure. "When I first met Peeta," she begins, "I was eleven years old and I was almost dead."

I sit, just off camera, and listen. I always suspected something like this, some kindness that Katniss felt unworthy of. Apparently, Peeta deliberately burned bread so it couldn't be sold, and snuck it out to her under Mir's nose.

The strangest part is, I think I know when it happened. It was the spring after the mine explosion, and Effie was there. Danny had been covering for me while I met with other rebels, at Chaff's refuge in District Eleven that time. We were arguing about our disastrous alliance with the out district raiders. I shipped myself back as a crate of fruit, and Danny rolled me off the train. I got out and pretended to be helping him with the very heavy empty crate, and then Effie appeared out of nowhere, and said that Mir had been fighting with Peeta. Danny stormed off in a rage. I never checked up on it. How many other things did I forget to check up on?

According to Katniss, he showed up with a black eye at school the next day. Did he tell Danny the truth about it, or make up a lie? And if he lied, did Danny convince himself to believe it?

At any rate, the bread he took a beating to give away saved Katniss's life -- and Ruth's and Prim's -- and she has since woven his act into a narrative about him that is far beyond any romantic, idealistic notion he may ever have held of her. I hope that he sees it before he's otherwise occupied with being rescued, because I doubt she's ever adequately expressed it to him. The longer she waited, the worse it would be, the less possible it would be to find words that would make a dent in the debt. So instead, she said nothing, and he most likely has no idea how important that day was to her.

I also hope they hear it here in Thirteen, because, idealized and romanticized or not, it is who Peeta is. What he did for her in the microcosm, he did for them just as spectacularly, taking Snow's brutal beating for them just as he took his mother's for Katniss.

I suspect there's more to it, something that even now, she's holding out on. Something that maybe wouldn't make sense to a person outside Katniss's head. But the bread is enough. She follows this with a lukewarm political statement which won't hold anyone's interest nearly as well, though I expect Plutarch thinks it's the high point, and Fulvia is planning on having it carved in stone at any moment.

Plutarch comes over to Finnick and me while Katniss catches her breath.

"We need more," he says. "Finnick, it's time. It's time to spill those secrets. Everything you've got."

"No," I say. "No way, Plutarch. You can't ask him to do that. That's… that's personal. It's --"

"Haymitch, I have to ask. I told you I would. The story Katniss told is great, and the little old ladies with cats will be retelling it for years, but they were never going to interfere with a rescue anyway. We need to get everyone talking. Paying attention to anything but the prison."

Finnick is nodding, fiddling with a piece of rope. "I'll do it. Of course I'll do it. I've been collecting secrets for years. Now I've got a chance to use them for a little payback."

He starts to go over toward the filming area. I go with him. "You don't have to do this," I say as he takes Katniss's seat.

"Yes I do. If it'll help her." He takes his rope and puts it in his pocket, adopting the laid-back, easy attitude he usually has for the cameras. "I'm ready," he says.

I step back and sit down on a piece of rubble. Katniss sits beside me. I give her shoulder a squeeze and she looks comforted by it.

Finnick doesn't waste any time with preliminaries. As soon as Cressida tells him to talk, he says, "President Snow used to… sell me… my body, that is. I wasn't the only one…"

Katniss's eyes widen, and I can tell she's putting a few things together. She looks at me sideways, but says nothing.

Finnick begins his litany of secrets. Some of them, I knew. Others, I never had reason to.

Adamaris Brinn -- whose money supported Snow's early ambitions, and who later became head of the Capitol Debtors' Relief Society (an ironic name, since it generally occupied itself with sending debtors to jail) -- has made use not only of Finnick, but of several other victors over the years, including my old mentor, Albinus Drake. Her money comes from jewels mined in the out districts by the very debtors she imprisoned… from mines she has never reported to anyone, in flagrant disregard of the law. Her workers, she forces beyond all human capacity. Most of them die young. She once gave Finnick a raw sapphire and told him she'd had a worker's hand cut off for trying to steal it.

Claudius Templesmith frequents prostitutes a good deal younger than Finnick was when he started.

Snow's minister of information (in other words, his chief propagandist), Corvinus Eveleth, likes to frolic in a diaper and pretend to be drinking from a bottle while engaged in other acts.

Egeria Daby, head of the genetic engineering lab, has done things with mutts that I really wish Finnick would stop describing.

Snow's alleged "son," who disappeared several years ago, was actually an illegal clone, who failed to actually duplicate Snow in any way beyond the physical. ("I met him," Finnick says. "A decent person. Of course he 'disappeared.' Along with his wife, leaving their daughter in Snow's care. But we'll get back to Snow," he promises.)

I remember Martius Snow, and his wife, Caesar Flickerman's secretary. He was decent. I should have guessed he was a clone, since he looked like his father's twin, but he was an okay guy. Caesar trusted him, and at the time, that was all I needed to know.

Finnick goes on.

General Hadrian Fife and his sister are somewhat closer than is expected in polite society.

Latona Holton -- longtime mistress of Snow's Chief Peacekeeper, Manius Cadwell -- burns down buildings in the Capitol and watches the flames while having whoever she has ordered in for the night. These buildings have not always been empty. If Cadwell is free, he watches.

And on, and on. Political murders. Arrests made under duress. He tells all of it in a soft, compelling voice. It's not sensationalized. These are very obviously simply things that he has been told over the years, or been made to participate in. Tales told in the dark to a Capitol pet who knew better than to share his knowledge. I know many of the people he mentions, and I know the names of all of them after twenty-five years dealing with the Capitol. I held none of them in high esteem, but some of what he brings up even manages to surprise me.

Cressida doesn't interrupt him with questions. She just lets him speak.

"And now," he says, after half an hour of this, "on to our good President Coriolanus Snow. Such a young man when he rose to power. Such a clever one to keep it. How, you must ask yourself, did he do it? One word. That's all you really need to know. Poison."

I can't say that Snow's habit of poisoning enemies is a surprise. He tried to do it to me this winter, and would have succeeded if Effie hadn't forced me to take a double dose of detox pills before the party at the presidential mansion, because she didn't want me embarrassing her or my district by being drunk in such a prominent place. What I didn't know was how widely he'd used it, or that he'd developed an immunity to many poisons over the years, which kept suspicion off of him as his rivals conveniently disappeared under questionable circumstances. Everyone knew that their deaths were a little too convenient, but no one could prove a thing. And of course, once Snow was in power, it didn't matter anymore. He clawed his way up over their bodies, from Gamemaker at the age of seventeen to the presidency by the age of forty-three, and has held it for fifty years by brutally eliminating any threat, including his own cloned "son."

I have no idea how long Finnick has been talking when he finally smiles faintly and says, "Cut."

Cressida and her crew (minus Messalla, of course) run in with the footage, and Plutarch leads Finnick off with a congratulatory handshake.

I am left with Katniss, who looks stunned. Her hands are clenched into fists. "Is that what happened to you?" she asks.

At first, I think she means the poisoning, then I realize what she's really asking: Did Snow sell me?

I shake my head. I've never told her anything. I have assumed that she knew about my family -- everyone in Twelve knew about them -- but that might not even be true. Katniss keeps to herself, and is not a great one for gossip, even with her mother, who certainly knows the story. Or maybe it was so long ago that none of the kids knows. I haven't exactly been at the forefront of anyone's consciousness lately.

"No," I say. "My mother and younger brother. My girl. They were all dead two weeks after I was crowned victor. Because of the stunt I pulled with the forcefield. Snow had no one to use against me."

There was more to it, of course, but I don't talk about it. What Beckett did to Digger, and why she did it, was about as close as I came to the kind of sexual blackmail Finnick dealt with, but because there was no one else left -- no one except Danny, and until Peeta was reaped, I thought I'd managed to sneak him under Snow's radar -- there was no more leverage to be used. And of course, eventually, I made myself completely undesirable. I wish I could say that had been a deliberate choice.

But Katniss doesn't need to think about that, not right now. It occurs to me that someday, I might tell her. And Peeta. But not now.

She nods and says, "I'm surprised he didn't just kill you."

I shrug. "Oh, no. I was the example. The person to hold up to the young Finnicks and Johannas and Cashmeres. Of what could happen to a victor who caused problems. But he knew he had no leverage against me."

"Until Peeta and I came along," she says.

I don't bother arguing. She knows. Obviously, she knows. She launched herself into my arms when she needed comfort. She wouldn't have done that if she didn't know that I'd picked up a hell of an Achilles' heel from the second she said, "I volunteer." I've always loved my tributes, I guess -- for all the good it did them -- but it was in an abstract way, knowing that they deserved to have someone, even me, caring about them at the end. Katniss and Peeta were different. They broke my isolation even before we reached the Capitol.

There was Effie, a voice in my head whispers. There was always Effie.

Maybe. But I treated her like garbage. I didn't realize Snow knew about her until after he played that card, so it wasn't very good leverage at all.

I sit quietly with Katniss until I'm called to Command. Katniss goes off to join Finnick.

In Command, we contact the hovercraft as Boggs's team is approaching the Capitol. They'll arrive at three o'clock (1500, in District Thirteen terms, which I refuse to use). A man on Gale's team is fitted with a camera for the assault on the maximum security wing (Gale is starting to be known, so they'll want to get footage of him). Messalla will actually be filming the minimum security wing, though we're all maintaining the polite fiction that everyone is going to stay together.

It seems like it might work, until two forty-five, when a red light goes on in front of Plutarch. He grabs a second earpiece. "Galerius?" he says. "What? He's where?"

I look up. "What is it?"

"It's Peeta," Plutarch says.

"What about him?"

"They've moved him to the Training Center. He's on the twelfth floor in the old apartment. Galerius is treating him for the same reaction he had before."

Coin frowns. "Can we reach him there?"

"Yeah," Plutarch says. "Messalla knows his way around the Training Center. But that means splitting the team into two parts to recover Annie from the prison." He looks at me. We both understand what it means: The team was already going to split, but now, they won't be able to get the prisoners from minimum security.

Portia.

Effie. I have to let her down again.

I close my eyes, but I can't react without letting the rest of Command know that we never planned to follow their orders in the first place.

"Can it be done with half-teams?" Coin asks.

Plutarch nods, but doesn't elaborate.

Beetee goes out to the broadcast room to start the distraction. On screens out there, they'll be watching what we filmed this morning, forced into the Capitol broadcast. In here, the big screens fill up with a live feed of the rescue.

The hovercraft lands at the lakeshore, where two of Plutarch's junior Gamemakers meet them with vans. They pick a rendezvous point and a secondary point, then Gale climbs into one of the vans, Messalla and the Leegs into the other. On board the hovercraft, Boggs orders medical teams to prepare for the prisoners, then they rise up and re-cloak.

"Looks like your friends are busy again," Messalla's driver says, pointing up at the big television screen in City Center, on which Katniss is giving her brief political statement. People are looking up with vague curiosity. I can only wonder what they'll do when Finnick comes on, and I know I won't get a chance to find out. I wonder how many of them will pretend shock. I wonder how many of my friends there will be honestly shocked. How many will wonder what Katniss did. I have an odd desire to ask someone to get a message to the Daughters to let them know I was all right. I don't bother voicing this desire.

Gale's driver is nowhere as friendly as Messalla's at City Center, and there is no public screen. They approach a wall on the outside of the prison, and Gale taps his earpiece. "Now," he says.

At this, Boggs's team on the hovercraft jumps into action. A fourth screen comes to life, showing the security feeds from inside the prison. Enobaria's brother has placed canisters of knockout gas through the prison, and these are blown, sending clouds of white fog through the corridors. Peacekeepers and other guards fall to the ground before they can even think about sounding an alarm. The Gamemakers put a bomb in the abandoned, mostly burned-out Viewing Center, large enough to cause havoc and get local law enforcement involved in a response, but not anywhere that would kill innocents.

The propo would be useless, after all, if we accidentally kill someone.

I watch as the charred shell of the Viewing Center collapses into black dust. I can't really name what I feel about it. It's a conflicted run of nonsensical images of the time I spent there. The horrible bank of telephones where we went to call the families of dead children. The semi-circle of mentors' tables where we made dark jokes. The dark, lush lounge and the curtained beds. I think of waking Effie up in bed, just before she left with Tazzy. I think of her kissing me. I think of my friends laughing at me good-naturedly.

The ashes blow outward and the emergency teams rush to the empty hole that's left behind.

Finally, Plutarch's people manage to blow the power to the prison. How they get around the redundant systems, I don't know. I don't care.

Gale puts on a gas mask, then shoots a grappling hook to the top of the wall and starts to climb.

In the city, Messalla and the Leeg sisters jump from the van, which is now being buffeted by rescuers trying to make it to the Viewing Center. In the background, I can see people in the City Center, trying to run. The Gamemaker they're with, who Plutarch identifies as Bassianus Orman, ditches the van and leads the way to the Training Center. The image jumps around as Messalla runs.

On the other screen, I see Gale force open the door to the prison wings. A Peacekeeper runs out, wearing his own gas mask, and barely avoids being shot by holding up his gloved hand, on which he's drawn a very crude mockingjay. "I'm Janus," he says. "Come with me. Not everyone is knocked out."

"He can't go with them," Plutarch says. "They'll know he's with us. They'll kill him. His sister, too."

Coin seems unconcerned.

I speak into my microphone for the first time. "Gale -- point your gun at him. Now. And take the damned glove away."

He nods and does it.

Janus adjusts quickly, and changes his posture. He'll be disciplined for giving in, but not shot as a rebel.

They go down through darkened corridors filled with fog. The prison cells apparently didn't get the same dose, because I can hear prisoners shouting behind them.

"Do we let them out?" Gale asks.

"Negative," Coin says. "Keep the mission parameters in mind, Soldier Hawthorne."

Given that I don't know what these prisoners are in for -- they could be innocent political prisoners or they could be serial killers -- I agree.

Gale is swept down another staircase.

Here in the lower levels, the gas didn't penetrate as far, and the guards are just sluggish. The kid carrying the camera shoots one of them.

"Don't shoot too much," Gale says. "The noise will bring more."

I look over at Messalla's team. The Leeg sisters have broken into the Training Center's equipment shed, and, wisely, are arming themselves with quieter weaponry -- spears and knives. One of them (I can't tell them apart) actually grabs a trident.

The Gamemaker Orman has a key to the emergency staircase that runs up the side of the building.

They run up the stairs, double-time. I can hear Messalla breathing heavily. One of the Leegs -- I'd guess the one he was in the jugs with -- says, "Come on, soldier! This isn't where I want to hear the heavy breathing!" She grins and runs easily up more stairs.

When they reach the top, the other sister holds up her hand and puts a finger to her mouth to indicate that they should be quiet. She puts a listening device to the door. I don't even know where in the quarters it will open, and I've lived there a month a year for a quarter of a century.

Orman swipes his card, and the door swings open into the kitchenette area, on what seems to be a blank wall behind a cart. The Leegs jump out, guns drawn, and head out into the apartment. Messalla and Orman follow.

It's deathly quiet. "Where is he?" Messalla whispers. "Is the intelligence wrong?"

"It's solid," Plutarch says. "He's in his room. The doctor just left him."

I tell them where Peeta's room is -- presuming he's in the same one, but even if he's not, it's next door to the other bedroom -- and they head over. The door is closed. Messalla and one of the Leegs spread out to cover either side of the door. The other Leeg stands across the hall with her gun drawn. Orman sweeps his card again and the door opens.

Peeta is alone. He is lying on the bed, mumbling at the ceiling, saying things I can't begin to understand. He is covered with bruises and naked. Deliberate burn marks march down his torso. His arms and legs are still twitching lethargically. His eyes are vacant when he looks at his rescuers.

Then they slip shut.

Messalla rushes forward and puts his fingers to Peeta's neck. "He's unconscious. Pulse is thready."

"You're not going to get him back down the stairs," I say. "Plutarch, can we get the hovercraft to the roof? That's easy access from our level."

He nods, and gives the order to Boggs. I relay it to Messalla.

It may be easy access to the roof, but even emaciated, Peeta is hard to carry. He's bigger than any of them.

I close my eyes and think about the apartment. There has to be something. My mind keeps bringing up an image of Effie -- Effie in the dining room, laying out a beautiful spread for dessert.

A messy spread.

I open my eyes. "There's a piece of heavy duty plastic in the dining room, behind the sideboard. It won't hold him long, but you can make a stretcher of it for the walk to the roof."

"Read you," Messalla says. He goes to the dining room, pulls the sideboard out without much care, and finds the plastic piece that Effie used to protect it. He carries it back. Peeta's legs dangle over the end of it, but it's the best we can do. They shred his sheets to tie him to it securely and head for the roof.

In the prison, Gale has made it down to a long, dismal corridor lined with heavy metal doors.

Less sluggish guards down here have put on gas masks, and as soon as they're in, our soldiers have to flatten themselves against the wall to avoid constant gunfire. Gale takes out a guard with a shot to the head. "Give me the card," he hisses to Janus. "Then run. Like you just managed to get away from us."

Janus nods and fishes for his security card. He runs for the others. "They're everywhere!" he yells. "We have to retreat!"

I don't know if it would have worked if he hadn't spoken. I don't know how itchy the other Peacekeepers' trigger fingers are.

All I know is that one of them screams, "COWARD!" and in a blast of blood and bone, Janus Fells drops to the ground.

I look at Plutarch. He looks determinedly away from me.

That kid was the brother of a victor. I don't know whether Enobaria will take it out on the Capitol for shooting him, or the rebellion for putting him in this position. Either way, I have a feeling she's not going to be neutral after this.

In the haze of gunfire, it's hard to see anything. Gale is firing carefully, not wasting ammunition. He takes out two more guards. The others manage to subdue more and rush off to guard the entrances to the hall. The one with the camera follows Gale, on Coin's orders.

Gale starts opening doors.

Most of the cells are empty. He gets nearly to the end of the hall when he opens the door and swears loudly.

The camera gets a glimpse around the door. Johanna Mason is shivering at the back of the cell, naked and beaten. Her hair has been chopped off none-too-carefully, taking chunks of her scalp with it. She is holding a chain that descends from the ceiling, snarling at Gale and the camera.

"We're getting you out of here," Gale says.

"That's not on the mission, Soldier Hawthorne," Coin says mildly.

"Screw the mission, look at her."

Coin purses her lips. "Be careful of your tone, soldier."

"Yes, ma'am, I'm sorry, but we have to get her out. It's not taking any extra time, except for arguing about it."

Coin sighs, as if she has been given an impossible ultimatum. "Very well," she says. "Bring her. We'll see to her as well."

Gale goes into the cell, then Johanna's eyes widen. She hisses through clenched teeth, "Gun!"

"What?"

"Gun!"

Gale lowers his gun, apparently thinking that she doesn't want it pointed in her direction.

"Idiot!" she yells, and lurches forward. There is a blur of motion as she grabs the gun from the cameraman, then a huge, deafening noise when she blows a hole in the Peacekeeper, left for dead after the firefight, that had been crawling up behind them. She turns on Gale. "Keep me armed," she tells him. "And give me someone to shoot at."

Chapter Text

Chapter Nine
I look at Johanna, her legs unsteady, her arms occasionally jerking spasmodically. I don't have any authorization to give orders, and I've already been slapped on the wrist for it, but no one else seems to be in a hurry to jump in here. No one else knows Johanna Mason.

I speak into my microphone. "Gale, disarm her before she accidentally shoots herself. She's not physically stable" -- she's probably not mentally stable, either, but how many of us are? -- "and she will start shooting."

Johanna points the gun at a squirming guard and pulls the trigger, but only gets a dry click.

"It's out of ammo, anyway," Gale says. "Not wasting time arguing about it."

Johanna starts kicking at the door next to hers. "Peeta! Peeta!"

"He's not here," Gale says. "They took him to the Training Center. Where's Annie Cresta?"

"You have to get Peeta," Johanna says. "I don't know what the hell they've been doing to him. Screaming. All the time, screaming. Nonsense. Just screaming…"

"We have a team on it," Gale says, looking a little spooked as Johanna keeps muttering under her breath about Peeta's screams. "They're recovering him right now. Where's Annie?"

Johanna points catty-corner to the last cell in the hall. Before the cameraman follows them to it, he raises the view to the small window on Peeta's cell. The floor is covered with blood and smeared with things I don't want to think about. There is a coffin on the cot, but I can't tell who's in it. Something is on the wall, but I can't see it. Darkened video screens line the walls, and all of them are plastered with bloody handprints. One has been cracked in a starpoint, like Peeta punched it.

"Keep moving," Plutarch orders quietly.

"Do you think we should show the Capitol how he's been kept?" Fulvia asks, eyes wide. "That's… it's horrible. No one would believe he was speaking of his own free will."

I look at Plutarch. I know it's horrible. I know that Fulvia is right that it would undermine all of Peeta's public appearances. But I know, even at a glance, that whatever happened in there is something that is private, something that only Peeta has the right to decide whether or not to share.

Plutarch seems to be going through the same calculations. He looks at the screen again, then repeats, "Keep moving."

The view swings. Gale and Johanna have reached Annie's cell. This one has a thick plexiglass wall. Through it, I can see Annie, who is, for some reason, wearing a Peacekeeper's long white coat. She comes to the cell door and looks out. Her arms are crossed and she is picking at the fabric of the coat. Gale swipes the security key and she comes out.

"Why are you dressed in that?" Johanna asks.

"Peeta," Annie says vaguely.

"We're on it," Gale says. "Come on. We need to get out of here."

The shot gets jittery as they run for a door Plutarch points them toward, one that doesn't lead back up through the same halls they came through.

I look at the other screen. The junior Gamemaker, Orman, has stayed behind in the apartment to blow out the ubiquitous spy cameras. The others are on the way to the roof. Messalla is carrying one end of Peeta's improvised stretcher, which gives a strange, skewed perspective. There's a horrible close up of a line of puncture wounds along his shoulder, disappearing around and behind his neck. Several of them are swollen. His ribs are showing, and there are dark bruises down his torso, along with burns. The skin above his prosthetic is singed in a crown shape, like a small fire was burning at the end of his stump. He doesn't respond to the motion of being carried. His head lolls indifferently, and it takes a lot of faith in the team to believe that he's not actually dead.

I think of Danny in the basement of the apothecary, his back crisscrossed with whip marks, bleeding into the white cloth Ruth put on his back. I sat with him for two hours until he woke up, and I was sure he was going to die there, like Maysilee, like Mom. I'd be watching him, and then he wouldn't be breathing anymore.

But he came through. Peeta will come through. I make myself believe it.

"I don't like this," one of the Leegs says when they get to the roof. "It was too easy."

"You wanted more of a challenge?" Messalla asks.

"I expected more of a challenge," she says. "That's a different thing."

"What are you thinking?" the other Leeg says. "Are they coming for us?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure. Obviously, he's not wired. Nothing to cover it up with." She speaks into her microphone. "Plutarch, did your doctor examine him? Could they have booby-trapped him?"

My guts turn cold and slick at this thought, but Plutarch contacts the doctor, listens, then says, "Peeta was unconscious for the most part, so he couldn't talk, but that didn't prevent a physical exam. He's got a lot of injuries, but there are no foreign items in his body. Galerius particularly checked the leg. It's not working properly, but there's nothing there that shouldn't be."

The first Leeg bites her lip. "I just don't like it."

"It's a blessing," Plutarch says. "Take it. Sometimes, things just work."

I cut off my connection and lean in, so the others in Command don't hear. "Do you really think that?"

"I don't know," Plutarch says quietly. "But do you want to risk them deciding not to bring him after all?"

When the hovercraft gets there and the medical technicians on board run test after test as they fly to the rendezvous point, nothing turns up. Peeta is battered and sick, but he doesn't seem to be booby-trapped in any way they can see.

When the jittery motion finally clears on the screens around Gale's team, they've emerged from the prison and are standing still at last. They only had one extra gas mask, since the plan was technically only to rescue Annie, and all of them are a little woozy, obviously from taking turns going without. Johanna's spasmodic movements have gotten worse, and Annie is carrying her gun. (The soldier she originally relieved of it has drawn his back-up.) Somehow, in the fog, she's convinced Gale to give her his hunting knife. She could still damage herself with it, but at least knives don't accidentally go off.

"Where's our ride?" one of the soldiers asks.

Gale looks around, then curses. The van they came in is on fire. Plutarch's junior Gamemaker is lying dead on the ground.

Plutarch draws in a sharp breath. "Gale, get to cover. Obviously, someone didn't get knocked out." He pulls up the security screen, where a team of masked guards is creeping stealthily down the hall toward the cell block.

"They're headed for the cell block," Plutarch says calmly. "It won't take them long to figure out where you got out."

Gale pauses. "I'm um… I'm sorry about your guy there."

"Thank you." Plutarch thinks about it. "There's an arroyo on the far side of the prison wall. Climb in."

"An…" Gale bites his lip.

Johanna, who has been listening in on one of the other soldiers' earpieces, says, "Plutarch, what the hell is an arroyo?"

"A really big drainage ditch. This one's lined with concrete. Get into it. It leads to the lake."

"Great," she mutters. "Ditches. My favorite. So easy to defend." She starts to move, but is suddenly gripped by another spasm in her arms and legs. She falls to the ground.

Gale tries to take his coat off, either to cover her or to carry her, but he can't get to it under his equipment. Something white flashes, and the camera turns to Annie, who's taken off the Peacekeeper's coat, leaving her otherwise uncovered. Gale wraps the coat around Johanna, but she doesn't stop shuddering. "It's a seizure," he says. "I don't think we're climbing down anywhere."

"Climb," Johanna says through clenched teeth. "Leave me here. I'll take some out."

"The only things you're going to take out are your own fingers," Gale says. He pushes off his heavy backpack and hands it to Annie. "Can you take that?" he asks.

She looks at it like it might explode (in Annie's head, many things explode), then nods solemnly. She grunts as she puts it on, and it bends her over slightly, but she's in reasonably good shape. They haven't done anything to her physically, as far as I can see.

Gale quickly arranges the long coat around Johanna. He squats in front of her. "Get on my back," he says.

"You don't have to carry me."

"Stop wasting time. I'll keep you steady with the coat, but I don't have time for your pride."

"If I were you," I say, "I'd take the knife away from her after that."

He ignores me and gets her arranged on his back, tying the sleeves and tails of the coat around himself for extra support. She manages to get her arms around his neck for balance. The knife is near Gale's face.

Burdened this way, they make their way across the prison grounds. A sluggish guard sees them, but he's too slow. One of Gale's soldiers puts him down with a shot to the head.

They reach the arroyo and find a rail ladder going down to the bottom. There's a thin trickle of water.

Johanna makes a high-pitched noise, then bites down, hard, on the collar of Gale's coat.

"What the…" I start, but I can't even come up with a theory.

Plutarch switches his voice over to the hovercraft. "Is Peeta Mellark stable?" he asks.

Boggs comes on. "We sedated him with the knockout gas, and we're getting his leg functional again while he's out, but he's physically stable. We've given him medication for the allergic reaction he seems to be having to whatever he was given."

"Good," Plutarch says. "I need you to sweep down over the arroyo. We have an injured prisoner and no transport."

"It's risky," Boggs says.

"It's also an order."

"Done."

Gale moves his group as quickly as he can move them toward a low bridge over the arroyo. The sky is darkening, and I can see that the little trickle of water at the bottom is starting to flow faster. When they reach the bridge, Gale lets Johanna down. She is no longer seizing. She yells and scrambles halfway up the side. She tries to get further, but he pulls her down. "Nothing's hurting you," he says. "Calm down."

She wrenches her arm away from him and tries to climb again.

Something booms. Gale grabs Johanna and forces her down the slope (he easily evades a wild swing of the knife), but there is another bang, and he grasps at his shoulder. Blood flows out between his fingers.

The hovercraft shimmers into view, and Boggs fires down at the Peacekeepers, spraying the ground so they can't get close. Someone lowers the claw. Annie screams, "No! Not dead!" Johanna refuses to stand in the water. Both of them fight their rescuers.

Plutarch grinds his teeth. "Sedate them," he orders Boggs.

Someone whose aim rivals Katniss's manages to get a tranquilizer into Johanna as she thrashes. Annie gives up and huddles, and someone is able to pick her up and carry her.

They are all drawn up into the hovercraft.

It turns for home.

In Command, a cheer goes up. It may be premature. They have a lot of ground to cover. But we got them out.

Except for Portia and the preps. Except for Caesar Flickerman, and the junior Gamemaker Orman, and Peeta's doctor.

Except for Effie.

Beetee ends the diversion broadcast. I wonder what the Capitol made of it. I doubt I'll ever find out.

Katniss and Finnick try to come into Command, but Plutarch shakes his head, and Coin nods. She orders them out.

"What's going on?" I ask.

Plutarch signals to a young tech who's been quite taken with Finnick. She comes over. Plutarch tells her, "Block all signals coming from the Capitol. Nothing on television outside this room. Even if we have to cut our own programming. And see if you can lead Everdeen and Odair someplace moderately comforting."

The tech leaves.

"And why," Coin asks, "are we blocking the signal? Do you expect a retaliation propo?"

"I expect actual retaliation," Plutarch says grimly.

We keep one screen on here for the Capitol broadcast, which is full of confused reports about the disruption in service and the collapse of the Viewing Center. They seem to already suspect that it was a diversion, and as we watch, they start to find the dead guards at the prison.

On the other screens, we get our daily reports from the districts. I listen, but I don't know how well I hear over a phantom buzzing in my head, a rising panic about what we're going to see when Snow takes to the air.

Winnow has made contact with her grandmother in Eleven, which people from Thirteen seem less than impressed with. She's also contacted Rue's family, the McKissacks, who've taken over the farm production. So much of the crop has been lost that everyone will need some belt tightening, but they've tightened their belts before and lived through it.

We are in the middle of a discussion with Baize Paylor in District Eight -- another argument about why Thirteen hasn't sent back-up troops -- when someone in the back of the room shouts, "They're on!"

Coin cuts off the conversation with Paylor and brings up the sound on the Capitol broadcast.

They are in City Center. Snow is standing at the podium where he gives his speech for each year's games. In front of him, barely recognizable in prison clothes, with no make-up or hair treatment, are Peeta's preps and Portia. They are being made to kneel in front of Peacekeepers. Effie isn't with them. I'm ashamed of the relief that goes through me. The four people there are going to die. I'm sure of it. I have no business being relieved about anything.

"We will not tolerate treason," Snow says, with no preliminaries. "These allies of the rebellion have aided and abetted the treason of Districts Twelve and Thirteen, through their association with Haymitch Abernathy and Katniss Everdeen, who have just abducted Peeta Mellark, Johanna Mason, and Annie Cresta from their secure locations in the Capitol."

The person holding Peeta's hair stylist, Claudia, pulls her forward and yanks her head back so the camera gets a good shot of her face. She is dirty and crying.

"Claudia Covington," Snow intones. "You are guilty of crimes against Panem. You gave comfort and succor to enemies of the state. You are sentenced to death."

With a flat, unimpressive bang, Claudia slumps forward, her blood pooling around her, her face vanished.

"Sergius Reed," Snow calls out, and Peeta's skin prep is called forward, accused, and shot. His team medic, Valentine Torbert, gets the same accusation, with the added charge of having prevented justice against me by feeding me detox pills that counteracted the poison Snow fed me. She is shot, and her body is thrown unceremoniously down with the others.

Portia is dragged forward. She isn't crying. She glares at Snow. "The end is coming," she says. "It's over here. Everyone knows it."

Snow looks back dully. "Are you quite finished?"

"We're just starting."

"This woman, known as Portia Tate in the Capitol," Snow says, "is hereby stripped of all Capitol privileges. Under her true name, Pingala Tyler, she will be marked forever as a traitor to Panem."

"Not to Panem!" Portia cries out. "I renounce you, Snow. I believe in Panem."

"She is an accessory to the traitor, Cinna Barrett -- "

"Cinna is a hero!"

" -- and an agitator in her own right. She passed messages for the rebellion -- "

"I'm passing one now! Keep fighting!"

" -- and gave material aid to them. She spread disinformation -- "

"You're the only one with disinformation!"

" -- and her actions resulted in the deaths of many of our fine officers today."

"Fine torturers!"

Snow sighs and looks at her guard. "Do still Miss Tyler's flapping tongue."

There is a blast that seems deafening -- or maybe it's just in my head -- and Portia falls silent.

The camera closes in on Snow. "This is the price to be paid for today's actions, a small price. I remind our friends in Thirteen that anyone who has given them aid or comfort is a traitor, and will be dealt with."

Faces float up in my mind -- mostly Katniss and Peeta's sponsors, who are a matter of public record. Aurelian Benz and his friends. Julian Day. The Daughters of the Founding. The nice couple who gave the kids all of their wedding presents. A long list of lonely old women, who just wanted to feel like they were helping out those sweet young kids who loved each other so much. I got as much as I could out of them, and now, I've put them in Snow's line of fire.

But really, there's only one name that comes to me. I'm ashamed of that. I should be thinking of all of them, but all I can see is Effie, Effie at the lake shore, trying to convince me that it wasn't all bad, that there were good things. Effie putting her arms around me and kissing me. Effie looking after my tributes, holding my hand in the cold car where their bodies made the trip back to Twelve.

Snow doesn't know any of that, I tell myself. I kept a safe distance. She's my escort. That's all Snow knows. He thinks she's still brainwashed.

I imagine Plutarch and Fulvia are thinking of their families. I don't know if Cressida has a family in the Capitol, though she looks pale and drawn. All of us who have spent time in the Capitol have people there who mean something to us. Finnick may hate his clients, but he's known to be friends with other people engaged in his business, and regularly brings them food and clothes. Beetee has worked with several of the scientists, and has long-standing ties to the business community, where he sells his inventions. Annie, during her more lucid times, is a great shopper, and is on a first name basis with any number of shopkeepers in the fashion district. I don't know who else has connections left there.

All I know for sure is that, whoever they are, they've all been lined up for Snow now, and there's nothing else we can do for them.

Except win the war. Quickly.

We establish contact with Boggs's team on the hovercraft, which is taking a roundabout northerly route home. Gale gives the report. His shirt is off and he's wearing a sling. There's a large bruise and bloody patch under his shoulder.

"Just a little shrapnel," he says. "Probably concrete from the arroyo. It's not very deep. They can get it when we get back."

"Very well, Soldier Hawthorne," Coin says. I notice her eyes scanning him with detached interest, and remember the cold feel of Beckett's hand on my back. I decide to keep a close eye on this. "Well done."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"What's the condition of the prisoners?" I ask.

"Annie Cresta is fine. They'll want to do a more detailed work-up on her back in District Thirteen, but she has no visible injuries. She's obviously been terrorized, but she's holding up. She's helping the medics sort out bandages now." He gives a sheepish shrug. "It's make-work, but she's doing it."

"Good," Plutarch says. "And Peeta?"

Gale shakes his head. "It's bad. He hasn't regained consciousness. They have his leg functional again, but they had to replace several circuits that were fried out. Luckily, they're standard equipment, and we had them on hand. He's had a few seizures. He's burned. There's at least one broken rib, and they've been injecting him with some kind of toxin. We don't know what. The medics guess that he was in the hospital for respiratory arrest. They don't understand everything that's going on, but he's obviously been beaten and shocked repeatedly."

"Do you have any idea what they'd be injecting him with?" I ask Plutarch.

He shakes his head and glances at Fulvia, who gives him a blank look in return.

Gale wipes his hand over his brow. "Whatever it is, they're going to need to have a medical team on hand. He's in really bad shape, Haymitch. We should have gotten him earlier."

Coin purses her lips. "And what of Johanna Mason?" she asks. "Your extra passenger."

"The medics aren't sure how she moved as long as she did," Gale says. "They've been soaking her and shocking her, and they had her hung by her arms a lot. There might be permanent nerve damage. She's got an upper respiratory infection from being naked and wet for days. Three cracked ribs -- she says that's their favorite bone to break -- and a lot of lacerations from being shaved. Her head and… other things. Supposedly so they wouldn't smell hair burning when they shocked her."

"She's been speaking?" Coin asks. "I was under the impression that she was sedated."

"She's fighting it," Gale says, not without admiration. "She keeps coming up from under it and asking for a gun or an axe."

"That's Jo," I say.

He nods. "We're en route," he says. "No obstacles expected. I'd like to go sit with them, if I could."

"You're dismissed," Coin says. The screen goes out.

Coin looks inclined to give one of her non-inspirational speeches, but most of Command has found other things to do. Plutarch is on the wire with Orman and Galerius, instructing them to get as far underground as they can, out of the Capitol if possible. Beetee is scanning the airwaves. I occupy myself with trying to find one of Plutarch's uncompromised spies (to my shock, the president of the Muttation Appreciation Society, Soranus Wallingford) and getting him to see what he can do for the sponsors, especially Aurelian Benz and the kids from the street fair. He tells me that Aurelian is already in the underground, and was able to speak to Peeta twice. "And his grandfather," Soranus adds, "has been wiping out the bank accounts of half of Snow's biggest backers. Adamaris Brinn is bankrupt." He smiles wickedly, and I try to care about this development.

The meeting lets out around eight. I think about finding Katniss and Finnick, but they're reported to be keeping each other sane in the hummingbird room. I'm not sure I would be helpful in that endeavor right now.

I can't think where else to go, so I go back to the apartment. Dalton is there, painting a picture of a dog. Or maybe a cat. Something with four legs, at least, which isn't a cow. It has pointed ears. I entertain the possibility that it's a rabbit.

"Dry?" he asks.

"Wishing I weren't. But, yeah. It's been a busy day."

"They get 'em?"

"What?"

"I talked to Boggs's wife. She said they were going to the Capitol to recover the prisoners."

"Oh." I am not sure how much of this is allowed out of Command, so I just say, "Yes. They're on the way back."

He nods and gestures at a picture of Effie. "Your lady friend coming?"

I open my mouth to tell him that Effie's a friend, that her lady-ness is not a part of it, but the whole thing sticks in my throat. I see Portia falling to the ground. And the preps. I think of Effie, there in prison, where Snow can get to her any time he wants to. Stripped of all of her creature comforts. Possibly stripped entirely, judging by Johanna and Annie. I don't think about Maris Brinn, or any of the others Finnick talked about. I don't think about what Snow would consider a particularly nasty revenge.

I swallow hard and say, "They couldn't get to Effie."

"Well, like your girl noticed, they probably won't kill her."

"What do you mean?"

"They have her to hold against you, don't they? Knowing it'll drive you crazy. Make you want to sink into a pretty deep bottle."

I shake my head. "I don't treat Effie very well. I doubt anyone in the Capitol is under the impression that I'm in love with her, except for a few diehard gossip reporters. Even most of them have moved on to more interesting scenarios."

"Interesting ain't all it's cracked up to be. Snow's old enough to know that. I'd think you're old enough to know it, too."

"No one thinks I love her. I… we're not together. I'm just… used to her."

"You really believe you're not together, don't you?"

"I think I'd notice if we were." I look at her picture. "It was only a few kisses. We never…"

"You're not a kid, and neither is she. Sex is the least important line there is to cross, and you ought to know that by now. I have a feeling you crossed the other ones a long time ago. I'm not sure you would notice a difference if you slept with her at this point. What, exactly, do you think would change?"

"Do we need to talk about this right now?"

He frowns, then looks at me with a little more pity than I want. "I'm sorry, Haymitch. You're right."

I'm quiet for a few minutes, then I say, "Do you think everyone knows? Do you think Snow does?"

"I don't know the man," he says. "He could be looking for obvious signs. He might not know."

He's lying, and he's not good at it. "He's going to hurt her," I say. "Because of me."

"Anything I can do?"

I shake my head. "If I could think of something to do, I'd be doing it." Before he can push this any further, I point to his painting. "That's your… dog?"

He winces. "My horse."

"Oh. Sorry." I try to make small talk. I don't do very well. All I can think of is the transport coming back. I want a drink, and Dalton knows it, but he doesn't acknowledge it.

It's midnight when the speaker beside wall-Effie beeps. I press the button to answer it.

"They're back," Beetee says. "Get Katniss and Finnick from the hummingbird room, and meet everyone in the hospital."

"Is everyone awake? Is Peeta lucid?"

"They're in radio silence," Beetee says. "We've been picking up Capitol scans. No reason to turn them into a target."

I am suddenly wide awake. I run to the elevator and take it down to Special Weaponry. Katniss and Finnick are sitting there among the birds. Katniss is making nooses. Finnick is crouched with his hands over his ears. I pass on Beetee's message.

Katniss is on her feet immediately, but Finnick seems to be in shock. He lets Katniss lead him to the elevator.

When we get out into the hospital, we're nearly hit by a gurney on which Johanna has finally given in to the sedative. She's raced off to a treatment room. Katniss spots Gale being treated for his shoulder wound and calls to him, but a nurse slams the door.

"Finnick!"

I look up. Annie, wrapped in a sheet, is running toward us, calling for Finnick. He meets her halfway, and they slam into a wall, clinging to each other. I don't think I've ever seen either of them look so happy.

Boggs looks exhausted when he comes over, but happy. "We got them all out," he says. "Except Enobaria…"

I raise my eyebrows, wondering when Enobaria even ended up on the list of victors he was supposed to retrieve. Maybe that was the deal Plutarch cut with Janus. He tells Katniss and me that Peeta is waking up now, and is at the end of the hall.

Katniss smiles widely, her hand going up to her mouth, her fingers dancing over the smile as if she can't quite believe it's there.

I grin at her. "Come on, then," I say. Boggs follows us.

The door is still open on the treatment room, and we can see him most of the way down the hall. Doctors are checking his responses and taking his pulse. He seems stunned. They've given him a pair of pants, but I can still see his bruised and sunken chest. Katniss doesn't seem to register it. She picks up speed, opens her arms to him.

He jumps down off the table, and for a minute, I am seeing Annie and Finnick rushing toward each other, clinging together.

I raise my hand to wave, figuring he won't want anything to interfere with this particular hello.

My hand is still hanging uselessly in the air when he starts to strangle her.

Chapter Text

 Part Two: Rebellion

Chapter Ten
Even as Katniss starts to gag for breath, my mind can't seem to grasp what my eyes are seeing. It tries to make it into an eager embrace, or maybe a muscle spasm… anything but what it is.

Luckily, Boggs has no preconceptions about Peeta, and he understands immediately. He rushes forward and slams his fist into Peeta's head, knocking him down in a single blow.

Katniss collapses beside him, her neck swelling up.

I stand between them uselessly, trying to understand what's happened in less than a minute. Peeta Mellark, a sweet and decent kid who loves Katniss above everything in the world, just tried to kill her. I can't make sense of it at all.

"Why…" I finally manage, but I can't think of how to follow it up. I point between the kids and look at Boggs.

"Damned if I know," he says. "But I'm going to find out." He glares for a minute then shakes his head and puts a hand on my shoulder. "It's got to be something that was done to him," he says. "I don't believe you or Katniss would lie about him."

The medics scoop Katniss up onto the stretcher they just took Peeta from, and put Peeta back onto the examining table. They rush Katniss off for emergency treatment. I try to follow her, but they slam the door in my face.

The next three hours are hell. Plutarch disappears with Beetee, having a conference about Capitol technology that they don't want to share with me, "until we're sure," as Beetee says. Prim is allowed to go in and care for Katniss (Ruth has been involved in a surgery since morning, something about an accident during the evacuation that hadn't been properly treated), and I get bits and pieces of information about her. No serious injury. She'll be fine. She can't talk and her throat is swollen and she's in a tube to help her breathe, but she'll be fine. Boggs -- who is allowed in for some reason -- says he's seen worse trouble from military training.

Peeta is another story. He's hooked to machines that are trying to flush his system of toxins, but aren't doing well. Whatever Snow was shooting into him, he's overflowing with it. It's not his only problem. Aside from his broken ribs, he is bleeding internally from many blows to his abdomen, and they have to operate. Several of the burns are infected. He's badly malnourished and dehydrated. They don't think the nerve damage is permanent, but it will take time to find out. They don't know how he had the strength to attack Katniss at all.

Johanna is in similar shape, with added anemia from all the blood loss through the cuts on her head and body. She somehow doesn't have any internal injuries and doesn't need surgery, so I'm able to see her for a minute. She is fighting restraints, and tells me to get the doctors from Thirteen to stop asking her if she was "abused." She has already told them that she wasn't -- at least not the way they're asking -- and she's sick of it. They try to explain that they think she's not telling them everything, and I realize that they're looking for prurient details of her captivity. I end up punching one of them in the face, which gets me shut out in the waiting room alone.

Annie, at least, seems to be all right. She's finally given a sedative, and Finnick comes out for a few minutes to fill me in.

"She's a little more… distant… than usual," he says, "but they didn't torture her. Not physically, anyway. They left her naked in the cell and tried to drag her out to the studio naked -- they had a gun on her, and on Caesar, when Peeta was giving that last interview -- but Peeta made them give her a coat…" He stops. "What's wrong?"

I tell him what happened when Katniss went in.

He swears. "She says they were making him watch videos over and over. She could hear them. She didn't know what they were, other than some scenes from his Games. What happened?"

"Plutarch and Beetee are working on it," I say. "Without me."

He looks over his shoulder toward Annie's room. "Do you, um… do you need me to stay with you?"

I shake my head. "Go back to her, Finnick. You know where you need to be."

Gratefully, he ducks back into her room.

Plutarch and Beetee come back a few minutes later, looking grave, and tell me what they've put together from Peeta's condition.

"Hijacking," Beetee says. "They alter his memories with tracker jacker venom, make them seem threatening. I'm guessing he thought he was in danger from Katniss. It would pump up the adrenaline, too, which explains why he was strong enough to do it."

Plutarch gives a very depressing history of the technique, which has been used on and off since the Dark Days. A lumberjack from Seven, going after his own unit with an axe after he was held by the Capitol. A plant worker in Five blowing up secret generators that the rebels were using. A transport worker who disappeared for two weeks, and, when he came back, went through a passenger train, systematically murdering other members of his cell.

"There are rumors of other uses," Beetee says. "Murderers in Capitol prisons who swear they don't know why they suddenly started seeing demons. But we don't know about them. It could just be a half-baked attempt at a legal defense."

"How do we fix it?" I ask.

I can tell by the way they look at each other that there is no reason to believe it can be fixed. Peeta has been broken and destroyed. Their careful, sideways glances say everything: Don't tell Haymitch. He can't handle it. But the boy is gone.

I think about Danny, about trying to explain to him how I let this happen. How I let them do this, of all things, to his good-natured, kind son. I imagine him looking at me the way he did when he woke me up after the reaping, after I'd passed out before even knowing that Peeta had been reaped.

If there is a highpoint to the night, it comes a few minutes later, when we are finally allowed to see Katniss. Thirteen-year-old Primrose Everdeen flatly bullies Plutarch into letting her stay. If my mind weren't occupied with losing Peeta, I'd probably cheer for her, but as it is, I only manage a smile.

Katniss can't speak. Her throat is swollen and wrapped in a cold collar.

"So, Katniss," Plutarch says, "Peeta's condition has come as a shock to all of us."

She looks at him mutely, blinking her eyes. The bruises on her neck are creeping up over the cold compress. They're a dark greenish color.

A shock to all of us.

Plutarch and Beetee give her a slightly edited version of the information they gave me, leaving out the bit about historical cases.

I only half listen. I'm mostly watching Katniss's face, and the way she seems to be trying to sink back into the bed and disappear. Or bury herself. Her eyes dart to me now and again during the conversation, but I'm still processing all of it, and I can't think of anything comforting to say. She wouldn't believe me if I made something up.

When Beetee finishes the explanation, Katniss raises her hands to her face. I don't imagine that she's covering her eyes to cry. She's just burying herself again.

Prim presses her lips together tightly for a long time. I can't read her as well as I can read Katniss, but I'm pretty sure it's rage she's trying to press down -- trying to keep a level head for her sister. Volunteering to take this particular burden as much as she can. "But you can reverse it, right?" she asks.

Plutarch flounders, as he always does when someone goes off of his script. I don't know why he didn't script this in. It's the only reasonable thing to ask. "Umm…" he starts. "Very little data on that. None, really. If hijacking rehabilitation has been attempted before, we have no access to those records."

"Well, you're going to try, aren't you?" Prim looks around at all of us, but her eyes really land on me. "You're not just going to lock him up in some padded room and leave him to suffer?"

Beetee retreats into technical speech which boils down to, Yes, probably, that's exactly what we'll do. Prim continues looking at me. I look down. I don't know how to work this problem. I don't even know the real shape of it.

Plutarch launches into a bombastic speech about how many people will be working on the problem -- I note that he has not included anyone who knows and loves Peeta, just a team of experts -- then says, "I personally feel optimistic that he'll make a full recovery."

Prim is not fooled at all. I wonder if she noticed the same thing I did. "Do you?" she snaps. "And what do you think, Haymitch?"

I'm so startled by the sound of my name, even though she's been addressing me, that I momentarily can't think of anything to say. I look at Katniss. She's peeking out between her hands, and I know that she doesn't want a platitude. She wants hope. I have none to give her.

I try. "I think Peeta my get somewhat better," I start. "But… I don't think he'll ever be the same."

She hides her face completely again. She is shockingly not cheered by Plutarch's irritated statement that at least Peeta is alive, unlike several other people she knew who were executed. The damnedest thing is that I think Plutarch really was trying to comfort her. It's a very Capitol perspective -- it's comforting if the bad thing happens to someone more distant from you. The idea that she might feel any guilt over it doesn't even cross his mind.

I wish Snow had that particular Capitol trait. He'd be much less effective if he didn't know how to use people's natural feelings.

Katniss starts breathing hard, struggling for air through her swollen throat, and they have to sedate her again. Plutarch, Beetee, and I sit with her for a little bit while Prim takes a short nap, but there's nothing to say. The lights start coming up for dawn.

We are graciously given time to sleep before we're expected back at Command. I'm so tired that I can't make myself wake up from nightmares where the dead accuse me. Danny weeps over Peeta's broken body, over the good heart that's been ripped from it. Portia screams at me that I failed. The bullet wound in her face gapes open. I watch Chaff and Seeder die, over and over. I see my oldest friends torn and broken in Plutarch's clever arena. I dream of Effie, alone in a cell, waiting to be murdered. Of children and old women shot in the street because I convinced them to give, and give generously, to those star-crossed lovers from District Twelve.

I am grateful when a loud, repetitive sound awakens me at one o'clock.

The meeting in Command is about Peeta. It may have originally had some other purpose, but Plutarch, who I am actually beginning to respect, has co-opted it entirely. I get there late, and I can tell that some people's ideas have already been shot down, because they are sitting sullenly, like reprimanded children, while Plutarch gives a very involved explanation of hijacking.

He has brought along several doctors, including one I saw working on Peeta earlier, who introduces himself as Hiram Campbell. When Plutarch calls on him, he goes to the podium, and brings up an abstract representation of a human body, with all of Peeta's injuries marked on it. I hear an audible gasp somewhere behind me.

Campbell addresses the president. "What happened to Peeta Mellark for the sake of the citizens of District Thirteen is an obscenity. It would be unthinkable to not expend every available resource trying to heal him."

"As I understand it," Coin says, flipping through a folder in front of her, "all available resources aren't likely to be effective. There is no known process of reversal."

"What's your idea?" I ask her.

She looks at me coldly. "My recommendation is that we house him with other citizens who have been mentally traumatized, or who have ailments of that nature. There is a particular hospital wing, far from the general population, where they are treated gently and with appropriate medications."

"You isolate them and trank them?" I ask.

"We treat them with respect as patients who have incurable diseases. Perhaps you think they should have the run of the facility, but still be prisoners of their delusions?"

"I think we need to help him."

"And what was the general approach to such things in District Twelve?"

I can't answer that. The usual approach to people in Twelve who started behaving strangely was to live and let live. Sometimes, that worked reasonably well. Old eccentrics who heard voices were just treated as local oddities, and included in the general life of the district. Other times, people like Ruth Everdeen were left to die of their emotional wounds, and possibly starve their children to death in the process. Or left to drink themselves to death, or grab a rope and climb a hanging tree. "I didn't say Twelve would have handled it better," I tell her. "I just think we can."

"Which brings me back to my point," Dr. Campbell says. "We are slowly working the tracker jacker venom out of his system. Once that's done, we can start to evaluate the permanent damage to his mind, separate from the temporary hallucinatory state. He was awake for a few minutes twice this morning, and it was amply clear the first time that, whatever else is true, he is suffering from toxin induced psychosis right now."

"How was it clear?" Boggs asks.

"Among other things," Campbell says, "he asked us to make the feathers stop falling from the ceiling, and indicated that he could see his family members around us. He asked us to save them since they were on fire." This is met with stunned silence.

I wonder if my own hallucinations were discussed this coolly when I was going through the shakes.

Campbell goes on. "A little later, when more of the tracker jacker venom had worked its way out of him, he no longer seemed to be suffering from the hallucinations, though he seems to have forgotten that his family is dead, and is asking for his father."

"That's understandable," I say. "Maybe it's just the venom, and the shock."

"One of my nurses asked if he'd like to see Katniss. He flew into a rage and had to be sedated again. The venom has definitely been used to alter his perception of her."

"What's your recommendation?" Plutarch prods.

"I've had a team of doctors and torture experts working on it all morning. While there is no known cure for hijacking, per se, a gentle easing into reality, re-connecting with his past, is certain to be helpful. We recommend staying away from the subject of Katniss Everdeen, as that was clearly the focus of the hijacking, but once he's completely clear of the venom, we should probably send in friends of his from Twelve, whichever ones have survived and aren't associated with Katniss. Let them talk to him, start to remind him of who he is."

"Most of Peeta's friends are dead," I say. "He was a merchant."

The others look at me blankly.

I sigh. "Twelve was a little divided. Peeta came from town. Most of the survivors came from the Seam, like Katniss. Except for Delly Cartwright, he's likely to associate all of them with her."

Coin nods. "Enlist Soldier Cartwright immediately -- "

"I don't think he'll be ready immediately," Campbell says.

"-- to help create a team, and screen for anyone else among the survivors of Twelve who could be useful."

"I'll talk to Delly," I say. "She worked with us back in Twelve. I don't think Peeta knows that."

They seem perfectly happy to let me take the lead in this. I don't know whether to be glad of that, or angry that they're not taking it seriously enough to question putting a drunk -- one who lied to Peeta and got him captured and tortured -- in charge of his well-being.

After the meeting, I go back to the hospital. I let Katniss know that they're working the tracker jacker venom out of Peeta. Johanna is awake, but with the adrenaline of the escape gone, she's in almost constant seizure from the electrical assault on her nerves. They're giving her morphling through a drip, and she's incoherent. Annie is on pure observation status. She and Finnick are weaving a dream about going back to Four and starting a family. They graciously invite me to join them and be the grandfather to their children, but I can tell that they'd prefer to be alone. I also have another place to be.

Peeta has been installed in a secure private room, once an operating theater, with an observation booth high up behind a one-way mirror. He is still unconscious. Delly is sitting by his bed, looking drawn.

I sit down across from her. Between us, Peeta breathes quietly on.

"They told me," she said. "They told me that he's crazy."

"Snow made him crazy," I say. "And you're going to help make him right again."

We don't talk here, because I think we both know that a person who appears to be sleeping can absorb quite a bit, but we both stay for a little while, each holding one of his hands. His fingers still twitch now and then, and I think -- insanely, given everything else that's wrong with him -- that I'll never forgive Snow if he's made it impossible for Peeta to paint again.

Of course, the chances of my forgiving Snow for anything have never been very high.

The nurses come in to wash Peeta and change his bandages, and Delly and I take that as a cue to leave. We go to the Promenade and sit down at the chess table, though we don't bother faking a game this time.

"How am I going to help?" she asks. "And don't give me some kind of make work assignment this time, Haymitch."

"It's not make work," I tell her, and explain the doctor's plan.

She sighs. "I'll keep him talking. I'll need them to clear my schedule a little bit. But as soon as he's lucid, we can start."

"What about anyone else?"

She thinks about it. "There may be a few people from school. Maybe one of the boys from the wrestling team survived. I think I heard that. I don't know if he'd trip anything about Katniss, though. I can help interview him."

"That's good. Who else is there? From town?" I wince. "I'm sorry, Delly."

"No, you had to ask. I try not to think about it. But I guess I have to. Someone said that there were less than a dozen of us. Off the top of my head, there's Sam and me -- Sam's my brother -- and Lizzabee Leggett, from the apothecary shop. She was bringing something down to the Fishers on the Seam when everything happened. I don't think Peeta ever knew her very well, though. One of the Breens, I heard." She shakes her head. "No one else our age, though. All the school kids are gone. They all lived near the Square. Most of them were getting ready for bed, just waiting for mandatory viewing to end. Sam and I would have been if we hadn't been over at Leevy's."

"Can you make a list of anyone you can think of?"

She nods. "I just don’t know how many there'll be. Everyone liked Peeta. Everyone thought they knew him. Not many actually did." She looks down at the chess board and traces the edges of the squares.

"How are you holding up?" I ask.

She smiles. "Well enough that you don't need to add me to your list of people to worry about. It's long enough, Haymitch. I have Leevy's family to take care of me. And I'll be doing a lot better when I can start helping Peeta. Is Katniss going to be in the loop?"

"I don't know. She's pretty shaken up."

I talk to Delly a little longer because she seems to need to talk, but there's nothing else of substance. I go back to the hospital, and she goes off to do her homework.

Gale is in recovery from his shoulder wound. No one has told him what happened.

"I need to see Katniss," he says immediately when I let him know.

The doctor, who is there checking his chart, says, "You need to rest before you tear out your stitches, Soldier Hawthorne, and she doesn't need any further upsets."

Gale waits for him to leave. "How bad is she?" he asks.

"It'll heal."

"I don't mean the choking."

"She's…" I consider lying, then don't. I'm tired of telling lies. "I've never seen her like this. And I've seen her pretty bad. She's really hurting, Gale."

He leans back onto his pillows and closes his eyes, then punches the mattress repeatedly. Finally, he looks at me and says, "She thinks she deserves it, you know."

This thought hasn't occurred to me before, and I berate myself for that. Of course it's true. I heard the story she told about the bread. The good, kind boy who reached down and saved her, who thought she was worth loving… now hates her. She didn't feel like she deserved him in the first place, but he doggedly tried to convince her otherwise. Maybe he'd succeeded a little bit. Now, that's undone.

"However we kill Snow," I say, "is not going to be painful enough."

Gale doesn't argue.

I go to visit Katniss, who is still not allowed to talk, and hold her hand and try to be as positive as I can. She probably knows it's an act, but she doesn't pull her hand away. I think about telling her that I love her, but I somehow doubt it would matter right now. I'm not the one she needs to love her.

I join Finnick and Annie for dinner in her room, then go to sit with Johanna, then with Peeta again.

That's my life for the next two days. I am scheduled in the hospital, ostensibly to work with Delly, but mostly just shifting around among the kids until we're ready to do something with Peeta. I talk to Plutarch. I talk to the doctors. I talk to Ruth and Prim while I'm visiting Katniss, and Hazelle while I'm visiting Gale.

Peeta regains consciousness and refuses to allow me into his room, so I sit up in the observation booth, listening to Delly and the doctors screen people from Twelve. Johanna's seizures slow down, and she's able to get up and move around a little bit. I walk around the ward with her. She asks to see Gale, and I introduce them formally, which seems a little redundant after he carried her out of prison on his back. Then again, she didn't recognize him when he came, and he only knew her from her Games. He tells her, with what I think is honest admiration, that she's an amazing fighter. She tells him he is as well, and adds, after a long glance at him, that he ought to go shirtless more often. He blushes. I take her back to her room.

At night, I go back to my apartment, and try not to think about drinking. Dalton doesn't beat around the bush about it this time. He sits me down and makes me talk about it. I don't think it helps to talk about drinking when I'm trying not to imagine doing it. After half an hour of this, he gets the picture, and tries to distract me by teaching me about bovine genetics. I don't have enough basic grounding in the subject to follow most of his more advanced conversation, but it gets me through until lights out. I sleep and dream badly, and wake up sure that I will go downstairs, and Plutarch will pull me aside and tell me, in hushed tones, that Effie Trinket is dead, and it was on television, and he'll ask if I want to watch her die.

Nothing of the kind happens. He finally gets word from one of his uncompromised sources that she has been moved to maximum security, but is being largely left alone for now. As I am less than useless in Thirteen, I suggest that I sneak in and try to retrieve her, but Plutarch talks me out of it, pretending that I have some kind of importance in helping Peeta.

After three days and nights, Katniss and Gale are both released, taking two points off of my wandering map of the hospital. I think Annie is just there now because they don't want to move her in with a stranger, don't want her to live alone, and haven't made arrangements for Finnick to have new housing yet. Johanna has a grand mal seizure mid-morning, but comes out of it safely. The doctors tell me that she may always have to deal with seizures. The repeated electrocutions have damaged her nervous system. They are reasonably hopeful that, as time passes, the frequency of the seizures will diminish.

Around noon, I'm brought to the room next door to Peeta's, which is larger than the observation room. It also has a one-way glass, and they've installed audio equipment. Delly is there, looking nervous. Most of the doctors who've been looking after Peeta, along with a good collection of military torture experts who are observing the case closely, hope it will yield permanent procedures in case of this sort of thing happening again.

Dr. Campbell gestures me in. "We've just gotten Peeta's blood tests back today," he says. "He's clear of the tracker jacker venom, so we're going to send Delly in. We still haven't found any back-up for her, so she's permanently assigned here."

"Good," I say.

He turns to Delly. "Rules, again. I know it's repetitive, but we have to make sure you know them flat."

"Stay off the subject of Katniss," she says. "Don't talk about his family dying, except broadly. Safer to stay away from the subject of Ed." Her face twists miserably. "I really can't talk about Ed?"

"Stay innocuous. Be his friend, not his would-be sister-in-law."

Delly nods. Slowly, she takes a chain off from around her neck. On it is a ring set with a small red stone. She puts it in her pocket.

"I think Katniss should be here," I say. "Not in the room, obviously. But she'll want to know what's going on."

"Get her, then," Campbell says. "Delly, you don't know Katniss, do you?"

"Not very well."

"Then practice on her before you go in."

I'm not sure how I feel about this, but I think it's probably more important for Delly to get practice than for Katniss to get to know Delly particularly well.

I find Katniss in Special Defense, where she's been with Beetee and Gale. She looks completely miserable, but perks up when I tell her that we're trying something to help Peeta. She's happy to come along with me.

When we get there, Delly gives her a bright, genuine smile, and they talk about life in Thirteen. Delly almost cries when Katniss asks her how she's doing, but rallies with a series of innocuous praises of life in Thirteen.

"Delly's known Peeta for a long time," Plutarch says.

Katniss doesn't treat this like information she already had (if she had any idea who Peeta's friends were, that idea clearly did not include Delly), so I feel a little more secure in the idea that Delly won't trigger any thoughts of Katniss.

"Oh, yes!" Delly says. "We played together when we were little. I used to tell people he was my brother."

I look at Katniss, who seems not to know what to say. "What do you think?" I ask. "Anything that might trigger memories of you?"

"We were all in the same class. But we never overlapped much."

Delly looks at Katniss, seeing the dull hurt in her eyes, and says, "Katniss was always so amazing. I never dreamed she would notice me. The way she could hunt and go in the Hob and everything. Everyone admired her so."

Katniss looks at me, stunned by this outburst. I can't say it sounds much like the District Twelve I knew, either. But Delly tries to see the best in everyone, as Katniss points out, and I guess she decided Katniss needed to hear something good about herself. No wonder she could pass herself off as Peeta's sister.

Katniss puts her hand on her forehead. "Wait! In the Capitol. When I lied about recognizing the Avox girl, Peeta covered for me and said she looked like Delly."

I remember this, as, from the moment I met Delly, I thought it had to be one of Peeta's more hilarious lies. No one ever looked less like anyone than our tall, thin, redheaded Avox girl looked like plain-faced, short, blond Delly Cartwright. I don't think it will be an issue.

Delly squares her shoulders, fixes her smile determinedly, and goes in.

For a second, Peeta doesn't recognize her and I think the worst, but apparently, it's just the drab uniform of Thirteen and her changed hairstyle, because he does come around, and seems genuinely glad to have her there. It seems to be all he remembers, because he can't wrap his mind around why we aren't in Twelve.

She tries. She tries as hard as she can, but it would have been expecting too much to think that Peeta wouldn't ask why he's in a district he's never known was here, and why his family wasn't there to see him (though I note the latter question doesn't come up until Delly's first round of reassurances has passed… why he's in Thirteen is a much bigger mystery to him than why his family isn't).

"There was a fire," Peeta says, and I can see his memories clicking into place. His memories, and something beyond them.

"Yes," Delly says, giving up.

"Twelve burned down, didn't it? Because of her. Because of Katniss!"

I look over. Katniss has paled. Tears have come up to the edge of her eyes, but not fallen yet.

"Oh, no, Peeta," Delly says. "It wasn't her fault."

"Did she tell you that?"

"Get her out of there!" Plutarch orders. Someone he has in the hall opens the door to Peeta's room.

"She didn't have to," Delly says. "I was--"

"Because she's lying! She's a liar! You can't believe anything she says! She's some kind of mutt the Capitol created to use against the rest of us!"

I step back. This is beyond a fear response. This is something deliberately introduced into his mind, some deep, horrible delusion. It's not just that he believes Katniss is indirectly responsible for Snow's war crimes. He believes she is one of Snow's war crimes.

Katniss is barely breathing. She needs to get away. I don't argue with her when she asks. I can't imagine that she'll be able to function, let alone lead anything, if she has to see this every day.

She asks to be sent someplace she can be useful. The only place is Two.

She leaves the next morning. I go to Command and place a call to the rebel leaders there, and am not sure what to make of one of them being Lyme, a victor who I met only at the final Games, mentoring District Six. For the rebellion, I'm glad. For Katniss, I'm not sure another reminder of the Games is going to be helpful. I tell her to keep it to herself unless Katniss recognizes her. She agrees.

I cut off the connection and go back to the hospital, where Delly has returned to Peeta's room.

He is raving about how the Capitol executed the real Katniss Everdeen over a year ago, and we're all dupes to believe this new monster they sent in to replace her.

I think of the boy who once came to my house in a blizzard, covered me with a blanket, and lit my fireplace for me. The boy who brought me fresh bread every morning because he wanted to make sure I had something in my system other than white liquor. The boy who just wanted to have a snowball fight with his girlfriend sometime before the wedding dresses came out.

I put my head in my hands, and try not to hear him scream.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eleven
Peeta becomes my full time business.

I work with the experts, learning their fields as well as I can in a crash course. I meet with them while Peeta's physical injuries heal. I read late into the night on a little handheld they dig up for me. It reminds me of the one I had to carry around during the Seventy-Fourth Games, to keep track of the kids while I was out raising money.

These are carefully guarded here, loaded in the archives and handed out with strict instructions for use. Mine contains textbooks on psychology and neurology. Military history. Cold reports from spies, with diagrams of broken bodies. Smuggled videos of Capitol torture chambers. I thought I'd known every sordid detail of Snow's Panem (and that of his predecessor), but the records they dredge up from the Dark Days, and from spies and defectors who've come to them since, make what I knew before look like child's play.

At first, I need help from Dalton with the basic concepts. I never studied biology any more than I needed to get the right medication for my tributes or my mother, except for the evening I spent in the hospital reading the nurse's textbook because I was bored. One night after curfew, using the light from the handheld's screen, Dalton walks me through what he considers "primary grade" biology. I point out that he took his primary grades in livestock country, where the government would consider it useful to have working knowledge of this stuff, and dare him to beat me on geology.

"I see your point," he says. "All I know about rocks is that some are reddish and some are grayish. But that ain't going to help you with your boy, is it?"

This kills my momentary rebellion, and I get back to work. By the time we get to breakfast, we're both bleary-eyed, and Dalton gets a citation for being careless at work with cleaning formulas. I have the vocabulary down, and enough of the basics to power through the textbooks over the course of a week, meeting with the team for two hours every afternoon, and watching Delly speak with Peeta for another few hours.

He's not getting better.

Physically, he's recovering at a fairly remarkable rate. He was healthy before Snow started in on him, and he was always strong. But mentally, it's becoming increasingly obvious that something has fundamentally broken inside of him. He abruptly starts weeping or cursing, and if Delly veers too close to the subject of Katniss, he starts in on a story about how a folder was "accidentally" left in his cell, and he knows the truth now, about how the real Katniss was murdered on the day of her first evaluation, and they sent up a mutt in her place. "I should have realized it," he says with conviction. "She came up and slammed the door and cried. That's not the real Katniss."

"She was a little stressed…" Delly tries.

"You don't believe me."

"I believe you saw a file."

"You think it's a lie. It's not a lie. It's…" And he is off the deep end again, raving about mutts and Capitol conspiracies.

At first, the military torture experts are hesitant to let me know the sorts of things they're aware of Snow doing, but they have orders from Plutarch to cooperate with me. They believe these orders originate with Coin, who has at least so far not interfered with this fiction.

In Peeta's case, they are able to piece together some of his experience by talking to Annie and Johanna, and some from his own deranged monologues. He was obviously exposed to constant psychological stressors. Johanna and Annie know these included twenty-four hour videos, including his Games and the bombing of District Twelve. Caesar Flickerman, who looked after Annie after Peeta was taken from him, told her that they'd been tormenting Peeta with images of his killing of Brutus. They shaved and cut Johanna in front of him, and murdered the Avoxes in the cell Annie wound up in.

"He still lied to Snow's face," Johanna says. She smiles bitterly. "That was the first day they had him in the cell. I really only knew him from the arena. I thought he gave in and told Snow where Gale might have taken everyone. Some story about how Gale and Katniss used to walk around on the railroad tracks."

"What are you talking about?" I ask.

"Snow," she says, as if it's obvious. "Snow was just about popping through his zipper to get hold of the survivors from Twelve and kill them before Thirteen could snatch them up. He dragged Peeta and wanted to know where Gale would take them. That's when they pulled me into it. They were about to tie me up in Beetee's wire and fry me, and suddenly, Peeta answered. A whole sordid story about how Katniss used to tell him about her dates with Gale, and the places they walked to." She grins. "I was convinced. I thought for sure Snow had broken him. Even after he came back throwing a tantrum over getting snaked. I thought Peeta had just been wrong."

"He said they went out on the tracks?" I shake my head. "Even I know there's no hunting out that way. No one goes there. I think Peeta's dad took a hike out there once, on a dare."

Johanna shrugs. "Yeah, well, I've been talking to Gale. He says they never went down the tracks in their lives. Peeta must have made that up from whole cloth while Snow was torturing him and threatening to kill me in front of him. Not bad for little Prince Charming."

Dalton tries to get me to sleep, but I can't. I lie awake at night until I hear him snoring, then get the tablet back out. Finally, he gets up and starts going over the gene scans in Peeta's file. I don't know what he thinks he's going to get from that. He quizzes me about Danny's family, and I feel disloyal even discussing it, especially since Dalton's findings are pretty useless. He can't see anything that explains Mir's fits of violence (I was mortified to have to explain to a doctor that an old fractured cheekbone and a badly healed dislocation didn't come from the Hunger Games), or Peeta's ability to rise above it. He says there are some anomalous markers, when compared to the handful of other District Twelve merchant scans on file. I don't tell him about the possibility that Mir's father wasn't from Twelve.

The one useful thing he finds is some kind of pattern he associates with allergies, which leads to a new treatment schedule for the tracker jacker poisoning. Peeta's behavior starts to calm somewhat, though his delusions don't go away.

Ruth Everdeen purses her lips when I talk to her about it at the hospital. "What's wrong with that boy has nothing to do with anything that was wrong with Dannel and Mirrem," she tells me. "At least not at the moment. This has nothing to do with his genes."

I agree, but I am grateful for Dalton's desire to help.

The psychiatrists, all of them refugees from the Capitol, want Peeta to open up about his feelings. Since his feelings are exactly what's been tampered with, I'm not sure this is a good idea, but they remind me that a few nights of cramming for a test don't stand up to their years of education. I agree to let them try it for one day, and it ends with Peeta weeping and screaming that he was taken in by a mutt. After that, I have a Reflection time conference with Ruth, Prim, Delly, Greasy Sae, Hazelle, and Gale in an alcove off the Promenade. Peeta may be from the merchant class, richer than most, but he's also of District Twelve, and his habits aren't the habits of the Capitol.

"They just have him in there gnawing on his own bones?" Gale asks, incredulous. "What kind of plan is that?"

"It's a kind of therapy that they're used to," I say. "They don't mean harm by it. But it's not working."

"Of course it's not," Sae says. "Boy needs to stop stewing in his juices, if you ask me."

"I don't think he can just stop," Delly points out. "It's not like he got a bad grade, or lost a wrestling match. They did something to his head." She holds off the protests. "But you're right. He needs to feel like there's some reason to get better."

"What about his painting?" Prim asks.

"I doubt they'd get him supplies," I tell her. "It's expensive. Dalton has to have permits for it. Maybe we could get him a pencil and paper to draw, though. If they'd let him have something sharp."

"Should we let him have something sharp?" Ruth asks.

No one quite answers. I can't completely convince myself that he won't stick a pencil through his eye socket.

"Baking," Delly finally says. "He always loved to bake. He and his dad used to work together."

This makes sense to everyone. It's a perfectly Twelve-ish response to anything: Keep your hands busy at your work. Unfortunately, he's not in physical shape yet to move around a kitchen, and -- though no one says it -- it's probably not a great idea to put him near fire.

Sae suggests getting him to write down recipes from the bakery. Delly seconds this enthusiastically, and after the psychiatrists spend the morning uselessly trying to explore his delusions, Delly goes to him in the afternoon.

"I was thinking," she says.

"What?" he asks nervously. "Do you want to know what Snow told me? Do you want to see the burns? Do you want to know how it feels? They keep asking how it feels."

"No. I was thinking about the soda bread your dad used to make. Do you remember what was in it?"

His hands, which have been flexing nervously, quiet themselves. His eyes stop searching the corners of the room for phantoms. "I… I think so. I made it sometimes, too."

"I'd guess flour," Delly says. "And yeast?"

"Not in soda bread. It's baking soda that makes it rise." He bites his lower lip. "I could write it down, maybe."

Delly pulls out her school notebook, rips out the pages she's used, and hands it to him, along with a pen, which we're all keeping a careful eye on. I'll find her more paper somewhere. Peeta bends over the notebook and starts, hesitantly, to write. His hand is still shaky, and I'd guess the writing isn't very neat, but he covers the whole first page in forty minutes, then looks up at Delly. "Could I keep this? I should write down the others. Dad only had them handwritten. He got them from my grandfather, and my great-grandmother. They were secret. I know them, though. He taught me. I remember that he taught me."

"Of course."

He turns the page and scribbles at the top for a second, then looks up at her. "Thanks. And… thanks to whoever came up with this. It's good."

"I guess I should have told you it was to occupy you."

"You can tell me when you're trying something. I believe you're trying to help me."

"Everyone is, Peeta."

"Why won't you believe me, Delly? I saw the file!"

Delly stands up and kisses Peeta's forehead. "Everyone loves you."

He frowns. "You… you loved my brother. Right?"

"I still do. He's just not here."

"Do you think you'd have ended up my sister-in-law?"

She sighs and sits back down. "The subject had come up a few times. He gave me a ring, but I hadn't given him an answer yet. I think… yes, maybe. Probably."

"Can we pretend, then? That we're family?"

"I'm not pretending," Delly says, and squeezes his hand. They don't talk anymore, but Peeta is calm for the rest of her visit, as he scrawls another recipe down in the notebook. After she leaves, I watch him for a while, but he doesn't seem to be thinking of using the pen to harm himself. He just spends more time scribbling on the paper. He scribbles on the splint they have around his knee stump while his prosthetic connections heal. It's a small, human figure. The surface isn't right for his usual precision, so I can't tell who it's supposed to be, even when I use the camera to zoom in.

He hears the hum of it and looks up, straight at me. I take a risk and turn on the microphone. "I'm here, Peeta."

He doesn't answer, but he nods and goes back to his scribbling. By the time he puts the pen aside and goes to sleep, the splint is covered with rough figures, seeming to dance along his leg.

The next day, Delly puts her ring back on, this time on her finger instead of on the chain. Peeta over-extended himself with yesterday's drawing, and his hands keep going into spasms.

Nevertheless, he spends the morning laboriously practicing his handwriting with a pencil one of the nurses fetches for him, forcing his hands to be still. The doctors aren't sure what to make of it, as the shaking problem is supposed to be a matter of medicine, not will. The tremors don't actually disappear, but as I watch Peeta through the observation window, I see what he's doing. He's learning to anticipate them, move the pencil from the paper, and stay as still as he can while they pass. By the time Delly arrives for her afternoon visit, he has switched to her pen and is carefully writing out another recipe, this time in an even, legible hand.

We take it as too good a sign. After three hours of calm conversation, Delly leaves for the evening, and Plutarch goes in. He brings up Katniss. Peeta's responses start getting faster and faster, until he is screaming and jabbering at the ceiling about how the real Katniss is dead, how she died a long time ago, and her brains were on the floor in front of her and he saw the picture. "They took her and made her a mutt! Like the wolves! Just like the wolves!"

"No one did that," Plutarch says. "I was there…"

"You helped them! You carried the body out! There were pictures!"

Security extracts Plutarch from the room while Peeta continues to rave. Guards and medics rush in to get him sedated. Once he's down, I go in. Straighten his blankets. Brush his hair back off his forehead. Feel useless.

I visit Johanna. Gale is there already, taking notes about something. He closes the notebook when I come in.

This late at night, they're starting to take her down toward sleep with a heavy dose of morphling, after which they'll wash her hair and give her a sponge bath. She can't tolerate water when she's not sedated. She blinks at me oddly when I tell her what happened, then mumbles, "Mockingjay project."

"What?"

"They asked me about it. A lot. But only when Peeta was listening. Darius, too." She yawns, then goes under.

"Sounds like this was pretty carefully planted," Gale says, as we head for dinner. "You think there are records or something you could show him to convince him?"

"If there are, we don't have any access to them." I look at his notebook. "What were you talking to Jo about?"

"Just a few things Beetee and I are working on," he says. "In her Games, she tricked people pretty well. We're trying to figure out if that's anything we can use."

"Use for… what?"

"War tactics." He sighs. "Katniss didn't much like what we were talking about, either."

"Really?" I say. "I wonder why."

Gale looks down, then changes the subject. "Plutarch says he's going to call her after dinner. Could you let me know how she's doing?"

"I'm sure they'd let you in on the call."

We reach the dining hall. "Mom says I should give her a little space," he says. "When my dad died, Mom… well, the last people she wanted to talk to were old boyfriends."

"Peeta's not dead."

"I didn't mean --"

"He's not dead, and she's not a widow, so you can stop circling like a damned vulture."

"Haymitch…"

"He is not dead." I excuse myself and go to sit with people from my hall. I realize immediately that I was harder on Gale than necessary, but I can't quite make myself go apologize.

After supper, I go with Plutarch to call Katniss in Two. I tell her that he's calmed down a little bit, but I can't very well be much more hopeful. Her voice is still sounding harsh, but I can't tell if it's from the injury or from crying.

For the first time since the Quell, I have a nightmare about Digger Hardy. In my dream, she's lying in the hospital, in Peeta's room, while we watch through the observation mirrors. Peeta is sitting with me, making notes in Delly's notebook. Digger is thrashing as she dies, cursing me, cursing all of us.

I wake up before wall-Effie thinks I need to, and I go to the hospital. Peeta woke up for a little while during the night and asked for the notebook, but had to be sedated again.

I pick up the notebook. The first two pages of recipes are almost illegible. The third is shaky. The fourth is all right. I turn it over. On the fifth page, he's drawn Katniss, her hair in jagged feathers, her mouth cruel and predatory, her hands sharp like talons.

He's scribbled over it, but I can see it well enough, tell what he's getting at. His talent is still there, but, like the rest of him, twisted into something ugly.

He is still clutching his pencil. It's too close to his face. I go to move it gently, but when I look up, his eyes are open, and he is glaring at me. I let go of the pencil.

"I was worried that you'd hurt yourself with that," I say.

"What do you care?" It's the first thing he's said to me directly since I sent him into the arena.

"I care."

"You lied to me."

"Yes."

"I wouldn't have left the others. They wouldn't have taken me."

"Peeta -- "

"You said you'd tell me everything. You lied."

"It was so… Peeta, you have to understand. It was -- "

"Go away. Drink yourself to death or something."

He puts his arm over his eyes.

I leave the room and go to observation.

We go on.

Every few days, there is a new propo from Katniss in District Two, where we are trying to get the average citizens to rally against the military installation in the old mine, the one they've taken to calling the Nut. Lyme is not letting her into any of the skirmishes, but she goes among the wounded, helping where she can, and feeds people at a soup kitchen. She's even shown hunting to get extra food for the rebels. She relates news from the other districts, all now mainly calmed down and under rebel control, and from the slow strangulation of the Capitol. She's reliable, even inspirational if you don't notice her unfocused eyes, the hesitation in her words. Other people don't seem to notice. There are interviews with people on the street who are devoted to her as much as her sponsors ever were. Lyme tells us that only the people working in the Nut and their closest allies are really fighting now.

Unfortunately, that's not a small contingent, and they have better guns.

Every day, Delly sits with Peeta. He's managed to recover most of the family recipes from his head, and is trying to draw more. I manage to get him a sketchbook.

He makes Delly a picture of herself with Ed, sitting on the steps of the shoe store. It's almost like the old Peeta, but it's followed by a series of monstrous drawings of Katniss. Plutarch tries to reassure Katniss in their phone calls, but I don't. After the initial improvement, Peeta has remained very steady. He lets me in sometimes, but he doesn't let me talk to him much, and when the subject of Katniss comes up, he goes wild.

After a week of this, Prim comes up with the idea of trying to re-drug him, to re-associate his memories with good feelings. The torture experts seem to think the idea has merit. Either that, or they just want to have a whack at hijacking someone, and this seems like a good opportunity. It's always hard to tell with government scientists.

The doctors prepare a mild dose of morphling, and a tea made with herbs Ruth uses to help melancholy, then they cue up a video from the first Games. I go in and sit with him, and he's mellow enough to let me. They've chosen the story Katniss told him about how she bought Prim's goat.

Peeta watches it silently. It ends.

"Does she look like a mutt?" I ask. "Peeta, you saw it. It's not altered."

He blinks rapidly, opens his mouth, closes it.

For four hours, this continues, this fish-mouthed stare at the now-blank screen. I go to Prim in observation.

She shakes her head. "I don’t know, Haymitch. He's not raving, anyway. But…"

I go back in. Finally, around lunch, Peeta asks how the goat is. I tell him we don't know.

"The bombs," he says. "The goat's dead, isn't it? And don't lie to me anymore."

"We don't know," I say. "But probably. No one's seen it."

He makes a choked kind of sound.

"Do you want to try again?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "They… they gave her Katniss's memories. Obviously." There is no vitriol in this. It's more like he's trying to convince himself.

The morphling takes over, and he goes back to sleep.

He's still fairly calm the next day, and he accepts a visit from Annie Cresta. She gives him a shaky smile and says they haven't been properly introduced, which I suppose is true. I doubt Snow or the Peacekeepers were worrying about social niceties when they held a gun to her head to make him behave. She thanks him for making the Peacekeeper give her a coat.

"I don't remember doing that," he says.

"You did, though. They were hurting you, but you made them cover me. It was very gentlemanly."

He nods. They talk for a few more minutes. Annie leaves without incident.

I go in. Peeta's face is turned away from the door.

"That was good," I tell him. "Annie's been looking forward to saying thank you."

He doesn't say anything.

I turn to go.

From the bed, I hear, "My dad always said to be a gentleman."

I turn back. Peeta has pulled himself up, and is halfway sitting. "You were always good at it," I say.

He blinks at me a few times and says, "I want my dad, Haymitch."

I nod. "Yeah. I know you do. I miss him, too."

"I really want my dad." He starts crying, and sinks into the pillows, holding the notebook of recipes against his chest, and not acknowledging me any further.

Later, Delly goes to visit him. She tells him stories about his father. He keeps begging for more of them, and by the time she leaves, she is exhausted and teary herself. I sit down and have a glass of water with her (about the only thing that can be consumed outside the dining hall).

"They think we need to lock him up with the crazy people," she says. "I heard them. The other doctors, the ones that aren't on the team. They don't think this is doing any good."

"I wondered about that."

"We're using too many resources, they say. It's all very sad after everything he did for them, but really, all there is for him is sedating him and sticking him in a padded room somewhere."

"Yeah."

She looks around shiftily. "I looked at files, Haymitch. I wasn't supposed to, but I was all alone, and no one saw me. There are a lot of people in the crazy ward. Way more than there should be in a population this size."

I take a more careful look than she did, decide no one is paying attention, and say, "What are you thinking, Delly?"

"I don't know yet. But I want to find out. Before they decide to wrap Peeta up in cotton and call it a day."

I nod. "Be careful."

"Yeah." She bites her lip. "And Haymitch -- let Plutarch give them the reports about Peeta. He's more cheerful about it than you are."

I agree.

The next day, I'm scheduled at Command for the first time since Peeta got back. We are studying the problem of the Nut, or "Capitol Strategic Command," as Coin calls it. Katniss is rallying District Two nicely, and keeping the other districts at high energy, but none of it will do any good if we can't break the back of the Capitol's military holdings.

"I don't think we can work this without the District Two leaders," Beetee says. "We should send in some of our strategists."

"They can work from here perfectly well," Coin says.

I shake my head. "No, it makes a difference to be there. Boots on the ground. Get a feel for the place."

One of her colonels, named Cochrane, agrees. "We ought to send a few of the young folks. They're fast thinkers."

"Gale Hawthorne," Beetee says. "He should go, certainly."

"Soldier Hawthorne has duties here," Coin says.

"But he would be more useful there."

She sighs. "Very well. Hawthorne will go. Maybe Colonel Cochrane here. Soldier Bruce has also been showing a good deal of potential, and she hasn't had an opportunity to test it in the field…"

In the end, they choose a handful to go, and they are put into a quick training schedule about District Two.

I go back to the hospital.

Finnick and Annie join us in observation now. Peeta has broken through the tears for his father, but is developing a peculiarly sullen attitude. He claims that no one is listening to him, everyone thinks he's crazy. They're all crazy. He's not. He doesn't consent to another test with the morphling.

I join Plutarch for his call to Katniss. He tries to be positive, as usual. I tell her about Prim's idea, and how it worked out. She doesn't sound hopeful. Maybe it's because I don't sound hopeful. I tell her that Command is sending out some of the brains to help out with the Nut. It doesn't occur to me until after I hang up that I haven't mentioned that Gale will be among them, but I somehow doubt she'll be surprised. Gale is in his element here, doing what he always wanted to do -- trying to overthrow the Capitol. I guess Katniss will be expecting him no matter what I forget to say.

I visit Johanna. She is recuperating, and hasn't had a seizure for days. They've lowered her dose of morphling.

"I wish they wouldn't do that," she says. "I still hurt. My arms. They hung me by my arms, and my shoulders hurt. I need the medicine. Will you tell them that?"

I frown. I recognize the tone in her voice. I've heard it from Berenice Morrow and Paulin Gibbs from Six.

Hell, I've heard it from myself.

It's not the sound of someone who's not getting enough medicine. It's the sound of someone who will never, ever get enough.

"Haymitch?"

"Johanna, I think they're pretty careful about that kind of thing."

"I need it."

"I know you do. Trust me, I know."

She gives me a disgusted sounding snort and rolls over, moaning dramatically.

The next morning when I go to visit her, Gale is there, saying goodbye before he leaves.

"You just keep fighting," he says. "You'll be fine."

"I don't know how to do anything else," she says. "Well, that's not true. Maybe someday I'll show you my other skills."

He rolls his eyes hugely, gives her a smart wave, and leaves.

"You know he's in love with Katniss," I say.

"I know he thinks he is. He told me so on our last go-round about it. Notice that he came back." She presses down on the needle in her arm. "Come on, give me another drop…"

I ask the doctors if they could give her a little increase. They promptly test me to see if I've been taking it from her.

I go and sit with Peeta. He's still angry with me, but he's not explosive about it. He just doesn't talk to me.

I talk into the silence. I tell him about the rebellion, about how angry victors started to meet clandestinely, riding the rails to our secret spots in the out-districts. About how Plutarch grew up a rebel, was brainwashed, and came back. About how they took Effie and stole her mind. He seems to absorb this, though it didn't occur to me when I started talking that it was applicable to him.

He doesn't talk.

I open my mouth to tell him about my friendship with Danny, about the things we did together, but I'm a coward in the end. I don't want to start him crying again. I tell him about my mother and brother, and Maysilee, and Digger.

"I guess it's strange to think of me ever loving anyone," I say. "But I did. I never was any good at it. Not with Digger. Not with…" No response. "I wonder sometimes what it might have been like if she hadn't died. If we'd have had kids. Maybe I wouldn't have been drunk so much. Maybe…" I sigh. "But it didn't happen. Everything I did after that was about paying the Capitol back for what they did. Everything until you two came along, anyway." I have learned not to say Katniss's name. He can deal with the obvious thought of her without flying off the handle, but her name will send him over the edge. "After that, I might have given it all up if I thought it would help you. But I didn't think that. I thought the best thing for you was for us to win the war."

He gives me a guarded look. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. We're making it up as we go along. I wish we weren't. I wish I had a grand plan. I wish I'd let you in on it. I was afraid of what would happen to you if you knew."

He snorts. "Good job with the protection," he says.

"I know. I screwed up."

"That's an understatement." He picks at his blankets listlessly. "Are we going to win?"

"I think so."

"Will it matter?"

"What do you mean?"

He shrugs. "My family will still be dead. Your family will still be dead. District Twelve will still be dead. Does it matter who's in charge of the ashes?"

"Maybe not to us."

He looks away. "You spent too long in the Games, Haymitch. You think like a Gamemaker."

There is no more conversation. I stay until he sleeps.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twelve
About half an hour after Peeta drifts off, Plutarch opens the door and signals me to join him next door in observation. I straighten Peeta's blankets, smooth his hair back, and go.

When I go in, I'm not surprised to find several people there, the ones I've come to think of as Peeta's regulars. Plutarch. Prim. Delly. Sae. Finnick and Annie. One of Peeta's doctors, a decent woman named Feronia Marell, looks up at me and smiles awkwardly, and I realize she may have been here the whole time, listening to my ramblings and watching me try to get Peeta calmed down. That's a little more than I intended to share with a complete stranger. I nod at her and pretend that this hasn't occurred to me.

To my surprise, Ruth Everdeen joins us. She hasn't been angry at Peeta about the attack -- she understands the hijacking -- but he did try to kill her daughter, and she's been very ambivalent about the whole process here. Prim hasn't. For Prim, there is one simple thing she's been aware of for a long time: Katniss loves Peeta. I think Prim has been aware of this much longer than Katniss has. Her point of view from the beginning has been that we're rescuing the boy her sister loves from a monster that's captured him.

"I've been thinking about the story he told during the Games," she says as soon as Ruth takes a seat. "The one about when Katniss sang in school. That really affected him. I think he needs to hear her sing."

"She's not going in there to sing," Ruth says. "Absolutely not, at least not until he's gotten much better. And any records the school might have had burned with it."

"We have her on film," Plutarch says. "She sang for the Avox cameraman when we were in Twelve. Something about a man being hanged."

"The Hanging Tree?" Ruth asks, her eyes narrowing. "She was singing that song?"

"Daddy used to sing it all the time."

"I remember. I asked him not to. At least one of the whippings he took was from singing it. He wasn't supposed to teach it to her."

Prim grins. "Mom, you know he was singing it in the woods. And even if he hadn't, everyone in school knew it. People used to draw pictures from it."

Ruth grinds her teeth, probably picturing all the whippings that might have happened over the years. "Fine."

I look at Delly. "What will Peeta associate with it?"

"I don't know," she says. "It wasn't… well, a merchant thing." She looks awkwardly at Sae and the Everdeens. "We didn't… well, there were bad feelings about…"

"About broken shop windows and getting called names in the street?" Sae asks. "Can't imagine why there'd be bad feelings about that."

Delly nods a little bit, embarrassed by the subject. "Anyway, it's nothing that would set Peeta off particularly."

We're all quiet for a minute, trying to think of ways it could go wrong.

"They could have showed him one of the propos," Finnick says. "It could already be attached to... other things."

Plutarch shakes his head. "The segment was too long for airtime assaults. We never aired it."

He brings up the clip of Katniss singing, and silence falls. No one argues about how dark the song is. Her voice weaves through the room like magic. We decide to try it on Peeta tomorrow after lunch.

As we leave, Sae pulls me aside while the others go on ahead.

"I heard you talking to the boy," she says. "About Indigo."

I lean as far away from her as the narrow space allows. Sae was one of the few people who really knew Digger and me as a couple. "Just filling space. He needs to be talked to."

"I haven't heard you speak of her in a long time. I remember her, you know. I remember the way she used to sneak down to the Seam for you all the time."

I try to walk away, but Sae reaches up and pinches my earlobe, the way she might have cornered an errant child at the Community Home, back in the dim days when she worked there. "Hey!" I say.

She looks at me crossly. "I don't want to hear you talking that nonsense about not having loved her very well. I never saw any boy more besotted than you, and you were a good partner to her, and a good friend. She wouldn't have any patience with you saying differently."

"Yeah, well, she's not around to have patience or not, is she?" I pull away and start moving again.

Sae comes around in front of me. "No, she's not. But that's not your fault, and it's not your fault about whoever else you're thinking of. Is it the Trinket woman? There were always rumors."

"Effie," I say. "Her name's Effie. Not 'the Trinket woman.'"

Sae cuts me off impatiently. "The point is, Haymitch -- and Indigo would be the first to tell you this -- that what happened to them had nothing to do with how well or how badly you did at loving them. You got your faults, and we all know them, but being unloving ain't one of them. Anybody who thinks different only has to watch you with that boy in there." She nods at Peeta's door. "I think he's going to make it back, you know. He's a strong boy, and just as importantly, he's got you to lean on. He knows it. He wouldn't feel safe throwing bile at you if he didn't." She takes a deep breath. "All right. I've said my piece."

I nod. "Thanks, Miz Sae."

"Ain't nothing to thank me for. It's just the truth." She walks off.

I head on to the dining hall.

As of this morning, Annie is allowed to go to the dining hall to eat, and we all treat it like a celebration. Since she doesn't have quarters, she comes to eat with my crew, and brings Finnick along with her. Soldier Kinney (today, we've decided that her first name is Millicent) makes a great fuss over her hair, and how she wishes her own were so long and beautiful. Dalton falls into a conversation with Finnick about the shared history between District Four and District Ten. Apparently, Ten was settled initially by restless wanderers from Four who jumped at the chance to build a whole new district -- one that, of necessity, needed to be huge, and would take time to explore. They discover many similar customs that remain, and Annie becomes very animated when she hears Dalton talking about a penatta, a kind of party game for children where they whack a ball with a stick until candy falls out of it. (Or, in harder times, pretty stones that they have found in the fields.)

"We say it differently," she says. "But I know the game! We used to hang one from the rigging on Daddy's boat. I always got the candy out." She claps her hands, and I can almost see her as the child she once was. Rich, by district standards (the fact that she only thinks of candy is a dead giveaway on that; most people in the districts couldn't afford it for a game), and good hearted. Happy. I hope I'll see more of this Annie.

Felix Bonnet, who lives next door to Dalton and me, is very interested in this, and wants a demonstration. We get strange stares from other tables when they start to pantomime the game. It is apparently more fun than is proper or customary in the dining hall.

The younger Hawthorne boys and Prim come over and we end up clearing a little area, with all of the children (including Annie and Finnick, who have reverted to childhood entirely) taking blindfolded swings at a pair of napkins Dalton has hung from the ceiling. Other local children meander over to watch. Annie starts to get a little nervous at the crowd, but Finnick keeps his arm around her to steady her, and tells a story about her when she was little and sailing in the Ghost Gulf. The children want to know if there are really ghosts in the Ghost Gulf, and seem a little disappointed to hear that it's only called that because the outlines of so many drowned cities and towns can still be seen under the clear water. "There are places," Finnick says, "where you can swim along a road!"

I figure it can't last, but it's allowed to go on until it looks like they mean to start a sing-along around the table. We're not told to refrain from singing, but it is strongly recommended that we stick to District Thirteen songs. I ask if someone can teach the one about the flying grizzly bear, but the reprimand seems to take the fun out of the whole business.

Back in the apartment before lights-out, Dalton tries his hand at drawing Annie. "There's nothing wrong with that girl," he says, "that can't be fixed with a little fresh air and sunshine and a lot of love."

"Fresh air and sunshine are in short supply around here," I say.

"Looks like she's got enough of the other to be going on with, though," Dalton says, grinning. "Well, as much as you can say you can have enough of it."

I dream of District Twelve. Glen Everdeen and Katniss are singing "The Hanging Tree," and I'm sitting with Effie on the porch of the bakery. She's a solid, warm presence against my side, and I have my arm across her shoulders. Peeta comes out to join us, carrying a few loaves of bread, and Effie fusses over his collar, which she thinks is off-balance somehow. Delly and Ed walk by, looking deliriously happy, and my brother Lacklen -- still twelve years old, but healthier and safer than he was in reality -- plays with the Hawthorne boys. I know without seeing that Dannel is back in the bakery making cakes, and that Maysilee is running her stationery shop, while Madge Undersee runs the old family sweet shop next door. Caesar Flickerman is on television, interviewing Cinna. There have never been any Hunger Games (my drifting mind wonders where I know Effie from, or Finnick, or Johanna -- I certainly do know them; I understand that without seeing them -- but it doesn't seem to be a pressing concern).

I wake up on my own, feeling oddly happy, then I realize that it's all impossible. I think I have dreamed things like this before, and woken up like this before, but it's very fleeting. By the time I get to the hospital, I am feeling cheated, and I bark at the techs getting ready for Peeta's test. I want a drink. I think I usually have started drinking after dreams like this before the sense of injustice even kicks in. Just to take the edge off.

Of course, if I had it all, I'd probably want a drink to take the edge off the terrible boredom. If it managed to be exciting, I'd want one to keep my nerves steady. Drinking serves many purposes.

There's a message from District Two. The brains are meeting today for an extended strategy meeting. I'm glad to hear that Katniss has been invited, though this information is delivered with an eye roll from Plutarch. "She's not exactly a war strategist," he says. I fight the urge to point out that his war strategists haven't been half as effective, and the campaigns we've won haven't been the particularly well-planned ones.

I put a headset on and claim to be reviewing the video. Mostly, I'm just listening to Katniss sing. I wish she'd do it more, but I wouldn't ask her to do it for a propo. I remember her walking down the street with Glen, not just in my dream, but in the past, singing at the top of her lungs and not caring who was listening. Once I've calmed down a little, I go into Peeta's room.

He looks up suspiciously. "What do you mean to do to me?"

"We want to try another experiment. Like the one with the goat story. Give you some morphling and let you watch something."

"Something about her?"

"Yeah."

"It's not going to change anything. You didn't see the file. They killed her. Right after she shot at them in training. The thing they sent back up was a mutt."

"Peeta, she was at dinner that night. Even the Capitol can't make mutts that fast. It takes at least a few weeks."

"They got Thresh into a wolf fast enough."

"The wolf was already made. It was just a question of a few cosmetic tweaks. What you're talking about -- I’m not even sure it's possible with a lot of time. It's definitely not possible in the time frame they had. Even if they'd spent every second since she volunteered working on it, there wouldn't have been time."

Peeta considers this carefully. I don't know why no one has tried just saying that before. We've all been concentrating on how it all feels. But the logic gap is there. Peeta is miles from stupid, and he's forced to acknowledge that the timeline just doesn't work. He bites his lip. "Maybe... maybe it wasn't then."

"Isn't that what the file said? Why would they make a secret file with wrong information?"

He does the strange, fish-mouthed gape again for a few minutes, then says, "Will they give me drugs before I see it?"

"Yes."

"Is it anything bad? Is she hurting anyone in it?"

"No."

"Am I in it?"

"No. She's just singing to a friend."

"Gale?"

"Not Gale."

He's quiet for a long time, then says. "All right. You can try it."

"You sure?"

"You think I like being afraid of her?"

It's not exactly the answer I want, but it's consent. It's even reasonably informed consent. Maybe I should have tried this earlier.

The doctors come in and inject him with the mild dose of morphling, and give him a cup of Ruth's calming herbal tea. He asks if Delly and I can come in and sit with him while he watches. We go.

He flinches when the video screen comes up, and I guess that it'll be a while before he can see a screen without thinking of his time in the Capitol. Plutarch waits until he relaxes before he cues up the video. He's taken out the Rebellion symbol at the beginning of the propo, and it just starts in the clearing by the lake. Katniss points out a mockingjay to the Avox Pollux, and gets it to repeat Rue's tune. Pollux tries it, then writes, "SING?" She sings a few notes, which the mockingjays copy, then smiles and says, "Want to hear them do a real song?"

I glance at Peeta. He is watching her curiously, like he's never seen her before.

She sings "The Hanging Tree."

I continue to watch Peeta, and for the first time, I hope. I can see the boy inside him, the boy who once heard Katniss Everdeen sing and fell in love with her on the spot. That boy is watching, wide-eyed. The battered young man he's trapped inside can't seem to decide whether to shrink into the pillows or sit up straighter. He keeps going back and forth.

There is silence for a moment when she finishes the song, then the mockingjays pick it up. Plutarch fades the video out before the burning gold pin comes up.

Peeta is as silent as the mockingjays were, then says, quietly. "I know that song."

"It was an old rebel song," I say. "You may have heard it -- "

"I heard Mr. Everdeen sing it."

I stop explaining. Delly and I look at each other.

"Go on," I tell Peeta. "When did you hear it?"

"I was... six, maybe? In school already, because Dad had told me about how the birds stopped singing for Mr. Everdeen. He came to the bakery to trade for some bread." Peeta closes his eyes and goes deep inside himself, painting the picture fully for us.

It was a Sunday, the day off at the mines, and it was afternoon. His chore was sweeping up behind the counter and making customers laugh. No one exactly said the latter was part of his job, but he knew there was a reason he swept out front while Ed and Jonadab worked in back. ("Jonadab said my whole job was getting my cheeks pinched," he remembers.) The Peacekeeper Purnia Britten had just bought a dozen cookies, and, in a moment of good cheer, paid for a thirteenth for Dannel to let the boys split. Peeta was nibbling on his third of it -- a fresh, sweet cookie that had only just been taken out of the oven that morning, an unheard of treat -- when the door opened and Glen Everdeen came in, carrying two rabbits and a bag of mint leaves.

"Dad and Mr. Everdeen talked for a while," Peeta says. "I'm not sure why. The trade didn't take very long. It was for a little cake for Prim's third birthday. I don't know why, but they kept saying it was for Prim's birthday, like they wanted to make sure the other customers in the bakery knew what it was about."

I don't explain, but I guess that, behind the glass, Ruth knows. After her little blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter came around, the whole town seemed to remember that she and Danny had been in love once. They suddenly discovered a talent for math, trying to work Prim's conception into a time when Danny had gotten fed up with Mirrem and applied for new housing for himself and the boys. Ruth went to check on him a lot, then turned up with a blue-eyed baby who looked more like Danny's boys than Ruth's other child. No amount of denial on everyone's part did any good.

I know Glen fumed a lot, though I got most of that second hand. He sometimes passed me inventories from the mine, and occasionally just came up to check on me, but we were never close. It was Danny I heard from more. He was angry that the town didn't believe Ruth, but for some reason, he was shocked that Mir didn't believe him. "I've never cheated on her!" he said, tearing through my kitchen. "I never cheated on my wife. She thinks…" And he swept aside some knickknacks on a shelf, then growled at the wall.

He never admitted it to himself, but I always thought the reasoning was perfectly obvious: If Mir believed (or pretended to believe) that Danny was unfaithful, then she became the injured party, and she could play him like a fiddle over it.

At any rate, Danny and Glen finally came up with a novel strategy: To be publicly friendly at every opportunity. I can't say they were ever exactly friends, just on the periphery of one another's lives, but now, they were going to appear inseparable. Glen would repeatedly stress his trust in Ruth, and Danny would renounce any kind of emotional claim on Prim. Ruth refused to have anything to do with it -- probably wisely -- and maintained a complete break with Danny, and after a while, Danny and Glen drifted off in separate directions again, but for a couple of years, they were one another's personal fan clubs.

It worked, for the most part. People seemed to realize that a man who'd been cuckolded wasn't likely to become the bosom friend of his wife's lover, and talk casually about a child whose paternity was actually in any dispute. The only person left in District Twelve who doubted it by the time Peeta and Katniss would have been old enough to understand was Mir… if she really doubted it at all.

I decide this is a bit more than Peeta needs in his head. "So he traded for the cake," I say. "And then he sang?"

"First he asked if he could meet with some people on the porch. Dad said it was okay" -- I wonder if this sort of thing is why Danny assumed he'd been found out -- "and Mr. Everdeen went out and sat on the steps, and he sang that song. I listened really hard, because I wanted to see about the birds. It's a really beautiful song."

"It is," Delly says. "And do you... " She looks at me. I have no idea how to ask what she means to ask either, so I shrug and let her think of something for herself. "Do you like it when Katniss sings it?"

He doesn't fly into a rage at the sound of her name, but that could be the morphling, which is gripping him more tightly as time passes. He says, "Can I hear it again?"

Plutarch re-starts the video. Peeta closes his eyes to listen, not looking at the image of Katniss. He falls asleep before the song ends.

Delly and I leave. Neither of us knows what to make of what just happened. We are settling down at the table in the observation room to talk about it with Plutarch and the doctors and Ruth and Prim, but we don't get a chance. Plutarch and Fulvia and I are called to an emergency meeting in Command.

It's already in full swing when we get there, with a video connection to District Two. Boggs, Beetee and Lyme are in a large meeting room alone, but the detritus from lunch and snacks suggests that the meeting was originally a good deal larger.

"Of course it would be effective," Lyme is saying when I come in. "But that's not the question here."

Coin hands Plutarch a small screen filled with diagrams, and he shows it to Fulvia and me. The diagrams are fairly simple, and all too clear: Someone has decided to bury the Nut alive. The plan is to blow the earth itself to bits along the avalanche paths, and seal the mountain. It's a plan for a mine disaster, the kind of thing that we were raised to fear every morning when our parents went to work.

"Before we get started," Coin says, "let's be practical. Can it be done, Soldier?" she asks Beetee.

Beetee nods. "It wouldn't even be particularly difficult. We may not even get much return fire if we're not targeting the entrances or the vehicles. They might not even notice."

Coin taps a pencil on the table thoughtfully. "We might not be able to get in and claim the facility."

"We wouldn't be able to," Lyme says. "That was what made this plan different from everything we've tried. I'd been asking people to come up with something new. Soldier Hawthorne suggested giving up on the idea of possession of the facility. To just destroy it outright."

"Wait," I say. "This is Gale's idea?"

She nods. "It was the first workable thing we'd gotten. I don't think I'd have wanted to be up against him in an arena."

She says it lightly enough, but it carries a lot of weight. I see Beetee flinching at it as well. The idea of Gale, so angry and so brilliant, dumped into the arena, is chilling. He'd have been a victor for sure, but I'm not sure I want to think about what the arena would have done to him.

Then again, the rest of us aren't exactly models of good adjustment.

"It sounds like a mining accident," I say.

Beetee nods. "That's what Katniss said."

"You have Soldier Everdeen at strategic planning meetings?" Coin asks, then tempers it. "She hasn't shown any special gift for it."

"She has a perspective I value," Lyme says. "Maybe you need to listen to her more in Thirteen."

I knew I liked Lyme after this summer's mentoring, but the look on Coin's face at being told she needs to listen more to an unstable teenage girl wins me over for life.

The problem is re-focused on whether or not we need to possess the Nut. The ethical question of burying hundreds of people alive is tabled entirely until, as an afterthought, Beetee brings up leaving the trains free to get them out after they surrender.

Coin and a few of her top officers look confused by the thought, and I have a feeling one of them is actually gearing up to ask why we would do such a thing when Boggs says, "It will help the transition if we're not shown to be as ruthless as the Capitol. And Katniss's participation will certainly be more enthusiastic if she doesn't think we're causing a mine cave-in. Apparently, that's how her father died."

"It's how Gale's father died, too," I say.

"So she pointed out. It was quite the argument between them."

"And that," Coin says, cutting off the connection, "is why teenage girls do not belong in serious strategy talks. Using that time to pick emotional fights with another soldier was counterproductive."

"It's not an emotional fight," I say. "It's an ethical one. And one we're going to have here, without benefit of a single teenage girl in the vicinity."

"Do you mean to derail this meeting?" Coin asks.

"No. But I also want to make sure that survivors of the attack have some opportunity to surrender and get to safety."

"If they're alive, they're quite likely to want revenge," one of the commanders says. "It could be asking for trouble to let them leave."

"They're human beings," I say. "You don't know why they're working there. Some of them are our people."

The debate circles for more than an hour. Thirteen's Command is stiff and awkward; it's clear that they haven't had a lot of arguments. Things in Thirteen happen because Coin decides they will happen. Ultimately, that's an advantage, since Plutarch and I have both done our share of arguing and convincing with Gamemakers, sponsors, and even Coriolanus Snow. The ethical angle may be incomprehensible to Coin, but she has at least a rudimentary concept of image. We decide to go ahead with the plan, but leave the trains as an escape route. Plutarch even gets them to let me be in contact with Katniss the whole time, even though I won't have any special view of the battle, on the grounds that she might suddenly need to be coached through an appearance.

She suits up and puts in the earpiece, but, beyond a test and a hello, we don't talk through the entire attack, which we observe from the roof of the Justice Building. One of her cameramen is on her (just in case she does something wonderful, I guess), and I can see how pale and drawn she is. Both of her hands are clamped over her mouth, like a little girl trying not to scream.

"Katniss?" I say into her earpiece. She doesn't answer, but between her hands, I can see her lips moving. She looks like Peeta when he's scared and confused. "Katniss!"

She takes harsh, sharp breaths. Her eyes trace the line of the mountain. "I want everyone inside," one of the Commanders says. "In case the Capitol has more hovercrafts to use."

"Katniss," I say. "Are you there?"

Finally, she drops her hands. I can see the red imprint they leave on her skin. "Yes," she says shakily.

"Get inside," I tell her. "Just in case the Capitol tries to retaliate with what's left of its air force."

"Yes," she says again, dully. I watch as she makes her way down the stairs into the Justice Building. She looks like she's been on a morphling drip. She keeps pressing her hands against the stone walls. Boggs finds her and tries to reassure her that the trains will be allowed to come. He tells her the plan isn't to shoot everyone leaving the facility, but I somehow doubt that she's especially calmed by this, since soldiers are very obviously going out, armed to the teeth, to wait in the square.

Sounding more like a father than a commanding officer, Boggs says, "You're cold. I'll see if I can find a blanket."

She looks more than cold. She looks beaten. I can see other people in Command looking irritated with her. I do the only thing I can think of. I distract her by telling her about the test we did with Peeta, about how he was able to remember her father without going into a delusional rant. I actually am hopeful about this, and I think she picks up on it, though the best that can be said is that she seems less likely to slip into a catatonic state when I'm done.

Hours pass. Night comes to District Two. I can see on the monitors that nothing is going on at the mine. A few soldiers are engaged in fights with locals, probably relatives of the people in the Nut. One of our soldiers is disciplined harshly for attempting to abscond with a local girl he's managed to subdue. There are many things I don't like about the regimentation in Thirteen, but I'll give them that: They don't approve of abuses by their military.

I stay on the earpiece with Katniss, never turning it off, even though we only talk now and then. Occasionally, one or the other of us will ask, "Still there?" She is sitting in the entry hall of the Justice Building, pressed against the cold stone, her eyes haunted. The occasional reassurances that she's not alone seem to at least keep her grounded.

The small skirmishes continue. The local fighters are fierce, many of them trained to volunteer for the arena. Now, they're defending their homes.

"We need to get her out there," Coin says.

"Katniss, I'll be right back, I promise," I say, and turn off my microphone. "What?"

"We need her to address the fighters, tell them that they're beaten."

"It'll save lives," Plutarch says. "If we show that the rebellion -- the mockingjay herself -- is speaking from the main square of District Two, and is perfectly safe to do so, then maybe..." He shrugs.

"Come on. Look at her."

Coin looks. "I see a volunteer in this war effort who is suited up for the duty she agreed to do."

Left unspoken are the terms of the agreement. I see Peeta there, helpless against anything they might do to him in the hospital if Katniss doesn't play along.

I turn my microphone back on and break the news to her. While I'm talking, Fulvia hands me a script for her. I don't bother to pretend she's going to do something on her own, and wouldn't ask her to. If she can choke out words I feed her, it will be enough. It's the image they need.

She goes to the steps. I start feeding her the speech. Her voice is shaky, and she looks about as inspirational as Coin generally does.

Before she can get much further than an introduction, there is a loud screeching noise in the square, as the trains finally come out of the Nut, packed with wounded. They pour out of the doors, surrounded by smoke from the mountain.

Katniss loses her apathy and rushes down the stairs, screaming at the rebels to hold their fire. A wounded man comes out ahead of the pack and she goes to him. I think we are about to see her do something extraordinary.

Then he pulls a gun on her.

"Freeze," I order her.

She does.

The man says, "Give me one reason I shouldn't shoot you."

She says, "I can't."

"What's she doing?" someone in Command whispers as she goes forward.

"I can't," she says again. "That's the problem, isn't it? We blew up your mine. You burned my district to the ground. We've got every reason to kill each other. So do it. Make the Capitol happy. I'm done killing their slaves for them." She drops her bow and kicks it to him.

"Cut her mike!" someone yells. "What the hell is she doing?"

Plutarch has the controls. He doesn't cut her mike or take the camera off of her. I move away from the table, so I don't have to worry about anyone trying to grab my mike.

"I'm not their slave," the man says.

"I am. That's why I killed Cato... and he killed Thresh... and he killed Clove... and she tried to kill me. It just goes around and around, and who wins? Not us. Not the districts. Always the Capitol. But I'm tired of being a piece in their Games."

There is silence around her. Both sides of the skirmishes are watching her intently.

"Keep talking," I say. And I realize what she most needs to talk about, what the people from the Nut need to hear. "Tell them about watching the mountain go down."

She does. All of her war-weariness, all of her Games-weariness, comes out, all of it focused on one wounded man holding a gun on her. It's real. It's all real. I can hear her life in her words -- her life as someone always divided, someone who belonged to two worlds and never fit in either. She begs the people from the Nut to remember that the rebels are their neighbors, and asks the rebels what they've become, standing there ready to shoot a wounded man just trying to reach safety. She's just a step away from the point of things, the same step away that she was in the arena, when she was holding her bow on Enobaria.

"Who's the enemy?" I prod her.

She nods, her eyes fierce. "These people are not your enemy! The rebels are not your enemy! We all have one enemy, and it's the Capitol! This is our chance to put an end to their power, but we need every district person to do it! Please, join us!"

I smile. This was what she needed to do. It's what she should have done all along. Rallying angry people to express their anger has always been easy. Getting people to understand who their enemies are is infinitely more difficult.

The man in front of Katniss lowers his gun, and a cheer goes up in command.

It's so loud that I don't even hear the gunshot that sends Katniss, limp and bleeding, to the ground.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirteen
It takes a few seconds for it to register in Command. I notice her go down first. The wounded man she was talking to lowers his gun, looking at it like it might have caused the shot, though it didn't. He sets it down and proceeds to crawl toward her, muttering, "Medic, medic."

No one seems to know where the shot came from, and gunfire breaks out in the closely packed square. I see some of our soldiers go down, and some of the wounded from the Nut. People on both sides are calling for a cease-fire. It takes a minute or two for me to realize that a lot of the wounded have turned on the Capitol soldiers. Our rebels are just standing on the sidelines. This last gunfight is District Two against itself.

Someone pushes through the smoke and grabs the mike off of Katniss's uniform. I almost don't recognize Lyme until Katniss's cameraman gets an angle on her.

"Cease fire!" she calls. "All sides. District Two! Cease fire immediately!" She somehow manages, by the force of her voice and her personality, to get the gunfire to stop. "We need a medic," she says. "Katniss Everdeen is injured. She was injured trying to make peace among us." A medic scurries in and starts examining her. Lyme goes on. "That's what this should be about. Do you think I don't understand loyalty to the Capitol? I have friends. Relatives among the Peacekeepers, and I don't hate them. But breaking Snow's regime is not turning our backs on our friends. It's saving Panem from a disease that's eating it from the inside out, and has been since the Dark Days. It's time to cure it, and take down the empire. It's time to take the districts back into the hands of their own citizens.

"How many of our children have we given up to the arena? How many have we trained to be killers? I know I was trained, from childhood up. When I became a victor, I realized that my life was over. My training had led to one place, and after it, there was nothing. I wasn't allowed to work. I didn't know how to do anything other than survive. That's no way to live. I know I’m not the only victor to feel that way. But in Two, we've raised all of our children to build their lives around the possibility of being reaped, and so many of them come out of it, having missed the arena, not even knowing what life is about.

"This is District Two -- the victors' district. And all of us know that doesn’t mean anything good. It's time to stop being victors, and be human beings again."

"Maybe we should have had her in the propos," Plutarch mutters.

Coin gives him an unreadable look, and a cold thought crosses my mind: Lyme wants to give the districts into their own control. Coin does not like that idea at all.

I try to force the thought away, but it won't quite leave. I don't like Coin, and I don't like her government, and -- as Peeta adjured us -- I have given a great deal of thought to whether or not I trust them. I hadn't considered the idea that Coin might just move into the Capitol, pick up Snow's toys, and start playing.

Until now.

Unfortunately, I don't have time to think about it, and there's no way we can win the war without her arsenal, so I can't do anything about it.

The medic examining Katniss calls for a stretcher and pulls her earpiece. I speak loudly enough for him to hear me through it. "How is she?"

He takes her smaller mike, the one connected to my ear, and says, "The bullet didn't penetrate the armor, but there is significant impact damage. I need to examine her in the medical craft. Prepare an operating room. I suspect internal bleeding."

I give the orders, barely waiting for a nod from Coin, then brace myself and go to Ruth. We have not been running the battle live in Thirteen, though it was run in the other districts, so she has no idea that Katniss has been in a battle until I tell her that she needs to get a team to prep for emergency surgery.

She is in her element here, and doesn't do any of the panicked things I expect. She takes my side of the earpiece and establishes contact with the medic on the hovercraft, then orders me to find Prim and tell her.

Prim is in Peeta's observation room doing nothing -- it's simply become the place she comes when she's lonely and bored, I think -- and she jumps to her feet and rushes off to join her mother as soon as I tell her what's going on.

By the time the hovercraft has arrived, I've explained the situation to everyone except Peeta. I have more information, filtered through Ruth and the doctors who are preparing to receive her. Her spleen may be ruptured. They have been draining abdominal blood. Spleens are useful, but not necessary for life. She may be more prone to pneumonia in later life (presuming there is such a thing for her). There are no broken bones. She is under anesthesia. I am confused and tired by the time she's brought in for surgery.

I go back to the observation room and sleep out the rest of the day. Prim wakes me up briefly to tell me the surgery is over, and Katniss will be all right, then pulls a blanket over me and lets me sleep again. Sometime around bedtime, Dalton manages to lug me out of the observation room and, with Gale's help, gets me back to the apartment to sleep out the night. I hear them talking about me, but their words are vague and muddled. I feel drunk.

I don't really wake up until the next morning. I go back to the hospital and visit Katniss. She's still unconscious. Johanna has asked if she can share the room. "I figured I'd ask before I got assigned to be her keeper, anyway," she says dismissively, pushing her IV pole up to the edge of Katniss's bed and looking at her clinically. "Other people take bullets and actually get hurt. She'll have a little stomach ache. Lyme died."

I look up. "What?"

"It was confusing in the firefight at first. Gale didn't notice her going down. But she got shot. No nicely ruptured spleen that she can live without. It tore a hole through her guts." She presses at her morphling drip. "One more victor down. That's eighteen in the arena. And how many in the Viewing Center?"

"Plutarch said there were sixteen. Only six got out."

"Well, two of them are down now. Did you know that they executed Norton and Grimes in Nine?"

"I... Snow just outright killed them?"

"Not Snow," Johanna says.

This takes a minute to sink in. "I didn't hear anything about that," I say.

"That's because you're not at all the Command meetings."

I frown. "You're not at any Command meetings."

"Gale is." She shrugs. "I told him I wanted to go back to Seven as soon as I could, and suddenly I'm hearing about victors being executed in the districts. Maybe it's supposed to be a secret. I don't really like secrets. I didn't really like Norton and Grimes, either. But they were ours." She sits down on the edge of her bed. "Anyway, with all that going on, I figured Brainless here could probably use a bodyguard who doesn't have to leave at lights-out. Also, they're giving her more morphling than she needs."

"Tell me you're not siphoning her painkillers, Jo."

Another shrug. "Sorry. I'm not your official Team Liar. Try again."

I consider telling her that she needs to seriously think about what she's doing, that morphling is no joke. Imagining the mad peals of laughter at my hypocrisy stops that idea cold. I tell her to take care of herself.

Back at observation, Delly has managed to convey to Peeta that Katniss was injured, and he's asking to see the injury. The other doctors, especially the psychiatrists, are horrified at the request, but I actually understand this one. I find him a photograph taken during surgery for the doctors to examine and show it to him. He puzzles over it, and asks for an anatomy book. I get him one of those as well, and leave him to sort out that the bloody girl in the picture is, in fact, perfectly human. I have a feeling we'll have to go through this a few more times, or a dozen, or a hundred. Snow's people did their work well.

I go down to Command and find Plutarch and Fulvia in the production booth with Finnick and Annie. They're going through Katniss's speech in District Two.

"That's definitely not going to work to rally our Capitol rebels," Plutarch says. "They like to have a pretty clear distinction drawn between the Capitol and Snow. Lyme's speech will work better."

"Are you going to show her getting shot right after?" I ask.

Everyone looks up. "You heard about that?" Plutarch asks.

"Yeah. And a few other things you've been skipping. Something about executing victors."

He sighs. "I don't know where you heard that."

"Is it true?"

"Yes, it's true. Don't ask me what was going on in anyone's head out there, though. We haven't got it all sorted out yet."

"What have you sorted out?"

"This isn't approved," Fulvia says, looking around nervously. "Plutarch, they may be listening."

"They may be," Finnick says. "We definitely are. What's going on, Heavensbee?"

"I…" Plutarch looks at Annie. "This could be upsetting."

"I'm all right," Annie says, holding onto Finnick. "I'm not alone."

"Damn straight you're not," I say.

She smiles at me.

I look at Plutarch. "So what happened?"

He looks to Fulvia.

"Not bugged," she says. "But I seriously question the wisdom of this conversation. This was a closed session. Someone's going to want to know who talked."

"Not if we don't let on that we know," Annie says.

"It was Darla Grimes and Will Norton," Plutarch tells her, giving in. "They both got out of the fight at the Viewing Center, but the idiots didn't stay in the Capitol. They went home."

"Why would they have stayed in the Capitol?" Finnick asks. "They didn't have friends there. Nine kept to itself."

"I'm going to have to give a history lesson," Plutarch says. "Will you be patient? I can't answer the question without it." We all make assenting noises, and he nods. "During the Dark Days, some of the worst fighting happened out in Nine. They weren't the most radical district at the time, but they did control a lot of the supply of food staples, and all that flat, empty land made it easy for troops to cross from both directions. They sided with the districts, of course -- the districts were fairly united then -- so the Capitol troops treated them like dirt. They quartered themselves in district housing, scavenged houses and barns and fields… and fed other appetites as well. War can be ugly. By the time the war was over, District Nine was burned and pillaged several times over, and the population… well, obviously the destruction wasn't as severe as what happened in Twelve, but… it was severe. They probably lost seventy percent of their people. The ones that were left were angry. And they've passed that down with their blood."

I think about Gale again. About the Nut going down.

"So… Grimes and Norton were fighting for the Capitol?" Finnick asks.

"I don't know," Plutarch says. "I hadn't heard if they were. They weren't doing propos, or anything particularly noticeable if they were."

Annie frowns. "But executing them… their own people… if it wasn't during a fight, then why?"

"Will Norton won the Twenty-Third Games. He was… well, something like Haymitch."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He was brilliant," Plutarch says, pulling up pictures of the victors as he speaks. "Never satisfied with anything. He made a pest of himself before he was reaped, telling everyone better ways to do things."

"I never did that."

"No. But, then, you were too young to be in the mines, telling them what to do. Kids as young as eight work the fields in Nine, and Will was full of ideas. Small towns and bright ideas don't always have the best relationship."

I look down. I suppose this is true.

Plutarch goes on. "Anyway, when Will became a victor, he stopped being like Haymitch. He didn't just seclude himself out in their town -- which would have meant never seeing anyone at all, given how isolated it is. He used his money and influence to force his ideas down people's throats. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't. You can imagine which times the people remembered. But if they didn't fall in line, he would berate them and call them stupid and backwards. If that didn't work, he'd tell the Capitol liaison that the farmers were deliberately balking at doing work that would increase the output. After Heck Whiting won the Thirtieth Games, the two of them were out there alone, and all Heck had for an influence was his mentor. The culture wasn't really conducive to good relations with the rest of the district. Neither of them ever married. The ladies -- Darla Grimes and Thelma Cotton -- won in back to back years, Thirty-Sixth and Thirty-Seventh, and they were the last victors Nine ever had. They credited their wins to Heck and Will's attitude. Thelma was decent on her own, and Darla was at least tolerable, but the four of them out there together, with no one else to challenge them?" He shakes his head. "It was a bad brew. There was always bad blood with the farmers. They imagined the Capitol actually chose to reward 'toadies' with the wins."

"Did they?" Finnick asks. "I mean, the Gamemakers. Did they give away the wins?"

"No. The wins were fair and square, or as fair and square as it ever was in the arena. They sometimes chose losers -- "

"In other words, they sometimes murdered kids because they felt like it," I translate.

" -- but they didn't choose the victors among the survivors. Victors' Village in Nine just had a poisoned atmosphere."

"So they were executed. For collaboration." Finnick looks at the pictures, which show four innocuous looking tributes in old-fashioned hairstyles.

"No," Fulvia says. "They were executed for being victors. All the rest is just scene-setting."

"How do you know?"

"They were shackled to their houses in the Village and the houses were blown up."

The image that comes into my head is both terrifying and strangely familiar from old movies from the Capitol: A gang of farmers with pitchforks storming the castle to kill the monsters.

And this is our side.

"And what are we going to do about that?" I ask.

"At the moment, there's nothing we can do. We win the war, then get a platform to deal with these kinds of things."

"These kinds of things," I repeat, dazed.

Plutarch turns back to his instruments. "Right now, we need to focus on taking the Capitol down. We're at something of a disadvantage, because these days average Capitol citizens associate the rebellion with Thirteen, which has suddenly become quite the topic of Capitol conversation."

"How so?"

"You really want to know?"

I nod, and he cues up a video. It's Caesar Flickerman on television again, but looking thin and haunted under his jet black hair. I wonder who is being held behind the cameras. He manages to ignore his appearance and put on his jovial host's smile to welcome a young couple that "escaped" District Thirteen. ("They're real enough," Plutarch says. "I checked.") Having taken refuge in the Capitol, they are grateful to the kind and generous citizens of Panem. They report on the regimented schedules, the highly restricted food supply, the constant militarization.

"And we weren't allowed to be together there," the young woman says. "We had a sickness go through the district when I was a child, and I can't have children. My husband can father them, and it was decided that it would be a waste for him to marry me. He was supposed to marry someone 'functional.' We loved each other since we were little. We ran away instead." She smiles. "We adopted a little boy here in the Capitol, and we love him, and we have a good home."

Caesar's audience cheers.

"People in the Capitol didn't even know Thirteen existed," Finnick says. "How can they have immigrants?"

"They probably just lied to their new neighbors about their origin until now," Plutarch says. "The point is, they are there, and they, along with several of Snow's spies who've made it in and out over the years, have created a narrative about how people will be rounded up and forced to live in tunnels, where their children, should they have them, will be taken away, and they will be forced to mate with whoever the district decides they should bear children to."

Finnick snorts. "As opposed to being forced to mate with whoever is lining Snow's pockets? Yeah, that's a tragedy."

"It's ridiculous," Fulvia spits.

"Well, seeing it from the outside..."

She rolls her eyes. "Please, Haymitch. They've got the Capitol half-convinced that Panem women are kept in pens here for the pleasure of men from Thirteen. It's not going to help the rebellion if we go into the Capitol and people think we're going to drag them off to do service in a militarized harem."

"Maybe we should try and separate the rebellion from Thirteen," I suggest.

"And just which weapons do you think we'd fight that war with?" Plutarch goes back to his original project. He flips through a few more screens of Katniss's speech. "If only we could get her talking with Peeta again, get them in love here. We could sell that. If they were together -- "

"He's programmed to kill her," I point out.

"I know. I’m not discounting that, though I would certainly love to show Snow something to make him think he failed. But I suppose even if we magically cured him today, it would be too much to ask for them to go back to their old show."

"Do you think so?" I mutter.

Finnick clears his throat. "I have a proposal," he says.

"What is it?" Plutarch asks.

"Not for you," he says. "For Annie." He turns to her and drops to his knee. "I've missed you. Every day you were gone was hell. And now that I have you back, I need to stay with you forever. Will you marry me, Annie?"

Annie puts her hands over her mouth, not quite covering her brilliant smile. "Yes! I will. You know I will."

He winks. "Well, I figured it was still good form to ask."

She laughs.

"Congratulations," I say. "I have no idea how they go about that in Thirteen."

"I checked. You sign papers and get assigned housing," Finnick says. "Which is very boring, which is why I brought it up here. You want to show the Capitol that people in Thirteen love each other perfectly well? We may not be up to the standards of your star-crossed lovers from District Twelve, but personally, I think we'll do. We'll make a show of it, and rub Snow's face in it." He squeezes Annie's hands. "No more rich old men. No more grabby old women. Just my wife. Forever. And Snow can't do a damned thing about it."

Plutarch nods, pleased. "Yes... and after your little soliloquy on the airtime assaults, they'll know exactly what it means."

I raise my eyebrows. "Finnick, do you really want to turn your wedding into a propo?"

"Yes." He looks at Annie. "But Annie gets the final call."

She bites her lip. "Well... yes. I think so. I could be wearing a beautiful dress. And maybe it should be outside. And I'll be smiling. And I'll marry the person he told me I couldn't have." She smiles. "I like it. Can we have a net?"

"A what?" Plutarch asks, and Annie starts to explain the wedding practices of District Four.

By morning, it's all over the district, and after that, life in Thirteen becomes about the wedding.

Dalton was an officiant in District Ten ("at least until I showed up drunk at Kate Markez's wedding"), and like so many other little things, the wedding ceremony has survived largely intact from Four, though all of them bemoan the absence of a man who apparently went around and offered some kind of traditional blessing. I offer to do it, but they laugh uncomfortably and I realize that this might be an underground religious practice, which I couldn't do… and Thirteen probably wouldn't be much fonder of than the Capitol was.

"You obviously don't use fishing nets for the binding," Finnick says to Dalton at dinner. "What do you use?"

"A poncho. The ladies spend weeks sewing scraps into patterns for it." He rolls his eyes. "Kind of old fashioned, only women doing it, but that's how it works. The men used to build a house, but then the Capitol got a bit snooty about who was allowed to build houses, so we didn't have anything left to do."

"It was the same in Four," Annie says, excited. "The women wove the net. The government stopped the men building houses, too, so they started building anchored rafts for people to fish from." She blushes. "And usually do a few other things on. Couples went to the raft after the wedding. They had fancy tents built on them."

Finnick kisses her cheek. "I don't think they'll let us have a raft. I mean, we're pretty close to a lot of lakes, but they're outside the compound."

"It's all right. It wouldn’t be the same to wake up without all the flower petals people would have been throwing onto the water all night anyway."

"We're going to go back to Four just as soon as we can," Finnick promises. "We'll have to live in your house. Mine's gone, I guess. We can see about getting a dog from Old Tonio..."

And they are gone, back into their world. The rest of us shake our heads at the damned silliness of it all, but I doubt I'm the only one who's a little bit jealous. I look at all of my hall mates, all of those lonely people in their middle years, and I wonder how many of them, like the woman who escaped to the Capitol, aren't alone by choice, but because it's been deemed useless to waste resources on non-productive unions.

If so, they don't let jealousy or bitterness prevent them from throwing themselves into the wedding. While Plutarch and I thrash things out with District Thirteen's power structure, which considers the lavish affair Plutarch wants to throw extremely offensive, the average citizens become increasingly engaged.

Apparently, the starkness of Thirteen isn't just necessity. Even when resources are available, they believe that showy uses of said resources are decadent, the road to living like flighty and brainless Capitol flit-abouts. "And look at the difference between the Capitol and the districts," someone says in one of the interminable meetings. "People who have resources can do so much more, and consume so much uselessly -- it's not fair. That's why we prohibited all displays of... of..."

"Decadence," Coin says. "We don't try to soften the minds of our people with constant bread and circuses." She raises an eyebrow at Plutarch, who has looked up, surprised. "I do read, Heavensbee," she says. "I am aware of the philosophy. And I am quite shocked that you would want to return to it."

And it's back to arguing in circles.

Coin is particularly annoyed that her people are becoming more and more invested in this particular circus, and she is forced to acquiesce to at least some of Plutarch's demands for fear of being seen as intransigent. She stresses repeatedly that this display is a propo, meant to show the Capitol that love exists in Thirteen, in a way that's simple enough for even them to understand.

Absolutely no one seems to care what the reasoning is. The dining hall and Promenade are taken over by people making decorations. When a call goes out for children to sing the wedding song, the whole school shows up. Plutarch wants to have auditions for the best singers, but Annie is so delighted that she declares they may all sing, and she will love all of them forever for doing it. Since they have been drilled in learning the songs of Thirteen, it doesn't take them all that long to learn a new one, though they seem prone to marching while they sing.

Even Katniss, who has been put into some hard physical recovery, is in the spirit of it. She has become very close to Finnick, having gone through hell with him, and she seems genuinely elated. She loans Annie her prep team (they are in ecstasy at the opportunity to prep a bride), and even gets an escort to District Twelve, so she can find Annie a dress among the creations Cinna left behind for her. These were, miraculously, untouched. Octavia is quite the seamstress, and takes over the necessary alterations. They also find a suit of Peeta's for Finnick. Plutarch is keen to name the origin of these items in the propo, but we talk him down from it. Annie and Finnick should be the stars of their own day.

Peeta hears about it, probably from Delly, and seems happy enough to help make little decorations out of leaves and wire. He asks, oddly, if I was at his parents' toasting. I tell him that I wasn't; it was during that year's Games. I don't tell him that almost no one was, because it was hastily arranged before her pregnancy started to show, and his friends didn't like her, and she didn't have many friends of her own. I think her sister went. I'm not sure I need to tell him this. He knows what they were like. He pauses in the middle of a reddish wreath and says, "I really don't understand them."

"Your mom and dad?"

He nods and gets back to work. "They just don't make sense. Can I have some leaves?"

And that's the end of it.

Because it will be a propo, Finnick and Annie do separate interviews to be cut into the footage, and they do one together. These are filmed in the faux luxury of the jugs instead of their sparse quarters. I take the opportunity to have a look around. I still think it looks like a parody of luxury. Then again, there are plenty of places in the Capitol that I think look like parodies, too.

I get bored watching the shoot (not to mention the never ending cuts to fix their hair and makeup) and go to visit Hazelle, who is currently trying to re-arrange appointments around the shooting schedule. She looks at one of the names -- Imogen Rollins -- and shakes her head. "I know her. She works the other shift. She's a year younger than Gale. What am I going to do when Gale starts applying for these things?" She sighs. "On the other hand, I do wish he'd meet someone. I love Katniss and I think she's missing out on the best man she could possibly know -- I may be a little biased there -- but I'm pretty sure that ship has sailed. I think he'd be happier if he turned his attention somewhere else."

"I think so, too," I say. "And I think Johanna Mason is planning to pounce as soon as he figures that out."

"Oh, I hope so. He likes her an awful lot. Her name is every third word out of his mouth at home, though I don't think it's dawned on him that he could just... move on with his life. Not yet."

Plutarch comes scurrying down from the rooms where they're shooting before this conversation can get much further.

"What is it?" I ask when he gets to the desk. "Don't tell me you're back on that kick of getting me on camera to talk about them."

"No," he says. "Though you should. I think people would love to see you. Think how happy it would make your little old ladies!" I grimace, not wanting to think about what Snow's doing to the Daughters of the Founding. Plutarch apparently realizes that this isn't comforting, so he just says, "It's Peeta."

"What?"

"I don't know what's going on, but I got a message from his doctors that he insists on seeing you."

"Go on," Hazelle says. "I'll worry about my kids. You go worry about yours. That's the way the world works."

I go. When I get to the hospital, I expect to find Peeta agitated, maybe off on one of his crazy rants. Instead, he's in a very good mood, and Delly, sitting off to one side, looks pleased as well.

"What is it?" I ask.

"When is the wedding?" Peeta asks.

"Saturday," I say. "Why?"

He looks at Delly and smiles. It is the old Peeta, the real Peeta. "I remembered Dad's wedding cake recipe. We didn't use it all that much, but it's not that different from the recipe for the other white cakes. It's the decorating that makes it special."

"And?"

"I want to make a cake. For the wedding." He holds his hand out to Delly, and she hands him the notebook. The pages have been covered with drawings of fish and waves and boats. Finally, there is a picture of a four-tier cake, with leaping dolphins and blue waves. "I can do it," he says, holding his hands out. They are perfectly still. "The tremors don't happen very often now, and I can always pull my hands away when I feel one coming on. I drew all of that with only a few shake-breaks. I can do it. But the doctors won't let me. They say I can't leave the hospital, and I can't very well bake a cake or frost it in here."

I look through the sketches, and a feeling completely foreign to me rises up. I can't name it. It's just a sense that this is the right thing, the best thing that could happen.

Delly gives me a list of ingredients. Peeta will only give vague estimates of how much of each thing he needs (I can hear Danny jealously guarding his secrets here), and I have to spend the afternoon having heated arguments with the nutrition police to get them. I call in Fulvia, who explains the concept to them, and finally flat out order them to obtain the ingredients. (This leads to them calling Coin, and she backs me up, but calls me to her private offices to remind me of the values of my new home.)

There is no question of letting Peeta simply have the run of the kitchen. Even I know that his delusions are prone to making appearances at the worst possible time. Armed guards stand at attention near the doors. He pays them no attention, except for once asking one of them if she wants to lick the spoon. Judging by her enthusiastic response, I think she'd lick anything he handed her, but he's completely oblivious.

Greasy Sae helps him with the preparation of the frosting. It will take a few days to properly decorate the cake, and of course it will have to cool before he can frost it. He gets some fruit preserves he'd asked for and melts them into the cake to begin with. The next day, he begins frosting, and the slow process of creating the vision from the notebook. By Friday night, it is nearly done, and he is just putting the last touches of color on the leaping dolphins. Sae is off at another assignment, and the guards seem to realize that a boy completely absorbed in his work is not about to go berserking around the compound.

As he finishes up a beautiful, almost transparent netting pattern with spun sugar, he says, quietly, "Will Katniss be at the wedding?"

I look up. It's the first time he's said her name in a normal, even-handed tone of voice. "Yes," I say carefully. "Why?"

"She'll see the cake? Will you tell her I made it?"

I look at the cake. "I don't think she'll need to be told. No one else could do this."

He picks up the little bride figure that he made, wearing the green dress that Katniss has loaned Annie. In this small a scale, it's hard to tell that she's not actually meant to be Katniss. He looks at it for a long time. "Haymitch..."

"What?"

He carefully places the figure on top of the cake. "I think I'm ready to see her." He takes a deep, shaky breath and squares his shoulders. "I want to see her, Haymitch. I want to see Katniss."

Chapter Text

Chapter Fourteen
The wedding goes off without a hitch. Even I get a little misty when they wrap the net around Finnick and Annie. In a normal district, this would be when they break out the wine, but of course, in District Thirteen, it's prohibited. It's the first time I've seen a lot of the survivors from Twelve all in one place since they got off the hovercrafts, and even without wine, they seem a little drunk on the whole thing. No one is dressed up other than the bride and groom. This bothers Plutarch, but it's perfectly normal for District Twelve. Everyone is cleaned up and combed, and Prim Everdeen has braided autumn leaves into her hair.

Greasy Sae drags Gale out to dance, and soon everyone is dancing with abandon, including me. I haven't danced in a circle since before my Games, but the steps come back all right as I dance between Lizzabee Leggett and Posy Hawthorne. Delly dances a reel with Rory, and I dance with her for a second round of it. The falling autumn leaves twirl among the dancers, and Cressida raves about the visuals. "If the Capitol weren't about to fall," she says, "I think there'd be a rage for leaves at every wedding next year."

"Even if it does fall, people will still be getting married," I point out. "The world's ended a few times without changing that."

She smiles indulgently at my quaint ideas, then goes back into the crowd and joins a group of young people from Thirteen, all of them looking a little awkward as refugees from Twelve try to teach them steps to a dance they are completely unfamiliar with.

Johanna is standing at the sidelines, watching Katniss dance with Prim. Her eyes look sunken and far away. She's still too thin, too sickly. She looks a great deal like the girl she was when she first came to the Capitol, sick and weepy.

I go over to her. "Would you like to dance?"

She raises her eyebrows, surprised. "You dance?"

"I've been dancing, if you haven't noticed."

"I don't know the steps. Besides, I still kind of hurt."

"How about a slow one, then?" another voice says, and I look up to see Finnick weaving through the crowd.

"Shouldn't you be dancing with your wife?" Jo asks.

"She's dancing with Mrs. Everdeen right now."

"Dance with Haymitch," Jo says, pointing her chin at me. "Turns out he dances. Who knew?"

"I knew," Finnick tells her. "There was dancing when my Victory Tour went through Twelve. Come on, I want to dance with my family." He puts one arm over my shoulder, and the other over Jo's, and he leads us in a pretty gentle version of a circle dance. Jo still winces after a couple of minutes, so he stops. He doesn't let us let go of each other. "I love you both," he says, leaning into our little huddle. "I just… that's why I really came over. To say that. I'm glad you danced at my wedding."

"Sap," Jo says.

"It's Finnick," I say. "What do you expect?"

He knocks our heads gently together, then goes back to Annie, who is looking over the crowd for him.

When Peeta's cake comes out, wheeled by four people on as fancy a trolley as they could find, I see Katniss push through the crowd to get a look at it, her eyes huge and awed. I'm sure Plutarch will find a way to work this into the propo. I hope he does, anyway, and I hope Snow is forced to watch it several times.

It seems like the right time to tell her about Peeta, so I go to her. I put my hand on her shoulder, and feel her trembling. She doesn't seem to have any idea what to say.

"Let's you and me have a talk," I say, and lead her out into the hall, where there are no cameras.

She blinks owlishly and looks back at the cake. "What's happening to him?"

I tell her a much as I can. All put together, it sounds almost hopeful, though she's a little worried that we've been giving him free rein. I promise her that we haven't. "But I've talked to him," I tell her.

"Face to face? And he didn't go nuts?" She bites her lip. I can see her fighting against hope, trying to force cynicism, but not succeeding.

"No," I tell her. "Pretty angry with me, but for all the right reasons. Not telling him about the rebel plot and whatnot."

She shivers, and I put my hand back on her shoulder. Her breathing is quick and shallow, and I'm not sure it's time to pass along Peeta's message. He could snap at any moment.

But I've spent enough time lying to both of them, and hiding things from them. I squeeze her shoulder and say, "He says he'd like to see you."

She sways a little bit, like she's been hit with a heavy object, and I guide her to a seat. She can't seem to talk.

"Can you do it?" I ask.

She looks up at me and nods silently.

I don't think she's ready to go just yet -- she needs time to get used to the idea -- so it's kind of a relief when Cressida asks her to go in and dance a little more. Katniss starts to lead me out, kind of absently -- I don't think she's even thinking about it -- but Cressida pushes me back a little bit.

"What's that about?" I ask as Katniss joins the circle, dancing between Gale's two brothers.

"Snow would love to have something he could spin as you being inappropriate with Katniss. His propagandists have been trying that narrative."

I roll my eyes. "People are sick."

"Yeah. But let's not give them visuals to play with."

I nod, and go back to the reception. I get a dance with Annie, who is radiant, and I spend a while talking to Dalton, who's getting a little maudlin about his own wife, and says he wants a drink. I talk him out of it, not that there was any chance of him getting one, anyway.

Finally, just before midnight, I head down to the hospital to get Peeta ready for the visit. Katniss will come down as soon as Annie has, for some reason, tossed a bouquet of flowers.

If Katniss seemed nervous, Peeta seems terrified, even though it was his idea. He instructs the techs to restrain him as well as they can, and asks if they have a way to control him if he flies off the handle. They decide on a remote-controlled dose of a tranquilizer, and give him a mild dose just to calm him down.

"Are you sure you're okay with this?" I ask him.

He bites his lip and nods. "She's just a girl, right?"

"She was always more than that to you. But yes, she's just a girl."

He nods, his eyes starting to get a little wild. "I dreamed about her today. She was in the rain. I know what she was talking about in the cave."

I have only the vaguest idea what this means, but it doesn't include the word "mutt," which is good. "She was glad to see your cake."

"Do you think she'll be glad to see me? After..." He flexes his hands like he's squeezing her throat. "You know."

I think that glad isn't the right word, but I don't say so. I think she's scared to see him -- not of what he'll do, but of what she'll feel. I don't think Peeta can process that right now, though, so I just say, "Sure. You should have seen her face when she realized you were well enough to frost a cake. It was like you were -- " I stop.

"Like I was what?"

I was going to say, Back from the dead, but I can see that Peeta is not in shape to hear that she's been acting bereaved, or that she might respond to him like he's a ghost come to haunt her. I say, "Like you were right there with her again."

Peeta frowns at me. "That's a lie, Haymitch. Why are you lying to me again?"

I sigh and tell a little more of the truth. "I think she was surprised to hear that you wanted to see her. In shock, maybe."

"Gave up on me, did she?"

"Peeta, you tried to kill her." I look at him carefully. Everything about him is coiled up tight, like he's preparing to take a huge leap. "Are you ready for this?" I ask him again. "Really ready?"

He nods tightly. "I won't hurt her."

I have heard Peeta tell a lot of lies, but this one proves to be the only hurtful one.

Katniss arrives a few minutes later and I give her the earpiece from her costume, in case I discover something that I should have told her before going in. To my annoyance, Peeta's medical crew has gathered in the observation room, even though there's no medical value to this. I try to ignore them while I set up behind the one-way mirror and think, disjointedly, that there's no purpose to hiding. Peeta knows we're here. It may as well be a two-way window.

Things go wrong before either of the kids speaks. I know it's going wrong -- Peeta is clenching his fists against the restraints, and Katniss has hidden herself behind wrapped arms, looking like she's trying to fold herself into nothing.

They look at each other and manage a mutual, artificially casual, "Hey."

"Haymitch said you wanted to talk to me," Katniss says.

"Look at you, for starters."

Katniss glances at the mirror helplessly, and I try to think of something that she could say or do, but I'm as stumped as I was when he attacked her. Peeta's been better lately. I realize that I've been lying to myself, trying for a bleak, cynical detachment. But it hasn't been true. I've been starting to believe that the real Peeta is back, that all he needed was one last push before he came back to normal. This would be it.

Instead, he stares at her avidly, picking her apart with his eyes. It's an aggressive attitude, and Katniss responds to it by shrinking back.

"You're not very big, are you?" Peeta says after a while. "Or particularly pretty?"

Katniss, tense as a wire, snaps, "Well, you've looked better."

"Knock it off," I manage to whisper as Peeta laughs brutally. "Come on, Katniss, let it go."

But she doesn't hear me over Peeta's taunt about not being nice to him, after everything he's been through. I wish he had an earpiece, too. I want to say, She's been through a little herself. Back off.

But I never thought of that. Peeta probably wouldn't have allowed it, anyway.

Katniss, quite unfortunately, is on the same wavelength, only coming from her, the reminder that she's been through a lot, too, doesn't quite come off right. "And you're the one who was known for being nice," she snipes. "Not me." She backs away. "Look, I don't feel so well. Maybe I'll drop by tomorrow."

She turns to leave, but before she gets to the door, he says, "Katniss, I remember about the bread."

She stops cold. Her eyes widen. This is it. The central memory for her. The most basic, defining one. If he says something to destroy it, everything is over. When she speaks, her voice is shaky, at best. "They showed you the tape of me talking about it."

"No. Is there a tape of you talking about it? Why didn't the Capitol use it against me?"

"It was made the day you were rescued. So what do you remember?"

Peeta takes a moment to answer, and when he does, I almost relax. Almost. He remembers it, and he doesn't destroy it. He remembers his mother hitting him, and he remembers giving her the bread. He even remembers seeing her in school the next day, and has for some reason held onto a memory of her picking a dandelion. "I must have loved you a lot," he says.

"You did."

"And did you love me?"

I will Katniss not to say the wrong thing. I try to send brainwaves at her to just tell him the truth -- the real truth, not the one she's convinced herself of. I don't dare speak into her ear, because Peeta will know if I feed her the lines about this, but I whisper them in my head: Yes. You love this boy. You've loved him for a long time.

She doesn't say it. In fact, she goes the other way entirely. "Everyone says I did. Everyone says that's why Snow had you tortured. To break me."

At the moment, I could strangle her myself.

Peeta's eyes flare. "That's not an answer."

"She should leave," I say.

"No." Plutarch shakes his head, and I wonder if he had his own fairy tale running in his head. "No, look, he's talking to her about what they did. About what he felt. She'll come around. She'll -- "

But whatever he thinks she's going to do, she doesn’t do it. The conversation has swung around to the Seventy-Fourth Games, to the tapes Peeta was shown where she tried to kill him with tracker jackers. And then to the faked kisses. I doubt Snow reminded him about the real ones.

It goes downhill from there, to the place where it had to end up, I guess. The one real thing in his doubts: Gale.

"Deny it," I whisper to Katniss, but she might as well not have her earpiece in, because instead of reassuring Peeta, she decides to choose this moment to be the heroine of some girl-power movie in which she doesn't care a whit what the boys think of her. It's not a bad stance in other circumstances (if not a true one, in her case; she cares deeply about both boys), but here, it's disastrous. Peeta takes a few more verbal swipes at her, then she runs out, pulling out her earpiece and leaving it on a table by the door. Before she disappears around the corner, I see her put her hands over her face to weep.

Peeta is staring grumpily into the corner, and I am suddenly furious at him. I don't care about the weeks in the Capitol. I don't care about his confusion, or his anger, or anything else.

I go into the room. He's staring at the tranquilizer needle in his arm.

"What the hell was that?" I ask him. "Did you want to see her so you could hurt her again? I wouldn't have brought her if I thought that was what you were after."

"She doesn't love me. I convinced myself that she did. Again. And I was wrong. Again. Why am I so stupid about her? I know better. I know what she really is."

"What she..." I shake my head. "She's a girl who's saved your damned life more times than I can count. She's a girl who's spent the last several weeks going crazy worrying over you. Who bullied the president of this district into promising not to hurt you. Who you already tried to kill once."

"Haymitch, I -- "

"Yeah. Yeah, I know. You got tortured. You got pumped through with toxins. And I would give anything -- my life included -- to go back and time and make sure that never happened. But you're not the only person who's ever been hurt, and trying to give as good as you got isn't helping anyone, least of all you."

"I didn't mean to."

I shake my head. "If that's not an excuse for me, then it's not an excuse for you, either."

He leans back into the pillows and says, "I tried."

"Like hell you did." I leave.

The next day, when I go to observation, I see that he's trying to sell Delly on how cruel Katniss and I are. She's not buying. "You listen to me, Peeta," she says, "if your brothers were here, they'd knock some sense into you. I can't. But I'm not going to sit here and listen to you tell lies to yourself. You need to stop it."

After lunch, Prim comes on for her shift. She's noticeably cooler toward Peeta. "All my sister could talk about last night, after we found her sleeping in the laundry room, was getting to the Capitol and killing Snow. Well, that and what a terrible person she is, and how even Peeta knows that now. She's going to end up back in crisis care if this keeps up."

"Crisis care?"

"The emergency mental health system. As opposed to the long term. I doubt they'd put her in long term when they still need her, but they can shoot her full of medicines to calm her down for a few days."

Luckily, Katniss manages to calm herself down a little bit over the next two days without help, and Peeta pulls himself out of his sullen spiral. Neither expresses the slightest desire to see the other again and try to fix the damage. Peeta draws her on that long ago day in the rain. It's not an angry picture by any stretch, but it's about the saddest thing I've ever seen. He spends a lot of time staring at it.

I go to Command meetings more often. They're starting to plan the invasion of the Capitol. Some troops will leave almost immediately, but others are still training. I check to see when Katniss is scheduled to leave. Her name doesn't appear on the list.

"Soldier Everdeen is not properly trained," Coin says. "She is not fit to serve in a fighting unit."

"She's living to fight Snow!"

"She's been doing so. But she has not trained to do so as a soldier."

I break it to Katniss as gently as I can. She storms out of her hospital room.

Johanna shrugs. "Don't look at me. My name's not on the list, either. Don't make the mistake of thinking I'm not going."

"Good luck with that," I tell her. "I'm sure they'll let you bring the morphling." I go down to observation.

Peeta asks to see the film of Katniss talking about the bread. I sit with him while he watches it several times, tries to absorb what she's saying. My anger at him has largely drained away, but I'm still impatient and not as understanding as I should be. He seems to get this, and doesn't push.

I go back to the observation room, and he starts drawing again. His parents this time. They are in the bakery, with their backs to each other, conducting separate business transactions while the boys do their chores in the background. When I decide to go back in, he is rather obsessively filling in the price list.

Frustrated, he puts it down. "Haymitch, how much did we charge for the hermit cookies? I've been trying to remember, and it's just gone."

"I don't know. I never bought hermit cookies. Those were the ones with the raisins, right?"

"Right. Why don't I remember that?" He frowns. "They were expensive, I think."

"Why do you need to remember it?"

"Because I can't." He throws the notebook away from him. It skids on the floor past my feet and goes under the radiator.

I pick it up and clean off a few dust kitties it picked up, and put it on his nightstand. "What's going on in your head today?"

"I can't remember how much the hermit cookies were. That's all. It was hard to get raisins, so they cost a lot."

"What started you thinking about it?"

"I was just thinking about my parents. Because of the bread. Because she was talking about how Mom yelled at her for stealing from the garbage. I remember Dad wanted to drop prices and get more customers. Mom said we wouldn't get enough more customers to make up the difference, unless we dropped too low to cover the ingredients, and we still had taxes to pay." He sighs. "Everyone thought we were so rich. Katniss thought we got to eat the bakery food."

"You had more than one room. On the Seam, that's rich."

He narrows his eyes. "Well, then I guess we must have been rich. Everything money can buy, right? And it made them so happy." He starts to throw his pencil, but instead puts it down carefully beside the notebook. "They were miserable together," he says. "My parents. I don't understand them."

"You said that the other day," I say. "Is that on your mind?"

He nods. "I always figured I'd... figure it out eventually. Figure them out. But I can't. Dad loved Mrs. Everdeen. Mom loved... Mom."

"This is really important to you, isn't it?"

"I keep thinking about it, anyway. It's not fair that they're dead. I never figured it out. I can't ask them. I don't know why Dad stayed with Mom. I don't know why Mom stayed with Dad. I don't know why she lost her temper sometimes. I don't know why he didn't." His eyes twitch up to my face, then down at the covers. "I don't know why I act like Mom sometimes. I don't want to."

"I wish I had answers for you. I don't. Danny was my friend, but…"

"But you hated my mother."

"It was mutual."

"I know." He smiles bitterly. "Once when she was screaming at him, she asked if he was sleeping with you. I was eight. I had no idea what that meant."

I raise my eyebrows. "Me and Danny? Well, that would have made way too much sense for either one of us to think of it." I smile at Peeta.

He freezes, then manages to smile back. Then, to my complete surprise, he laughs. It's a startled, haunted house kind of laugh, but it's real enough. He looks at me, and then starts laughing again. After a few seconds, I join him.

He asks me to stay a little while longer after the laughing passes, and I answer what I can for him, but I can't change the fact that I stayed as far out of the way of Danny's marriage as I could. All I can do is confirm what he suspected about the timing of the toasting and his oldest brother's birth. I tell him that it all happened right after his grandparents died, but that doesn't really sort things out for him. I sit with him until Delly comes for the afternoon.

The next day, Katniss somehow convinces Command to let her prove her combat worthiness by going into training, and to let Johanna train with her. In the middle of the first day, she comes back to the hospital with a note for some kind of treatment on her ribs, which leaves her in agony. Johanna, stripped of her morphling for twenty-four hours, is suffering from the shakes and swearing. They go back out the next day. I can almost hear Claudius Templesmith -- "An alliance is forming among the remaining tributes..." I am not surprised when, at the end of their second day, Johanna decides it's time to leave the hospital -- a place of weakness -- and Katniss supports her to the point of offering to be her roommate.

Ruth tells me about a doctors' meeting to discuss this proposal. They are leaning against it when I go in, uninvited, to back Katniss up. Ruth offers to keep an eye on them from across the hall.

"Soldier Everdeen," one of the doctors says, "you already have responsibility for your own daughter, and -- "

"Daughters," Ruth corrects them. "Whether you like it or not, I have two, and I am responsible for both. And if Johanna Mason needs to be in that circle as well, then she is. End of story."

I finally win the argument by pointing out that getting Johanna away from her morphling supply can only be a good thing, though they exact a promise that she'll see her psychiatrist every day. Since I didn't know she was seeing one at all, this comes as a surprise. They've been cutting down her morphling supply steadily, so they don't anticipate any major physical withdrawal issues.

Katniss and Johanna move to the apartment across from Ruth and Prim. Over the next few days, I watch them training together on a screen in the observation room. Johanna is having trouble with the mental part of the morphling withdrawal, and Katniss is in pain from whatever they did to her ribs, but they fight through it. They've both fought through worse.

Plutarch gets footage of them training, which he eagerly hands over to Beetee for airtime assaults. "My Capitol sources say that seeing the victors training with us is inspiring a lot of confusion among the people," he says. "They're still wondering where Peeta is."

Peeta is physically as well as can be expected of someone who has been tortured for weeks and then confined to a bed. On his own, he's been doing exercises -- push-ups that get increasingly more vigorous every day, running in place, lifting whatever heavy objects he can find. He does some balance exercises for his leg. "I want to get out of here," he says.

"They're not going to let you live in an apartment," I tell him. "Not on your own. And I'm under sobriety watch, so they won't let you move out with me." I don't mention the fact that he's proven himself dangerous. I think he knows that.

I keep track of things. Peeta continues to work out, to ask if he can go outside. I talk to Soldier York, who is training Katniss and Johanna, and she says it would do him good to get exercise, though she's concerned about his mental state if he's thrown into something military. She doesn't give a go ahead for it yet.

Four days after Katniss and Johanna move out of the hospital, it's determined (after many requests) that Peeta may have a meal with the general population, as long as he's cuffed and guarded and doesn't disturb anyone. I am unfortunately scheduled with Plutarch when he goes, helping pick out fierce looking shots of Johanna, and happy-looking ones of Annie. I would have recommended that they send Peeta for any lunch shift other than the one with Katniss and Gale. The guards apparently just saw Delly's name and figured she'd control him.

She doesn't. I don't know all of what happens there, though Finnick is still angry the next day and Delly apparently let loose and yelled at Peeta. Whatever it was, it's sent Peeta into a tailspin. He doesn't go back to his bed. When I arrive, he is sitting in the corner of his room, knees pulled up to his chest, his forehead pressed against them, and muttering to himself.

"It's not as big a setback as it looks," Hiram Campbell says. "He's not going on about mutts and he's not threatening anyone. It looks like he just wound himself up too tight, and was determined to prove that he doesn't love her any more than she loves him. Typical teenage romance drama, in other words, which is almost a good sign. Except for what happened after."

"And the business with Annie and Finnick?"

"He feels very protective of Annie. I don't know when he got it in his head that Finnick was an enemy, though. That's new."

I go in and pull up a chair in front of him. "Peeta, are you going to sit here and talk to yourself all day?"

"... she didn't love me... I know she didn't, but she's not terrible... she lies..."

I reach across and gently push his head up so that he looks at me. "Peeta, are you in there?"

He nods. "I did that wrong. At the dining hall."

"That's putting it mildly."

"I just... it was like I was watching myself say things. And I couldn’t stop." He looks around shiftily.

"Sure you could," I say. "You just didn't."

"Did you yell at her?"

"What was I supposed to yell at Katniss for? She was eating her stew in peace, as I understand it."

"You always liked her better."

I laugh. "She says the same thing about you. You're both nuts. You know that, right?" I hold out my hand. "Come on. Get off the floor."

I manage to get him back to the bed. He sighs. "I can't take it back."

"No."

"Who am I, Haymitch?"

"You're Peeta Mellark. Baker's son. Pain in my ass. One of the best men I know."

He looks up at the last, surprised. "I don't feel much like a man at the moment."

"If it's only at the moment, you're ahead of most of us."

"Sometimes I feel like I'm still eleven years old. Standing there in the rain, watching her starve while Mom screams at her. I was..." He looks down. "I was embarrassed. She treats it like it was some big, selfless hero thing. But I was just so embarrassed that Mom would do that, that she'd be like that. I had to do something."

"It's what you decided to do that made it a big, selfless hero thing."

"I can't think of what else I could have done."

"And that's what makes you Peeta Mellark." I pull the chair over and sit down beside the bed. "You could have just gone inside and hidden. You could have decided your mother was right. You could have demanded that the city do something. You could have asked your father to help her -- "

"Why didn't he?"

"What?"

"Why didn't Dad help Mrs. Everdeen? It wasn't like he hated her. Why didn’t he go and help when she didn't show up in town, or when the girls were starving?"

"I don't know." I sigh. "You really need to know these things, don't you?" He nods. "The only person I can think of who could even start to answer is Ruth Everdeen. But if I ask her to come down, are you going to start in on Katniss again?"

"No."

I don't believe him. I tell him I'll think about it. The next morning, Plutarch starts taking him out to morning workouts, in order to film him training. I don't know how he managed to convince Soldier York. Peeta starts assembling guns. I know he sees Katniss there, and I know Plutarch is in a hurry to get them to talk, but they don't. I talk to York and she tells me that she doesn't think he's in fit shape physically to join them on the range, but she hasn't seen any of his breakdowns, even when Katniss is nearby.

I carefully ask him how it is to see Katniss. He says it's fine. He hasn't done anything. It's good to be outside and moving around again, and she happens to be there, too. Will I ask Ruth to talk to him?

I still hesitate, but Prim is in the observation room, and that night, Ruth comes to my apartment and tells me that she's heard about Peeta's request. "I'm not sure I have much comforting to tell him," she says. "But I'll answer his questions."

It prompts another anxiety attack on Peeta's part when I tell him, and he insists on being restrained again, though he thinks he can go into it without any pills to calm him down. By the time Ruth gets there after her hospital shift, he has managed to force himself to be still. He tries smiling at her, but it doesn't work quite properly. I start to go, but he asks me to stay. Just in case.

Ruth sits down warily. "I'm told you have some questions."

"My parents," Peeta says.

"What about them?"

"I need to know."

"What?"

He takes a deep breath. "Everything."

"That's a whole lot," Ruth says. "And you're not going to like it all."

"Please," he says. "Please tell me. If you ever loved my dad, please tell me."

She nods. "I did love Danny," she says. "He was my friend. Long before we started dating. We used to go on adventures together. He could turn a summer afternoon in the park into a daring battle with pirates and brigands. And he'd play with anyone -- town, Seam... he even played with the Capitol liaison's kids. Everyone was always the same to him. He was a good boy, and he grew into a good man. If I could change the past, I'd find some way to not break his heart."

"And my mother? Did you know her?"

Ruth nods. "Everyone knew everyone, Peeta. You know that."

"Were my parents ever friends?"

"Yes. Danny was probably Mir's only friend. She was a year behind us. They used to do plays together. Do you remember me telling you that?"

"I think so."

"She was quite a brilliant actress, actually. You get that from her. The way you are on camera. The way you just make people believe you."

"When I lie?"

"It takes talent to make people believe the truth as much as a lie," Ruth says. She sighs. "Anyway, Danny always tried to invite her to things, but she -- I have to go backward a little. About rumors and unpleasant things. Things I know because I was told. I wasn't alive for them. And one of them may be really unpleasant for you."

Peeta looks at her steadily. "Okay."

"Mir's mother was the butcher's daughter. She fell in love with a Peacekeeper. Her father wasn't very happy about it, and he arranged for her to marry someone else. One of the Murphy boys. That was your mom's maiden name. Murphy. Your aunt Rooba was born about a year after the wedding. I guess things were all right at first. That was the story anyway. Then she got flighty -- your grandmother, I mean. Suddenly, she was with her Peacekeeper again, and then her husband ended up shot in a fight with him. He started going around the butcher's place again for a few months, but you know how people got. They say it was murder -- about her husband -- but who knows? It could have just been a fight. But no one was obeying him. He was a liability. So he was transferred away."

"And Mom was born after that."

Ruth nods soberly. "Almost a year after her mother's husband died."

"Her father was the Peacekeeper," Peeta says. "My grandfather."

"Yes. I'm sorry."

"So... my grandmother didn't like my mother?" Peeta guesses.

"Quite the opposite. It was Rooba she didn't like. Rooba who ended up with the bruises." I see Peeta flinch, and so does Ruth, but he nods for her to go on. "Your grandmother raised Mirrem to believe that she had 'better' blood, that she was going places, that someday, she'd get in touch with her father and get away from all the local hicks. Mirrem believed it, and repeated it frequently. She didn't have a lot of friends."

"But my dad liked her. Why?"

"I asked him that once. He said it was because she was going to get her heart broken, and he felt bad for her. He was right. She used to haunt the Peacekeeper barracks, trying to get a letter out to her father. That was about the time that Haymitch won the Quell and we got a witch of a head Peacekeeper, who recruited a bunch just like her. I've always thought it was some kind of deliberate cruelty that Mirrem finally got word from her father, and it was that he wasn't about to claim any bastard child who could belong to any one of a dozen men, as far as he knew. She started crying and the Peacekeepers tormented her. Danny and I just happened to be around. He was picking up tessera grain -- he used to take it to help out -- and we saw it. Danny decked a Peacekeeper and got me to pull Mirrem out. He got twenty-five lashes for that stunt. Did you ever see the scars?"

"No."

"They were there. After that, Mirrem fixated on Danny instead of her father. She was determined that, if she couldn't have the fairy tale life her mother promised, she'd at least marry her personal knight and make him into some kind of royalty. It bothered me. Danny... sort of liked the idea that someone thought he could be one of his silly heroes. It was probably our first fight." She twists her wedding ring on her finger. "After Danny and I split, he went to Mirrem. He always did when we split. After your grandparents died, she helped him get on his feet. The next thing anyone knew, she turned up pregnant."

"Jonadab. Haymitch told me that."

"Yeah. The thing was, Mirrem had just won a scholarship to go study acting in the Capitol. The only one that year in all the districts to get it, and she couldn't take it. She came to me to see if we had a way to... well, to end it. We did. There are always ways. But she backed out at the last minute. I wish I could say why, but I don't know what went through her head. Instead, she told Dannel that they were getting married. He went through with it. He always figured he'd wrecked her life. She didn't disabuse him of the notion."

"So they already hated each other by the time they were married."

"It's more complicated than that. No one can really see inside someone else's marriage, but from what I could see, Danny never stopped wanting to be that hero for her again. And all of those suspicions she had -- you know the ones I'm talking about -- they were because she felt like she wasn't measuring up. And then there were the money problems, and everything else that goes with life in the real world. Neither of them was very good at the real world, when it came down to it. Danny was drinking almost as much as Haymitch for a while, and I'll give Mirrem her due: She got him out of the bottle. And she never stopped thinking up schemes to get rich that never worked."

"She always hated it when she thought we were losing money. Even in the garbage."

"She never lost the idea that she was supposed to be rich."

"She hit me sometimes," Peeta says. "Not all the time, but sometimes. She said I was just like dad."

"I know," Ruth says carefully. "And I can't explain that. I can't begin to get inside her head and figure out what would make her do that. What would make any mother do that. Danny almost left her over it. A lot. He did leave her once, for a few weeks, but he went back."

"Why?"

"Because you boys begged him to. And because he assumed it was his fault."

"Why didn't Dad help you? After Mr. Everdeen died? I don't understand that."

"Things between your dad and me were complicated, Peeta. I was a mess. If he'd come to the house, I might have kicked him out anyway, and he probably knew it." She thinks about it. "If I knew he was there at all. For all I know, he was. Half the time, I didn't even recognize that the girls were there. I honestly didn't see them. Maybe Danny came and I didn't know." She bites her lip. "Does that help at all? I can't think how it would."

"It does, though. I don't know why, but it does."

They sit quietly for a while, then Ruth says, again, "I loved Danny. He was a good man. And he would be proud of how hard you're fighting this."

Peeta looks up, but doesn’t say anything.

I walk Ruth home.

Things go on.

Chapter Text

Chapter Fifteen
A few days later, Johanna has a breakdown on the training course.

They're testing several of the trainees, including Katniss and Jo, for their readiness for war. I am watching with Plutarch, who wants to get as many of the young victors as he can into a special squad that he'll follow around with a camera. I think Katniss will put up with this for exactly as long as it takes for her to figure out how to get away, but I decide that saying anything about this is likely to be counterproductive. I ask if he means for me to go as well, and he hems and haws and finally says that I am "better in the capacity of a long distance mentor." He checks for bugs quickly, then says, "Also, I think they want to make sure I don't have all of the victors together, for fear you'll make a run for it. You haven't exactly been assimilating to Thirteen. So you and Beetee and Annie are staying here."

"And Peeta, of course."

"Sure. Of course."

Early on, the candidates have to get through an obstacle course, a written tactics test, and a weapons test. Katniss and Jo are about in the middle on the obstacle course. Jo aces tactics, and Katniss is right behind her. Jo's not great with the weapons they have, but she makes it to proficiency. Since all of the weapons are ranged, Katniss scores so high that they take her score out of the reckoning for evaluating the others.

The final exam is a mock battle, staged on a fake Capitol street that they call The Block, where they're supposed to demonstrate mastery over whatever their mentors have deemed their biggest weaknesses. Plutarch hasn't been given the specs, but he guesses that Katniss will have to prove she can follow even an order she thinks is stupid. I don't see where that's helpful, if the order is actually stupid, but I don't say anything about that, either. He doesn't know what they'll do with Johanna, whose problem isn't disobeying orders so much as a tendency to forget she's in a unit at all and just rush in, guns blazing. ("It would make for great footage, though," he says regretfully. "If we could just get her to do it when no one is trying to kill her, too.")

"Are you in on designing these things?" I ask.

"I'm too busy with higher level work. But it does seem my skill set, doesn't it?" He grins. "I do recognize a little tiny arena when I see one. They were actually building a Capitol mock-up for the eighty-first Games. It would have completely discombobulated the more rural districts. Three, Six, and Eight would have had a good chance."

He either doesn't notice the look I give him, or chooses to ignore it.

The first girl being tested, who I immediately like, fails her test by shooting out the machinery to make the constant stream of attackers stop. Apparently, they decided her great weakness was an inability to deal with an onslaught. I think she'd be the one to decide to take out the transports, or do something equally brilliant, but the army thinks she has solved entirely the wrong problem. They're also probably a little bit peeved that she breaks their arena, and costs them a few hours while the other trainees cool their heels in the hall outside. Like kids waiting for a test anywhere, they trade horror stories about what will happen to them. Katniss sits quietly, probably trying to guess. Johanna tosses her pencils at a target she draws on the wall.

They finally get things working again. A boy is expected to get through the course without being distracted by the need to rescue a mechanical civilian girl in a burning building. He manages to both save her and accomplish his mission, which I think should qualify him for a medal, but he ends up failing. A young woman has to capture a Peacekeeper alive instead of killing him because she's ordered to do so. A girl needs to be able to spot dangerous elements in her environment (she fails, missing a waiter in a sidewalk café who has a gun under his tray). A boy must take initiative and figure out how to get back to his unit when he loses contact with his commander.

Johanna goes in next. The street is quiet. Plutarch wonders if they're trying to see how she does during down time, which would actually be a pretty strong challenge for Jo. Or me. So of course, it's not even on their radar.

A target pops up in a window and she shoots it out easily and runs out to check for other dangers. She taps her earpiece, says, "There's nothing here... okay, copy that." She stands up straight and adopts a position as a guard, clearly feeling foolish, but determined to pass the test.

Suddenly, she cocks her head. Plutarch turns up the sound. Something in the arena is hissing. Johanna tenses. I identify the sound just before water starts bursting out of every pipe. She starts to run, but her commander obviously speaks into her earpiece and orders her to stay. Her gun starts twitching around in random directions. Her training clothes are soaked through, plastered to her body. The street has flooded up to her knees. Mechanical Peacekeepers start to rise up, and one of the streetlights blows, throwing out sparks.

Johanna screams and drops her gun into the water.

I don't stay to watch. I leave Plutarch staring, gape-mouthed, and run down to the course. At the exit end, there are several controllers, dispassionately soaking Johanna while she screams and screams. The room must be completely soundproof, as I can't hear her, but she is on every screen.

I push them aside, ignoring orders to stay out of it, and open the door. Water floods out over my feet and I slosh in. Johanna has climbed up onto a garbage can and clamped her hands over her ears. She screams.

"Jo!" I call. "Jo, come on. We're getting you out of here." I touch her and she strikes out at me blindly, her nails flexing near my eyes. "Come on, it's me, it's Haymitch," I say. "Come on, sweetheart, we'll get you dried off."

I don't hear the people coming up behind me because I'm focused on her, but suddenly, her eyes go wide and she starts grabbing at anything she can use as a weapon. I take her by the wrist, and she bites at my hand.

"Get back!" I yell. "Get back now!" I have no idea whether or not they behave. I put my hands on Johanna's arms. "Jo, you need to calm down. No one's hurting you."

I have no idea if I could have gotten her calmed down on her own, because someone hits her with a tranquilizer dart. I scoop her up and carry her out. She's still too light from her weeks in captivity. I carry her down to the hospital without needing to rest, and put her in her old bed, mostly because I can't think of anywhere else to take her. She starts to wake up, growling low in her throat, when I pull up the sheets.

"It's all right, Johanna," I say.

Her eyes open. She grabs at the collar of my shirt and pulls herself up. "Haymitch..."

"What is it?"

"They're trying to make me... crazy..." She slips off again, and slumps down into the pillows.

A moment later, a plain-faced little man in glasses comes in with a notebook. "What happened?"

"Who in the hell are you?"

"I'm Soldier Mason's psychiatrist."

"Hell of a job," I say.

He frowns and sits down at a little table, then opens a program on his computer. "The damage Soldier Mason endured in the Capitol was severe. I guessed she might have been covering for it. When I spoke to the simulation designers -- "

"You told them to douse her?"

He sits up straight. "She has not been properly dealing with the trauma. They asked what her weakness might be. I told them. After all, she will be in the Capitol in autumn and early winter. The army can hardly be expected to compensate for a soldier who will have a breakdown in a rainstorm."

I grab him out of the chair and push him against the wall. "You told them to douse her?"

"I didn't tell them to do anything, Soldier Abernathy. I merely gave my professional opinion --"

I have pulled back my fist to punch him. I have no idea how much time that would have gotten me, chained to which wall. Instead, I feel a warm hand close over mine, with a particularly tight pinch against the nerve in the wrist. A voice says, "Haymitch, don't do it."

The grip, even with the pinch on the nerve, is not strong enough to hold me, but the voice does. I look over my shoulder. Annie Odair is there, dressed in gray, her long, wild hair partially tamed into a ponytail.

"Don't get in trouble, Haymitch," she says. She waits for me to lower my arm and step away, then pulls the psychiatrist out. "I'm sorry, Dr. Webb. Haymitch looks after us. He's upset. But he'll be all right, as long as Johanna is."

"He's treating you, too?" I ask.

"Very kindly," Annie tells me, looking at me very steadily. "He wants to make sure we all fit into our new home. He keeps an eye out to make sure we don't need any extra help."

I start to ask what she means, then remember what Delly said about all the patients in the mental wing, about what Prim said about the difference between crisis care and long term care. All of the psychiatrists on Peeta's case have been Capitol expatriates. Are the others more like the ones Delly overheard talking about sending Peeta down to permanent care?

I take a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Dr. Webb," I say. "Johanna was disturbed by the test. I was angry. She's family. Do you understand that?"

"I suppose," he says coolly. "But I am responsible for her mental health. I will continue to observe. I am also responsible to my district and its needs."

"Of course," I say, and decide that I'm going to get Johanna out of District Thirteen as quickly as I can. In the meantime, she's going to need to keep her mouth under control. Accusing them of deliberately trying to make her crazy is not going to help. "I'll stay with her until she wakes up, if that's okay."

"And you will contact me immediately when she's lucid?"

"Yeah. Sure."

Webb leaves.

Annie and I sit on either side of Johanna's bed. "Thanks, Annie," I say.

"I want to go home," she says. "Johanna should go home, too."

"I don't think Johanna has anything left in Seven."

"She has Johanna there." Annie tips her head and carefully dries Johanna's face with a corner of the sheet. "Poor Johanna. They hurt her. Peeta kept yelling at them to stop, except when they were hurting him, and she was the one yelling. She couldn't fight. All she wanted was to fight."

About an hour later, Johanna starts to wake up. Annie stays with her. I leave a message at the nurses' station for Webb, then go down to Command to tell Plutarch that there's no way they're going to let Johanna go to the Capitol. I remember what he said about how they didn't want all the victors in one place.

Dalton is right. I need some hobby other than hating Snow. I decide that I will also hate Coin. Maybe Webb as well. Being trapped here in their underground cage, though, I guess I'd better be more subtle about it.

I run into Finnick and Katniss coming out of Command, talking very seriously about whatever they've been meeting on. Both of their hands are stamped "451." I wonder when, exactly, Finnick has been training, given all the grief Katniss got about not showing up. He spent his first weeks here in the hospital, about two blinks short of narcolepsy, and after that, he was spending every deliriously happy second with Annie.

I tell them about Johanna, which no one else bothered to do, then go on to Plutarch, who's back in his production booth. The first words out of his mouth are, "I got them to let Katniss keep her hair."

I hadn't even noticed. I shake my head. "Johanna's not going."

He pauses. "They can't... fix that?"

"It was designed for her to fail."

"Why?"

"I don't think they wanted her to go."

Plutarch stares at his screen, his jaw tight. Finally he says, "This isn't the way it was supposed to happen."

I don't know how long I stare at him before I finally say, "What did you think was going to happen?"

"I thought the districts would all rally together. Throw off Snow. Make the Capitol into a fourteenth district, with everyone having the same voice, at least once the old ruling class was taken out."

"For a Gamemaker, you're pretty naïve."

He's quiet for a long time. "I got involved in the rebellion in secondary school, Haymitch. The Sons of the Founding. We used to meet in the caves and swap stories. Later on, I put your poems into the mix. We…" He stares at the screens. "We were going to make the world over. Just get rid of Snow's regime, and it would have to be all right. We'd give Panem to the people, and they'd… make good choices."

"Right."

He frowns. "You think they won't. You think people are hopeless."

"Maybe not hopeless. But not prone to making smart long-term decisions."

"I know. I do know that. I've studied history my whole life. But I thought we'd learned. I thought, after losing well over ninety-nine percent of the human population, that maybe we'd have a broader view. It's been done, you know. Sometimes for a few centuries at a time. Right here, it was done."

"I've read books from the time you're talking about. It wasn't paradise."

"Who said anything about paradise? But they let those books be published. People could say what they wanted to and believe what they wanted to, and the government didn't fall just because someone disagreed with it. And it didn't need to fall to get anything changed. Can you even imagine?" He sighs. "Anyway, you know what happened. I lost it up in Games Headquarters, and next thing I knew, I was at Capitol Dreams with a solid case of 'exhaustion.' Mimi Meadowbrook's brother has made up a whole syndrome for it now, but at the time, it was just an excuse. At first, I pretended. I figured if I played along, they'd let me out. But that's not how it works. After a while, you start to think, How can all these nice people be wrong? And if you challenge them, it's a sign of mental illness, anyway, and maybe they're right. You start to doubt everything, and then it all falls apart. I 'realized' that I was wrong. That the biggest problem we could ever have was the barbarian districts getting out of control."

I don't stop him, because he's on a roll, but it doesn't escape my notice that to Plutarch, "the districts" are a nebulous idea in either state. When he's not brainwashed, we're a vague, faceless, virtuous populace who will do the right thing if given the chance. When he is, we're barbarians. In neither case is he looking at actual human beings.

He shakes his head. "Fulvia came back for me. She actually did infiltrate Capitol Dreams, but they never caught her. She wasn't one of their shiny people, so they didn't care. She beat my re-education. She reminded me what we were supposed to believe in."

"Which was districts full of kindly little angels who would all be noble and true once Snow was out of power?"

He snorts. "Something like that." He looks at me. "I really believed it, Haymitch. Completely. I never thought they'd…" He gestures vaguely at one of the screens, which shows The Block, now dark and empty. "It doesn't make sense that they'd hurt Johanna."

I feel for him -- and I admire the mental strength it took to get out of Dreams -- but he also really believed that the Capitol wouldn't hurt Effie, that they'd never bother with Peeta's prep team. Plutarch's naïveté gets people killed.

I just miss Katniss at dinner, and Boggs tells me that she's going to have a crazy training schedule for the next few days, along with Finnick and Gale. I visit Johanna in the hospital. She's holding tightly to a little bundle of pine needles, wrapped in a bandage, that she says Katniss gave her. "I haven't had a regular present for a long time," she explains, her voice weak and whispery. "Not since my parents died, really. I don't know why Katniss gave me one."

"I guess she figured you needed one."

Johanna looks away. "I can't believe I broke."

"Everyone breaks sometimes."

"Not over getting wet."

I sit with her until the drugs kick in, then go down to Peeta.

Delly is still there, and Peeta is working on homework with her. I can tell that she doesn’t find this remotely unusual, so I guess that, for some reason, she's been bringing him homework for a while. Victors aren't required to finish school (which means, in effect, that they aren't permitted to, since they have other duties), which I always thought was one of the few perks. I made an effort to keep learning, but I did it much faster than they ever let me do it in the classroom. Peeta seems to have decided that he's finishing school, whether anyone recognizes it or not.

More bizarrely, he seems very concerned with the doings of the various other students, including strangers from Thirteen who he couldn't possibly know. What do they do here? Are there clubs? Sports? Who's good at what? Delly answers him indulgently, with as much detail as she can muster.

After she leaves, I ask him what that's about.

"I don't know." He shrugs. "I guess I just wish I were like them sometimes." He looks up cautiously. "At training, I heard someone say Katniss had a test today."

"She passed it," I tell him.

"Is she going away?"

"Yeah."

"Will I see her?"

"That's up to her. Every time you see her, you say something that hurts her." I wait for him to say something, and he doesn't. "Do you want to see her?"

"Maybe. I don't know." He picks up the notebook, which now has doodles over doodles, tiny pictures around the wires, and weird abstractions picked up off the scribbles. He looks for a new place to draw and doesn't find one. "I just don't feel like we've figured anything out."

I don't know what Katniss wants, because she is in training twelve to eighteen hours a day. She eats with her unit. I catch glimpses of her now and then, but only because Plutarch still has cameras on her. He tells me proudly that she's the only one who didn't object to being part of what he's calling "the Star Squad" -- a team of soldiers going to the Capitol mostly to shoot propos. I imagine hearing this through Katniss's ears, and am reasonably certain that she didn't bother arguing because she has no intention of following his directions anyway.

Finnick makes an effort to invite me over at night, after he's finished training. He's exhausted, but he and Annie have made their tiny apartment comfortable, and, while I'm careful to leave early enough to give them time to be together, they do seem glad to have me over. "I'd have never made it through everything without you," Finnick says. "And Annie wouldn't have made it through her Games if you hadn't kept me on an even keel in the Viewing Center. We owe you a lot."

"You don't owe me a damned thing," I say.

I try to arrange time with Katniss before she goes, but it's useless. She's given a few minutes with her mother and sister in the hospital the morning before she ships out, but I am rudely informed by a handler that this is only for family. I ask if someone will at least bring her a note. They agree, like it's the most arduous task ever, and I stare at a blank piece of paper for a long time before writing, "Stay alive, sweetheart." Maybe it's not everything there is to say, but with Katniss, I don't need to say everything.

The rule against non-family goodbyes apparently only applies to Katniss (or maybe only to me), because when I go down to sit with Johanna -- now mostly out of it on heavy sedatives -- I find Gale there. He looks disappointed. His hunting knife is held loosely in one hand. When I come in, he looks up. "I... I guess I just figured I'd drop by to say goodbye. In case... well, in case." He holds up the knife. "I was going to give her this. I have an official one from the army now, and... well, on the way out of the Capitol, she said to keep her armed. I gave her this then. I thought... I wanted her to have it. I didn't want to mess with a will. I figured it would get confiscated if I didn't actually put it in her hand."

I take the knife and tuck it into my boot. "They won't let her have it in the hospital. I'll give it to her when she gets out."

"They really did a number on her, didn't they?" He shakes his head, then takes a deep breath and says, "Haymitch, if I die, will you make sure my mom and Rory and Vick and Posy are okay? I do, um... know. Mom told me that you were, um, friends."

"We are friends, and of course I will. Count on it. Will you do something for me? I guess I don't really need to ask, but... I need to ask. Keep an eye on Katniss. Please. Don't let her get hurt. Please." I feel something wet on my eyelashes, and turn away before he can notice. "Just... keep her alive. As far as you can."

"You were right. That's one thing you don't need to ask. I've got her back, no matter what. Goodbye, Haymitch."

I turn around to face him and hold out my hand. "Goodbye, Gale. Take care."

He shakes my hand and leaves. I hope he's going to go spend the rest of whatever time they have with Hazelle.

I watch the troop transport leave from the production booth, then go down to Peeta's observation room. He's out on the training range. They've accelerated it. Plutarch says it's so it will look like he's on his way, and Snow will fear the righteous retribution that's coming. Or something. I watch from the cameras for a while, while he climbs nets and hefts heavy boxes of equipment. His guards are more or less ignoring him, and everything seems to be fine. He even helps a younger trainee pack her kit properly.

I try to reach Katniss over her earpiece, which is one of the dumber things I've tried. She's not suited up, and as far as I know, I'm not connected to her anymore. I certainly haven't been given any duties. I wander back up to the hospital. At the nurses' station, I see the note I wrote to Katniss, with a pinned slip on it, reminding someone to give it to her. I don't seem to have the energy to be angry.

I go and sit with Johanna. She swims up from the drugs long enough to ask for her pine needles, which I fetch for her from the nightstand, then goes back to sleep. I go home and look at Effie's pictures. If Snow hasn't had her killed yet, he will soon. Rebels are already camped down by the Capitol railroad station.

Neither Hazelle nor Ruth is at dinner, and I find them at the Everdeens' apartment, with Prim and the younger Hawthornes and Annie, all huddled together. Prim holds out her hand to me, and I join the circle. No one says anything, but no one gets up to leave, either. One by one, we drop off, crammed onto the floor of the tiny space, and we don't get up until the lights-on alert blares. I have to stumble down to my apartment to get my schedule, and I'm already running late for farm duty.

It's backbreaking work, putting the fields down for the winter, and I'm far from the only one worrying about soldiers in the Capitol, or headed there. There is no singing today.

I go to the hospital after dinner. Peeta's having some kind of medical tests done, so I go to visit Johanna. Her bed is empty. In the wastebasket, I see a spill of pine needles and a twisted bit of bandage. I scoop it out and put it back together, then grab the first nurse I see.

"Where's Johanna Mason?" I demand.

"She was moved to long term care," he says. "She didn't seem to be improving."

"Where's that?"

"It's a restricted area, family only -- "

"I'm her only damned family. You tell me where she is. Now, or I promise you're going to find out exactly how I made it through the arena."

He pulls away and straightens his white smock. "I'll have to clear it," he says.

"It's clear enough," Prim Everdeen says, coming out from the little room behind the desk. "I checked the regs. As a mentor, Haymitch does have legal guardianship of tributes." She does not point out that I have no guardianship whatsoever of adult tributes from another district when the Games aren't on, but what she says is true enough that she can't actually be accused of lying. "I'll show him down there." She leads me to the elevators and punches a few buttons.

"You've been down there?" I ask.

She nods. "I've been trained there. They want me to be a doctor. I have to learn everything. I'm going as a combat medic as soon as we get more solid control."

"You're thirteen years old. You've got no business in combat."

"If I don't go, they'll stop training me," she says. "I already had this fight with Mom this morning. Anyway, it'll only be after we have control."

The elevator seems to move for a very long time. I can't think of anything to say to Prim. Finally, it stops, and she leads the way into a huge, cavernous ward. I don't know how far underground we are. There are dozens and dozens of beds, separated by white curtains. There is some soft moaning and muttering, but no other sound comes from the patients.

Prim brings me to a desk and says, "Soldier Dempsey?"

A young woman wheels a desk chair over. "Soldier Everdeen! I heard your sister shipped out."

Prim nods, but doesn't engage. "This is Soldier Haymitch Abernathy. He's guardian to Soldier Johanna Mason."

Dempsey frowns. "That's irregular."

Prim smiles faintly. "Oh, you don't know how the Games are in the other districts. Mentors have a lot of legal responsibilities to tributes. Johanna was a tribute in the last Games, so it's all right."

"If you say so," Dempsey tells her. "I sure can't follow Capitol laws, especially about the Games." She fishes for a pass, which she scans into the computer, then signals me to put the schedule on my arm near the scanner. The two are matched. "How often will you visit?" she asks.

"Every day after work, if I can," I tell her.

She looks surprised, but keys it in. "The scheduler will take care of it from here."

"Come on," Prim says. "I'll show you where she is now."

We go along the row of beds, each with a clipboard hanging from the end, with the seal of District Thirteen and a name imprinted on it. We pass Harrison, Walter and Mullis, Olive is awake and gives us a drugged wave. Bernays, Bonnie has a cane beside her bed, but cobwebs twist around the base of it. Frisch, Tillie. Pride, Archie. The names march on.

Mason, Joanne is about halfway down the ward. "Why did they change her name?" I ask.

Prim snorts. "They only have a little pool of names here, and you have to pick it off a list on the computer. They can add stuff if they have to, but they usually don't bother. If the person isn't awake to complain, they just pick what seems closest."

We go into the curtained off area. Johanna's eyes are open. "Haymitch," she says. "They moved me. They took -- "

I pull out the little sachet Katniss made and show it to her. She sighs. "They've left?"

"They left yesterday," Prim says, then takes Johanna's hand and leans close, like she means to kiss her cheek. "You're feeling more awake, but don't let them know. I switched your tranks for saline. You need to wake up and not let them think you're crazy. Just come up a little at a time."

Johanna nods, wide-eyed, as Prim pulls away. "Thank you," she says.

"You take care of yourself, now," Prim says loudly, in the irritating, condescending tone of medics everywhere. She smiles and waves, then moves on down the ward to check on other patients.

"You have another gift," I say, and lift the cuff of my pants to show her Gale's knife. "He wanted me to give it to you. I will as soon as we get you better."

"I should be there," she whispers.

"Me, too," I say. "What do you need down here?"

She decides that she just wants someone to talk to. She asks me to keep up on the news and bring it to her. When I go upstairs later, Peeta makes the same request, since he feels he's being kept out of the loop, even though he's in hard training. He requests to be moved to an apartment and is denied. Ruth offers to keep an eye on him if he moves into Katniss and Johanna's apartment, but they turn her down as well.

There's not much news for the first few days of the Star Squad's sojourn in the Capitol. There are some uninspiring videos of obviously staged battles that are apparently waged against hostile glass buildings, since nothing else fires back. It looks like they're in a residential area. Finnick is shown sneaking through an alley. Katniss shoots some blue glass into the street. They don't have her in the mockingjay getup. I ask about it. Coin tells me that the Mockingjay has done her job, and now Soldier Everdeen is meant to be shown as just one member of a team -- a soldier obeying orders from her superiors.

There's just not that much to pass on to my charges, no matter how much they beg. Peeta asks to see the propos, and draws a picture of Gale, of all things, firing up at a balcony. He asks me to take it to Hazelle, and she struggles a little bit not to cry when I give it to her at her desk in the jugs.

On their fifth day, Wilhelmina Leeg is killed by an unexpected booby trap that fires a dart into her brain. We spend most of the afternoon debating who is to be sent to replace her, like she's a faulty cog in the machine. Coin remains silent through this argument, then holds a closed meeting with Plutarch and other senior staff. I don't wait for the outcome.

The next morning, I go to Peeta's room, meaning to tell him that the squad has suffered a casualty.

I discover that his bed is empty. The observation room has been abandoned except for an extremely distraught Delly Cartwright, who is holding the battered notebook like a lifeline. Dalton and his janitorial crew are cleaning up.

Peeta Mellark has been sent straight from psychiatric observation to the front lines of the war.

Chapter Text

Chapter Sixteen
I steer Delly into the empty observation room. "What happened? When did this happen?"

"I came down before school and they were packing him up," she says. "Just... straight from the hospital. He didn't have a test or anything. They told him last night. He didn't believe them until they actually showed up to pick him up." She flips through the notebook, hands shaking, and finds a page that had been only minimally decorated.

Over the doodles -- incorporating many of them into background elements -- Peeta has drawn a picture of the two of us in the Capitol, on the training center roof, he day we talked about whether or not they'd make them go through with the wedding. Delly rips it out and hands it to me. "He said to give that to you and tell you that he's going to try to follow your advice -- he didn't say what advice -- "

"He didn't need to," I say. "The only advice I ever really gave him was to stay alive."

Delly sinks into a chair and starts crying. "He said he was going to try and follow your advice… unless it turned out it was better not to."

Feeling numb and entirely wrong-footed, I sit down beside her and try to comfort her. I am not good at it, and when a truant officer finds her a few minutes later and sends her off to school, I think she may be better off.

I stay in the observation room, watching Peeta's empty bed. I know that the Star Squad isn't supposed to see action, but I also know that I don't trust District Thirteen, and I certainly don't trust the Capitol. They're in a war zone. They're going to fight. Katniss means to sneak off, and that might leave Peeta alone with soldiers from Thirteen who don't like or value him. And if Katniss decides, improbably, to take him with her, he could still be set off at any time. Snow will want this, not just to see Katniss dead, but to see Peeta morally broken. It was his goal all along. He thought he'd have to settle for doing it off camera, but now Coin has sent them to him, gift-wrapped.

And Coin. What's she doing? What's her game? I try to put myself into her head, the way I always could with the Gamemakers, but I don't know what she really wants. Does she want Katniss dead?

I want to reject this, but I can't. She knew, the day that she sent Katniss to Eight, that the bombings had been coming in two waves, and another one was likely. She probably knew that District Two was dangerous. She reduced her role, then put her in a combat zone. And now, she's sent the boy who has been programmed under torture to kill her.

The boy whose voice, at full strength, is as powerful as Katniss's. Snow isn't the only one who would stand to benefit from Peeta's moral center being compromised. Coin might even benefit more, since Peeta has already denounced the rebellion, albeit under duress. She'd rather he was down in the long-term care ward with Johanna, drugged into irrelevance.

I lean forward, my hands over my ears, digging into my hair. My whole life, I've waited for the rebellion. I can't keep thinking this way. I'll go crazy if I do.

But I keep thinking. I can't stop my traitor brain, except with images of the horrors that it conjures up for the kids.

Plutarch joins me after a while. I'm not sure how long it's been since Delly left.

"Sorry, Haymitch," he says. "After you left yesterday, the president decided that she wanted the propos heated up a little bit. She always wanted Peeta in them."

"They're giving him a weapon and sending him to Katniss. It'll break the narrative, you know. It'll destroy it. That story is the most dangerous thing anyone ever came up with in the arena. A hundred of Beetee's traps never did as much damage to Snow." I stand up. "I'm going back to my place."

"You're scheduled in Command."

"I'm sick. I'm going back to my place."

He doesn't follow, and no one comes to get me. I put Peeta's drawing on the wall beside the picture of Effie.

Stare at it for a long time.

I pull out Effie's pictures and go through them slowly. I remember scooping them up off of her floor, realizing that she'd been dragged off, unable to do anything about it. I think about her cat, staring at me from under the television. As far as I know, the cat was locked in the apartment to starve to death. I doubt anyone would bother rescuing it. I don't know its name.

I go to sleep. In my dreams, Peeta arrives in the Capitol, pulls out his gun, and shoots Katniss in the face. Then all of his brainwashing is lifted, and he realizes what he's done, and turns the gun on himself. I keep yelling at him to stay alive, but he says, "It's better not to," and pulls the trigger.

Then I am drunk and lying in filth in my house in the Village. I am glad of this. This is where I belong. I hear a knock at the door, and then, "Haymitch! Oh, no, this won't do, we can't film in here! It's a disaster!" Effie rolls me over and gets me to the couch, where she starts to clean me up, wiping away the blood and the unspeakable sludge on my skin and tutting about how I'm never prepared, and how she has to go back to her apartment to get a few things to make me presentable. I grab her and hold onto her and kiss her and tell her not to go anywhere, that I need her with me here, that I'm always late without her.

She dissolves in my arms, and I am left alone. I understand without any particular reason for it that I am completely alone. The kids are dead. District Twelve is dead. For all I know, the Capitol is dead. The whole world is an empty arena. It's me and the edge of the cliff again, and of course, that's where I end up: In my arena, face down in the scrubby grass at the cliff's edge. Maysilee is dead beside me, covered in blood, and I am sixteen. I wander the arena miserably for hours, wanting to see someone, anyone, even someone who might kill me.

Maybe especially someone who might kill me.

A beeping sound wakes me just after lunchtime, and I sit up groggily. A light is flashing on an intercom. "Soldier Abernathy," a pleasant female voice says, "you are needed in Command."

"I'm not feeling well."

Another voice comes on. "It's Beetee, Haymitch. Why don't you come down and help Annie and me in Special Weaponry for a little while?"

I frown. "Annie's there?"

"I wanted some company," she says in the background.

And of course, that's it: she wanted to be with another victor. Johanna is out of commission and I've been hiding, so she went to Beetee.

I sometimes think Annie is the sanest one of all of us.

I straighten myself up and go down to Special Weaponry. Annie and Beetee are in the hummingbird room. Annie's gotten one of them to sit in her hand, though it flies off when I open the door to come in.

"It's so light," she says, watching it flit off to hover beside a honeysuckle blossom. "Wouldn't it be nice to be so light, and just fly away?"

"Maybe, until the first strong wind came along," I say. "What are we doing?"

"I'm playing with the birds," Annie says.

Beetee smiles at her. "I'm making notes on some theorizing Gale and I did. It seems that people had access to it and they didn't realize it was just... just..." He shakes his head. "Sometimes you just talk about things. You don't work them through to the end. So I thought maybe I'd best work them through. Explain why they can't be done."

"What do you mean?"

"He sent Peeta," Annie says, holding out her hand for another bird.

Beetee sighs. "Not deliberately."

"What do you mean, you sent him?"

He wheels back a little in his chair and says, "I'm armed, Haymitch. Just something to be aware of."

"What do you mean, you sent him?"

"I was angry when he tried to kill Katniss. I just... vented about it. Said we ought to send him to the front lines and film him there, and if..." I can't think of anything to say. Beetee jabs something at the computer. "Gale told me how badly he'd been damaged, of course, and when I really understood it, I stopped being angry at him, and went back to worrying about Snow. But I'd been recording everything. I think someone in Command must be reading the notes. They've inserted things in a few places. I didn't notice. I haven't been going back and looking at things until today."

I am furious at him for even having a thought like that, but I seriously doubt it had anything to do with Coin's decision. This isn't about her vendetta against Snow. It's her vendetta against Katniss. I force myself not to yell, or to walk out. "So now what? You're getting rid of other catty comments? Maybe you wanted to drown me in some white liquor?"

"No. I wish it was something like that." He looks at his screen. "I thought these were my private notes. Things I was going to go over before I introduced them to anyone. Most of them, I never would have. There are things in here. Things that are worse that what they did with Peeta. Things worse than what I did in the arena. Just payback things. Once you start getting angry, it's hard to think of enough payback."

With a twist of a knob, he sends images up onto screens among the birds. The Capitol in flames. People trapped and bombed. I start to see victors' strategies. A scheme to use the Capitol's power grid to send a lightning stroke through every street in the city, strong enough to kill any man, woman, or child out walking -- that would be Beetee himself. An innocuously designed nuclear bomb in a crowded place, with its ignition hidden and delayed, a Trojan horse -- Johanna. A killing forcefield set up at city limits, with an explosion to chase the people into it -- me. Breaking the mutts out of their accommodations at the Mutt Zoo... I'm guessing that was inspired by Enobaria's savage victory. Other things could only have come from Gale, hunting and trapping tricks he tried to teach us last year, while we prepared for the Quell. Injure some to draw a crowd of rescuers, then kill everyone left. Starve them, then tempt them into a dangerous area by offering the only food. All that's missing is a giant bag to haul in the game.

Nothing looks like Katniss and Peeta's victory, their sacrificial dare to the Gamemakers, the only victory that has ever really changed anything.

"I thought these were private," Beetee says again. "My own little private revenge fantasies. But they've been in my notes. Now I have to show why these won't work, before they try anything else."

I stare at these death traps that came out of the minds of my friends. I hate Snow with a bright, white hate for bringing these thoughts to people as generally decent as Beetee and Gale. And I hate Coin, much more coldly, for apparently thinking of at least one of them as a perfectly reasonable strategy.

"This one can't work," Annie says, pointing at the innocuous looking bomb, "because we're at war, and they're not stupid enough to think that something that just appears isn't a plant from the enemies."

"A bomb could be built into an existing structure," Beetee says. "Use the spies. Get them to wire some whole building with explosives. Something no one would suspect or guard -- one of the fashion houses, maybe, or a movie studio. Of course, they could only use conventional explosives."

"Yeah, they don't want to poison the whole place and risk fallout drifting to the Districts."

"No, it's that they literally can't." Beetee looks up, surprised. "You didn't figure it out?"

I frown and look at Annie, who also looks puzzled. "Figure what out?"

"The nukes are almost a century old, and no one here really knew how to take care of them for most of that time. Nukes need constant maintenance, or the components start to get wonky. That 'plague' they had... I've been looking at it. The symptoms were the same as radiation sickness. I think they must have tried a test detonation somewhere underground, and it went wrong and the radiation got into some of the living quarters. There are huge areas of the compound that are sealed off."

"Then District Thirteen doesn't have a nuclear deterrent anymore," I say, and the rest comes in a clean, neat, poisonous little package. "That's why they decided to re-introduce themselves to the other districts. Their protection is gone. It's take down the Capitol now or be run over and deal with Snow's revenge later."

Beetee looks alarmed. "I hadn't thought that far out."

"That's because you don't study politics and history," I say. I don't point out that Beetee has never been good at the psychological game. That's how Chaff and I destroyed him at chess over and over, despite his intelligence. But he knows it.

Of course, there is someone who does study politics and history: Plutarch. And if he hasn't already reached this conclusion -- maybe he reached it before he ever approached Thirteen in the first place -- then I would be extremely surprised.

The three of us spend the afternoon deconstructing Beetee's traps. The problem is, in theory, they all work. Annie finds weaknesses; Beetee explains why they can be overcome. I propose the novel solution of flat out lying, but of course, a decent strategist would just take a weakness as a challenge.

"Why not just say they're wrong?" Annie asks. She points to a net-like trap, obviously inspired by Finnick, and says, "We're not fishing. We're not trying to catch animals because we need to eat. We're not talking about self-defense. We're talking about innocent people who happen to be from the Capitol. Doesn't that make it wrong?"

"I don’t think 'wrong' is going to carry a lot of weight around here," I say.

We get back to work. I doubt it will do any good, but at least it's something productive to do.

We go up for dinner together, and Plutarch tells me that Peeta has arrived safely in the Capitol, a fact he knows because Boggs called and entirely lost his temper at the Command staff. "Apparently, he took Peeta's gun and tried to refuse him entry, but Coin overrode him personally."

"Of course she did."

Plutarch looks around carefully, then says, in a low voice, "Katniss has tried to get calls through to you. They haven't been routed. You really need to come to Command tonight."

I eat quickly and head up to the conference room. Coin and her upper level staff do not look pleased to see me, but I show them my schedule. Wall-Effie has me here until ten o'clock.

The telephone rings. A technician picks up the mobile unit. "Yes, Soldier Everdeen... at the moment, Soldier Abernathy is--"

I grab it, rather rudely, and say, "I’m right here, Sweetheart. You okay?"

"Peeta's here," she says.

"I know. I didn't know he was coming until he was gone."

"Why did they send him? Haymitch, I can't take this!"

I grind my teeth. "Katniss, I know it's hard, I've been seeing him all the time. What they did -- "

"I don't know who he is. They think I can't shoot him if I'm standing guard. I could shoot him. He's not Peeta anymore. He's just one of Snow's mutts now. I told him I could shoot him now--"

The implications of this settle in. I take the mobile into a little alcove, pull the curtain, and drop my voice. I hope they haven't got this thing bugged. "What are you trying to do?" I ask. "Provoke him into another attack?"

"Of course not. I just want him to leave me alone!"

I try to explain to her that he can't do that, that with everything Snow did to him, she's still the complete focus of his life. And he has no idea that he's been sent there to kill her -- that, I'm sure of. If he had the slightest inkling of that, he'd have found a way to send a message. I don't know whether he's fully accepted that she's not a mutt yet, but I think he doesn't want to be responsible for killing her. I tell Katniss that she can't blame him for what the Capitol did.

"I don't!"

"You do," I tell her. It may not be entirely true -- she doesn't blame him for trying to kill her, and her wounded routine seems to come more from his occasional brattiness than his actual assaults -- but she doesn't draw a distinction. For her, there was Peeta, and now there's not-Peeta. "You're punishing him over and over for things that are out of his control. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn't have a fully loaded weapon next to you round the clock," I say, hoping she has this firmly in mind, "but I think it's time you flipped this little scene around in your head. If you'd been taken by the Capitol, and hijacked, and then tried to kill Peeta, is this the way he would be treating you?" She goes completely silent, and I realize that my little what-if scenario has hit her in a deeper place than any lecture. Real Peeta, to Katniss, is the example of what a person should be. And she's been acting as much like not-Peeta as he has. "You and me," I say, "we had a deal to try and save him. Remember? Try and remember." The line goes dead and the curtain over the alcove snaps open.

"What did you say to her?" Coin asks, glaring at me.

"I told her to be careful," I say. "And to be a little more gentle with Peeta. It was a private conversation.'

"It was a conversation using military channels, during which you advised a soldier in a key position. Command has to be aware of your words."

My mouth runs about a second ahead of my brain: "I told her that he has no idea that you sent him there to kill her."

She straightens her shoulders. "You are dismissed, Soldier Abernathy. You have no further responsibilities to the Mockingjay."

"I have responsibilities to Katniss Everdeen," I say.

She nods to her guards, who escort me out of Command.

Back at the apartment, Dalton shrugs it off. "She needs you there. No one else can really get through to Katniss Everdeen."

"She's trying to kill Katniss."

He shakes his head. "I'm sure you're wrong about that. She's power hungry and a little crazy, but she's not one for murdering teenage girls."

The next morning, I am assigned to the farm again, and I spend the day hand plowing and pulling rocks out of the soil. My hands and fingers are bleeding at the end of it, and when I go to visit Johanna, she doesn't bother pretending not to notice. "Didn't hold your tongue, did you?" she asks.
a
I shake my head.

"Be careful, or you'll end up in here with me." She looks around. "Prim's been down to switch out my meds for saline a few times. They think I'm asleep. The guards sometimes go in the back room and ignore us. I've had a look around at everyone's charts." She jerks her chin toward the bed across from her. "That guy's supposed to be suffering delusions because he said there was a nuclear accident. The one beside him is here because he thinks there are better ways to handle things, and that if they spread out from the compound, they'd have more food." She points at the girl a few beds down. "That one came in from District Eight, and said she wanted to go back, even in the middle of the war. The lady beside her came in with her, and tried to steal a truck to drive away."

"I'm surprised they aren't locked up like Katniss's preps."

"That's for criminals," Jo says. "Turns out everyone down here isn't a criminal. And once they've ruled out the idea that you're a Capitol spy, you have to just be crazy to object to the system. They try to cure us. Webb's down here every day."

"What do you tell him?"

"That I understand why they doused me, and I'm sure it was for my own good. They may let me out of here if I put on a good enough performance. After that, I’m breaking out. I'll head for the Capitol to get my licks in for the war, then I'm going back to Seven." She sniffs. "Though Webb says my house probably isn't even there anymore. Victors' Village was razed."

"I'm sorry, Jo."

She sighs. "Jack and Blight were gone already. I hope Linden got far away as soon as the arena blew."

I don't say anything. For all I know, the Peacekeepers had Jack's husband under surveillance during the Quell, and shot him as soon as the arena blew, since he wasn't of any further use. I don't mention this to Johanna. She knows it's possible. But I'm still holding on to the idea that maybe he got away.

"I wonder which side did it." She smiles. "Maybe I am crazy. I'm sitting here with scars all over my head from a forced haircut -- so that Peacekeepers wouldn't be bothered by the smell of my hair burning while they shocked me -- and I'm questioning whether or not I hate someone more than the Capitol. I think that might actually be a working definition of crazy."

"They sent Peeta to the front lines."

She stops talking, her mouth open, her eyes wide. "They did what?"

"You heard me."

"Peeta's way crazier than I am. Are they keeping an eye on Katniss?"

"Lots of them," I promise.

"Has she broken off to kill Snow yet?"

"Not yet."

Johanna nods. "She will. She promised to kill him. That's why she's going."

I squeeze her hand and go back upstairs. Prim and Delly are on the Promenade, ostensibly doing assignments for school, really just worrying about Katniss and Peeta. Again. When I join them, Delly is supposedly running through Prim's tests on combat medical procedures with her, but the little handheld screen with the questions has gone into dark mode.

"He's been doing much better," Delly says, taking Prim's hand and giving it a little squeeze. "He's trying very, very hard to beat this."

"I know. But he doesn't always win." She looks up. "Haymitch. Have you talked to them?"

"I talked to Katniss." I sit down. "She's not taking it well, but I think she's going to try and help him get better. She'll maybe at least stop pushing his buttons."

"I hope so," Delly says.

"What have they been saying about Katniss in school?" I ask.

Prim shrugs. "Not much. All the other kids ask about her. Little kids want me to tell them about how she used to sing to me. But the teacher just kind of glosses over it, and goes to the rescue from the Quell."

"My year, too," Delly says. "It's kind of weird."

I agree, but I'm not sure it tells me anything new -- I already knew that Coin was trying to slowly diminish Katniss's role.

I talk with them for a while about how they're feeling. Prim goes back to the hospital for another shift. Delly doesn't. "Haymitch..." she starts.

"What?"

"I'm not as good an artist as Peeta."

"Okay."

"But I do sort of know how to paint. Peeta was just starting to teach me. And after Peeta went away, they switched my assignment to fabrication. I started after school. I'm painting things. Camouflage on vehicles, things like that."

"I guess someone has to do that."

"Yeah. But there's a room there that that Command sometimes uses. I've only seen the inside for a few seconds, when the door opens, but I swear, there's a Capitol flag in there. Does that make any sense to you?"

"No."

"Me, either."

I walk her back to the apartment that she and her brother share. The door is open, and her brother is playing with one of the Cooley boys. Mrs. Cooley checks to make sure Delly is all right (apparently, she's late), then Leevy comes out into the hall and the two girls settle into actual homework.

When I get back to the apartment, I find that Dalton was right yesterday -- my reassignment is not permanent. Wall-Effie gives me the message that I'm to report to Command tomorrow morning, but tonight, I must go to President Coin's private office to issue an apology.

For a horrible minute, I have a vivid memory of Lucretia Beckett, asking boys in District Twelve if they'd like to skip their punishments by offering her a "private apology." I feel her hand on my back like a hot slug, and I don't have the slightest trouble imagining her as Coin. I saw the way her eyes trailed over Gale after the rescue operation. I think Coin's hand would feel cold, but it would be just as repulsive.

I grind my teeth. I've never heard any rumors of that sort about her. And even if I had, I'm well out of the circle of victors who have problems of that kind.

I don't have the slightest desire to apologize to her, but I summon up an image of real Effie, trying to get me to fix things with sponsors I'd inadvertently offended. "I don't care if you want to go, Haymitch," she says in my head. "It's not about you. It's about your tributes. They're counting on you to get this right."

And of course, it's still true. I'm not doing Katniss or Peeta any good breaking my back on the farm. They need me in Command, where I can at least talk to them.

I go to Coin's office.

She gives herself no indulgences. Her office is a back room with a battered metal desk in it. She is filling out forms, and tucks them into a drawer as I come in. "Soldier Abernathy," she says. She looks up at me with distinct distaste.

"Madam President."

"You made a serious accusation against this government yesterday."

No, lady, I think, I made a serious accusation against you yesterday. I say, "Yes, I'm sorry. I was upset at Peeta Mellark being sent to the front lines. I suppose I'd been building up a little anger all day."

"It's not to happen again. Such rumors tend to spread, no matter how absurd they are. I am not planning to kill Soldier Everdeen. You're aware of that, aren't you?"

I try to think of something that will put off her plans for Katniss long enough to get help. "I know," I say, then am struck with an idea. "You need her to fire the last arrow of the war. Symbolically. When she kills Snow."

Of course, Coin has nothing of the sort in mind, but she latches onto it. "Yes. Yes, of course that's what she's needed for."

"Suited up as the mockingjay one last time. One arrow, straight to his heart, and then the war is over."

"And peacetime can begin. Yes." She presses her lips together until they all but disappear. "Soldier Abernathy, further rumor mongering will result in permanent expulsion."

"From Command?"

"From District Thirteen. Winter is not a good time to be wandering in the woods."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"We will have to find a way to see to it that you remember this." She palms a button and two guards come in. "Take Mr. Abernathy to the classroom," she says.

They flank me and march me out into the hall, then down a few steps to an innocuous looking door. They open it. The room is tiny and, of course, windowless this far down. There isn't room to properly sit, and the ceiling is too low to properly stand.

I am locked in for three hours.

I say nothing when they let me out. I can't walk properly, and have to forcibly straighten my legs when I lie down on the bed. Dalton fumes.

I report to Command in the morning as though nothing has happened. We are watching the pointless propo shots from yesterday, with Finnick and Katniss attacking dangerous colored glass. I stay quiet as she talks about how they will now integrate Peeta, who is shooting with them today. I say nothing after lunch, while we see the first shots come in from a shoot on a booby-trapped block.

We are settling into a conversation about how Peeta should be used when the phone rings. Ten minutes after the last video sent to us came in, a landmine blew up under Commander Boggs's feet. Squad 451 has been cut off from communication.

An hour after that, they are dead.

Chapter Text

Chapter Seventeen
I can't feel anything when I see the apartment building collapse. Katniss. Peeta. Finnick. Gale. All in one horrible second.

I can't even scream.

"Haymitch," someone whispers.

I can't turn my head.

"Haymitch," the whisper comes again, and I register on some level that it is Beetee, and that he has wheeled over to me while the rest of the room is in some kind of rushed response mode. No one is talking to me. Except for Beetee. "Haymitch, I have them, they're moving."

I sit up straight and look at him, not understanding him for a moment. "They... what?"

He looks at Coin and the rest of the room. "Tell them we need to go mourn. And get me the families. Before this is on the news. I'll get Annie. Meet us at my apartment. Ten minutes."

I make my excuses, and beg them to let me tell the families before this goes out on the airwaves. I'm given a pass to get anyone out of work duties or school. Ruth comes with me mutely, seeming to know what kind of news hasn't been aired. We get Hazelle from a station in the kitchens, then go to the school, where we get Prim and the younger Hawthornes. I call for Delly Cartwright as well.

"Are we going to Command?" Hazelle asks dully.

"No," I say.

I bring us to Beetee's place, where he and Annie are waiting. Beetee's apartment is quite generous for a single man, and has a workbench and a large television. The latter is turned off.

He waits until everyone is sitting, then pulls out a handheld device. He speaks to it, and a moment later, a holographic projection of the Capitol comes up above the workbench. There are three dots moving through it.

"What's this?" Hazelle asks.

"Real time," Beetee tells her. "Katniss, Gale, and Finnick. There are trackers planted in the weapons I created for them. Command doesn't know about them. The longer we can keep up the façade of... of what's about to be on the news... the better. But there is no reason for you to believe it."

"What's on the news?" Delly asks. "What about Peeta?"

Beetee sighs. "I don't have a way of tracking Peeta. I'm sorry," he says. He looks around. "But what you're about to see is that they set off a trap while shooting today. I saw the footage. Peeta does seem to have had an episode, but he was alive, along with the others, when they took refuge in an apartment building. The apartment building was demolished by Capitol forces. They are all presumed dead."

"But they're not?" Rory asks. "They're really not?"

"What I can tell you with absolute certainty is that the weapons were carried out of the apartment before the Capitol struck. The only apparent casualties prior to that were Mitchell, who was caught in a trap, and Boggs, who stepped on a landmine. If Katniss, Gale, and Finnick, along with their weapons, left the area, then it is reasonable to assume that they brought other survivors with them."

"Except Peeta, if he was having an attack," Annie says. "Would they have left him?"

Prim shakes her head. "I know Katniss hasn't been great about Peeta since he came back, but there's no way she'd leave him behind. Not for anything."

Hazelle puts her hand into the projection, letting the three dots dance among her fingers. As we watch, they come to rest in another building. "What are they doing?"

I'd just tell them, but Beetee chooses not to. Or, it occurs to me, he actually doesn't know. Keeping secrets is a way of life with him. He might not have any idea what the reason for it in this case is.

He says, "Whatever it is, they haven't chosen to report to their superiors, and I think that it's better if we take our cues from them." No one says anything. Beetee looks down. "I just didn't want you to be hurt unnecessarily when the news breaks."

"Does Coin know they're alive?" Ruth asks.

"She doesn't even know I have a way to track them," Beetee says. "And it needs to stay that way."

We all look at each other solemnly. The Hawthorne children are pale and plainly scared, no matter what Beetee has told them. Vick is watching the dots move through their cloud, his jaw clenched.

Rory turns to Posy. "Po, I think you need to pretend to be sick. It would be hard for you not to tell secrets if you're with your friends. Can you pretend like you're very sick to your tummy? Prim can take care of you special."

Posy makes an exaggerated groaning sound and flings herself into Hazelle's arms. Hazelle, still looking dazed, starts to comfort her.

"Vick?" Rory looks at his brother. "Come on, man. You're not going to be trouble, right?"

Vick shakes his head. "No trouble."

Rory nods to me, like we've been conspiring for years together and he's just pulled off a coup. "We'll be fine," he says.

I nod back to him. He's old enough to have been a tribute, and I can give him the respect due to him for being responsible for his siblings. "Hazelle, Ruth?" I prod.

Ruth turns on me. "You know what she's doing, Haymitch Abernathy. You know it, and you're not telling me."

I look at her as steadily as I can and say, "You know it, too. If you know your daughter, you know what she's doing."

"You turned her into this."

"No," Annie says. "The Games did. The same as they did for all of us."

Delly frowns. "What are they doing, Haymitch?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Prim says. "They're going to kill Snow."

Beetee is called away a few minutes later to create an airtime assault of Katniss's eulogy. The families are given time to mourn -- forty-eight hours before they're expected to be back on their schedules. Delly and I are not given such a generous allotment. We're back on assigned duties tomorrow morning. Delly holds onto me for a long time, obviously not really believing anyone's assurances that they wouldn't leave Peeta behind. I don't try to overdo it. But I do promise her that, if an old drunk is of any use to her, she's got me if she needs me.

"Would you stop underselling yourself?" she says. "If I need someone, you're the first one I'm going to call."

I go downstairs to visit Johanna and let her know what's been happening. The on-duty nurse is watching from the desk to make sure that I don't overly upset her, which could apparently cause some kind of catastrophic chain reaction among the other patients, so I have to obfuscate for fifteen minutes, talking about the high costs of war, and mentioning that Boggs is dead. Finally, the nurse goes away, and I take Jo's hand and lean over, like I'm about to break things gently to her. The nurse gives a sympathetic look and pretends to start reading at the desk.

I am still careful. "Stay quiet Jo," I whisper. "I need you to stay quiet, and not risk them sending me away before I finish talking."

She blinks. I don't know how anyone around here is fooled. Her eyes are completely sharp under the pretense of sedation.

"The whole squad was hit," I tell her. "All of them. It's going to be on the news, and you'll hear it. They've all been declared dead."

"Gale?" she asks.

"With them," I tell her. I'm not surprised that he's her first concern.

She balls up her fist and slams it into the mattress. She tries to say something, but can't seem to get it out.

"It's okay."

"How can you…" Her voice trails off. "They're not…"

I put my finger on her lips. "They'll always be with us." I look up and see that the nurse his disappeared discreetly into the back room, apparently deciding that I'm not going to start a riot here. I reach down and pull Gale's knife from my boot. "Keep it hidden," I whisper, then lean down until I am almost touching her ear. "And keep it quiet, but, yeah, they're alive. Beetee's tracking them."

She pulls the knife up, holds the handle over her chest. She looks like images I've seen of old knights' tombs, stone effigies with their swords held up against them. Finally, she sneaks it back into my hand. "I can't be sure they wouldn't find it while I sleep. Keep it for me. And this." She reaches over to her night table and pulls out the sachet that Katniss made her. "I caught one of them trying to throw it out as garbage again."

"Do you need anything?" I ask.

"You gave me what I need," Johanna says. "I know what they're doing. I can hold on to that."

She goes back to faking drugged delirium.

I go back upstairs for an early dinner. Delly is in the dining hall and joins me for the meal. We're eating when the official announcement and Coin's eulogy propo come on. She mentions one name -- Katniss's -- and that "her brave compatriots" went down with her. The rest is an introduction of herself as the head of the rebellion, and an exhortation to keep fighting in the name of the Mockingjay.

Snow comes on after it, vowing to dig Katniss's body out of the ashes in the morning, and prove that she's nothing but a girl -- a dead one -- and she can't save anyone. I feel strangely distant from it. Delly is fuming, and I make the right noises, but all of it seems far away. I just picture the floating lights in Beetee's apartment, making their way through the Capitol. It's all a lie. All of it. They're alive. They're moving. The lie will help them stay that way. I know the truth.

But I'm very cold.

We'll have a lead of maybe eight hours before Snow's people discover that there aren't bodies to dig up and display. Not much time, but maybe enough.

I hope Katniss understands that. I hope she doesn't do anything insane, like trying to contact her mother. Or me. Not that she'd try to contact me.

"Are you all right, Haymitch?" I turn around. Dalton is standing there, hat in hands -- well, if he had a hat, it would be in his hands, I guess -- looking at his feet. "I'm so sorry. I know how much you loved them."

I realize that I shouldn't sit here looking like I’m calculating our head start, but I can't seem to stop, and of course, I know exactly why. I want to be completely relieved, but as the time has passed, the real truth is starting to sink in, and I can't let it. When I try to brush away the calculations, to stop thinking of the lie as a lie, there's an abyss that I don't want to think about. An abyss in which I may know they're alive for the moment, but in which they are walking into deeper danger with every step. If I look into that abyss, even to put on a convincing show, it's going to look back at me, and I will go crazy.

Delly, who is crying quite genuinely, reaches over and takes my hand. "Haymitch is still trying to believe," she says. "I wish I could."

She starts crying harder, and Dalton puts a hand on her shoulder and says, "Aw, honey, I sure wish there was something I could do to make it better. They may have something at the hospital that'll help out."

"No," Delly says. "No, thank you. I just want to... I want to go home. And think about my friend."

She gets up and runs out of the dining hall.

Dalton sits down across from me. "Do you need to talk? I know you have to be wanting a drink."

"I always want a drink."

"Haymitch, you need to prepare yourself."

"You think I’m not prepared? I've lost two kids every year since I was seventeen!"

"Not these two. Not ones you love."

"I loved all of them!" I walk out over the abyss. See their faces. "I can tell you all of their names. The first two were Ginger McCullough and Elmer Parton. Ginger sang commercial jingles, and Elmer liked math. Hell, Elmer was almost a friend of mine, or as close as I got other than Danny. After that, it was Bessie Park and Stuie Chalfant. Then Mickey McKinley and Violet Breen. Violet was my first merchant kid, at least after Maysilee. She sewed. They killed her at the Cornucopia, and someone stepped on her hand and broke all the bones before she bled out. I was wearing a shirt she'd fixed the buttons on for me the night before. She was… I kissed her. Ettis Carroll and Patsy Darby --"

"Haymitch, stop it." Dalton lowers his voice, and he's looking at me with something that approaches serious concern, and I realize that I've been raving, my voice rising, my words spilling out too quickly.

I'm ranting to cover up the truth.

Ranting to cover up the abyss beneath the truth.

"Sorry," I say.

"Every year, you start drinking again, don't you?"

"I don't want to talk about the booze, unless you're leading up to telling me where your stash is."

"I don't have a stash, and you shouldn't be asking for one."

"My kids were in that building," I say. "The one that Snow blew up."

"Yeah," Dalton says. "They were."

I get up and leave. For some reason, I swing by the apartment and pick up Peeta's picture, and the envelope full of Effie's photos, then I go up to the Everdeens' place. I don't know what I mean to say. I'm distracted by the open door across the hall, the door to Katniss and Johanna's apartment. Prim is sitting on one of the beds, holding the parachute that Katniss carried out of the arena with her. She has the spile on one finger. I look at it and suddenly think about Peeta's brother, Ed. Delly's sweetheart. He dug through his shop to find this and send it to Peeta in the arena. I want it to have a message etched on it, a code, something from Danny to tell me what to do, or give me a warning, or remind me about something important, something that will tell me that of course Peeta's all right, and he and Katniss will stroll back here at any moment.

It doesn't say anything. Of course it doesn't. They wouldn't have let it in the arena if there were anything suspicious about it. And messages from the dead have yet to appear for me in the real world. It's just a plain steel tube.

I sit down on the other bed. I don't know which bed is Katniss's or which is Jo's. "How are you?" I ask.

She pulls the spile from her finger. "Coin used my sister's eulogy for politics."

"I saw."

She opens up the parachute and spills out Peeta's locket. "She must have taken the pearl with her. It was in here with the rest. The spile is you. The locket is Mom and me and Gale. She left us here. She took the pearl from Peeta with her. It's the thing she needed to keep close."

"I don't think it's a judgment on us," I say.

"Oh, I know. I didn't mean it that way. I just... Katniss doesn't even know how much she leans on him. How much she needs him. I know, because I was on the outside watching. She needs him -- " Prim looks around anxiously. "She needed him, to stay on an even keel. Only he's not... he wasn't... there, not really. And without him..."

She doesn't need to finish. Without the real Peeta to ground her, Katniss has gone off through the Capitol on an assassination mission.

Something else catches in my brain. "Wait -- what did you mean, the locket was you and your mom and Gale? That was Peeta's, too. It was his district token for the Quell."

She hands it to me. "Open it."

I saw Katniss open it on the beach, but the cameras didn't get a good angle on it. I never knew what was in it. Staring up at me from one side of the locket are Prim and Ruth. On the other side is Gale Hawthorne. I blink at it for a long time. "Peeta... brought this into the arena?"

"I wondered about it for a long time," Prim says. "Then I realized that he meant to die. He wanted her to come to us. So he brought us with them. For her. To make her fight. Except that the only thing she wanted to fight for by then was him." She takes the locket back and traces the edges of it. "It's the way it should be. We're born into one family, then we grow up and make another one. It doesn’t mean she doesn't love us. Just that she was starting to move on."

"You were still everything to her."

Prim laughs weakly. "I haven't been everything to Katniss since the Reaping. She sometimes forgets I'm even here to talk to. She's always glad when I start talking, but I think... I think that I don't need to be taken care of as much, and that Mom's here to do it when I do. So Katniss did what people do. She fell in love. She started to look at the future. Well, sort of. She never admitted it. My sister isn't... wasn't... big on thinking in the future. After Daddy died, I think she stopped believing that there was such a thing as the future. Just making it through every day."

I nod. I remember when my father died. He had grand ideas about the future. He was always talking about it. The future. The past. Imaginary worlds that constantly spun around in his head. Then he died, crumpled in a heap on the living room floor, and all of his futures died with him. Mom tried to keep them alive for us, but we watched her coughing her own future away.

And then Snow took all of our futures.

It's better not to focus too much on the future. They can take it away any time they want to.

I want to be with Katniss right now, a knife in my hand, looking for Snow. I know the Capitol better than she does. I should have gone with her.

"I think we always would have been friends," Prim says thoughtfully, and I remember that she wasn't talking about assassinations. She was talking about her beloved sister, who is currently sneaking through a war zone. "And sisters are always sisters, right? Did you ever have a sister, Haymitch?"

Lacklen's face flashes into my mind. He had a future once, too. "I had a brother. He died."

"Is he still your brother?"

"Yeah," I say. "Yeah, he is."

She picks up the parachute and starts to cry into it, and I know that all of the assurances in the world from Beetee haven't hidden the abyss from her any more than from me. "I'm scared, Haymitch," she says. "I'm really scared."

I sit beside her and put my arms around her and rock her until Ruth hears and comes in and takes over. I tell both of them to hold tight, though I don't think they need my advice there, and tuck Peeta's drawing above Katniss's scheduling terminal. It seems like this is the right place for it to be.

I move on down the hall to the Hawthornes'. They have a somewhat larger apartment, but it's populated by more people, including children, so it seems smaller. Even in Thirteen, children are allowed toys. Posy and Vick each have a standard issue stuffed winged bear, though Vick clearly thinks he's too old for it, as both of them are in Posy's sleeping area. One of them has been colored green with something.

Posy also has a small crate that she says is a dollhouse. It is inhabited by several of Octavia's old combs, which have paper faces pasted to them. I'm surprised Posy hasn't been arrested for such a wasteful use of paper. Octavia has made them fanciful clothes out of scraps. The combs are named "Mommy," "Gale," "Baby," and "Luciana Veronica Rosalinda Evangeline." I hear several stories about them, because Posy is the only one in a talking mood. Luciana is a soldier and a huntress (who is secretly also a princess), and everyone thinks she's dead, but she's not. She's just looking for her crown and pretending to be dead. Posy reminds me of this frequently. The Gale comb is very carefully set in its cardboard chair, and she frets at it and makes sure it has a warm jacket.

Hazelle is angry, both at the politicization of Katniss's apparent death, and at the complete failure to mention Gale by name, or Peeta, for that matter. Rory is fuming over the same thing, and going over a map of the Capitol on the computer, staring at the block where Gale supposedly died. He asks me a few terse questions about the Capitol and barely listens to my answers as he traces routes through the streets. Vick has made targets on the wall, and is throwing various objects at them with a scary degree of accuracy.

I end up going back to Posy and showing her Effie's pictures (Hazelle takes time off from her temper to roll her eyes at me). Posy is enthralled by the sparkly clothes.

"She's a very pretty lady," she says. "Does she always wear feathers? Is she a nice princess or a mean one? I thought she was a mean one at the Reaping."

"Aw, no," I say. "She's not mean. She comes from a different place. But when you're scared in the Capitol and you're all alone, she's the one who gets your clothes all straightened out and tells you to put your chin up so no one knows you're scared."

"You get scared?" Posy asks, in awe. "But you're a grown-up, like Gale! Are you scared of spiders? I'm scared of spiders."

"No. Not really. Though there were a few kinds of spiders that came into houses on the Seam that it's good to be afraid of."

"What about the dark? Are you scared of the dark?"

"No. Grown-ups get scared of other things," I say.

"Grown-up things?"

"Yeah. Grown-up things."

"Is Gale scared of grown-up things?"

"I bet he is," I say. "And when he gets scared, he does things about it."

"Like what?"

"Like... he's scared of you being hungry, so he goes hunting for food."

"Oh," Posy says wisely. "I get it." She picks up the Gale comb and it goes hunting for dust kitties, complete with a "whoosh" sound when he fires arrows at them.

Hazelle sits beside me and looks at Effie's pictures, though we don't talk about them. She finally says, "Have you heard anything about her?"

I shake my head, and Hazelle hugs me. She doesn't say anything foolish, or demand any confessions from me.

I stay until lights out, then decide to spend the night in Command. No one kicks me out. Beetee and Annie are there as well. The Capitol feed is playing on the biggest screen. They have returned to regular programming. Caesar, looking even worse than before, is hosting a history of the Districts, in which Thirteen is given a distinctly villainous role, and the others are shown as being gullible dupes who need the care of the Capitol to save them from themselves. No one looks at me as my Games kills are shown, over and over. They even dredge up a false accusation about me being inappropriate with a tribute years ago, and strongly imply that it was a regular habit. There are frequent cuts to the events of the day, and updates on the search for bodies. Around midnight, they find Boggs, whose legs are blown off entirely.

A soldier goes off to talk to his family. I have had that duty before. Forty-six times, I've had it. I see the faces of the parents, the siblings, the neighbors and friends. They all say, "Of course you couldn't do anything," but their eyes say something else.

I don't envy the soldier. I don't sleep.

In a corner, Coin is watching footage from Katniss's first Games. She is intercutting footage of minor riots with the salute after Rue's death. She moves on to watch Katniss blowing out the forcefield, haranguing people from District Eight, and speaking in District Two. She goes back to Rue. Watches her be speared. Watches Katniss sing. She says nothing. I somehow doubt she is mourning.

At six o'clock in the morning, a dusty looking leader comes onto the Capitol broadcast. "I'm sorry to report," he says, "that we have found no further evidence of the Mockingjay. Bloody sofa cushions were discovered, proving that the group did in fact take refuge in this building, but they seem to have been gone by the time we bombed it."

Panicked people in the street ask what they are going to do if the Mockingjay is free in the streets of the Capitol. In the background, I see someone arrested, and I can only guess that it's because he is not showing proper levels of distress.

A military analyst is brought on. "It appears," he says, "that Katniss Everdeen and the remaining members of her team have used the service tunnels under the building to escape. The good news is, they don't seem to have reported to the rebel camp. Whatever they are doing, they are doing it alone."

The screen goes dark. Coin stands up and stares at me. "You knew."

"No," I lie.

"You knew!" She swipes her arm across the table, scattering pens and notepads and clipboards. "That traitorous little bitch!"

Annie, who has woken up, waves her hands wildly. "Wait, no! Katniss isn't a traitor!"

"She hasn't reported back to her command structure. She has let us believe she's dead. What can I assume?"

"How about that she can't communicate?" I say. "You saw that wave of... tar, or whatever it was. She couldn't go back. And if they've lost communications, the best thing she could do is go forward."

"She does not make the calls in my army! She is not the leader of this rebellion, no matter what she thinks! She can't take my soldiers and march them off on her own mission!"

By this time, Plutarch and Beetee are both stirring. Coin continues to rage. We try to calm her down. Her upper Command staff tries to calm her down. I have never seen this in her, wouldn't have suspected from her usual icy demeanor. It takes nearly an hour before we convince her not to renege on the Mockingjay deal -- starting with the execution of the Everdeens' cat, and possibly moving on to Johanna. What finally talks her off of this ledge is a report from the camp in the Capitol. A soldier named Gates reports that, despite what's on the Capitol news, there are many people in the poorer parts of town rejoicing, even joining the fight.

"We've been getting a good stream of them all along, of course," he says. "There are a lot of people here who want to throw off Snow. But thinking that the mockingjay is practically back from the dead? They're fighting in the streets, now, even if they haven't come all the way to us."

Coin takes a few deep breaths, then straightens her hair, sits down primly, and, with spooky ease, re-draws the curtains on her rage. "Very well," she says. "Soldier Everdeen was out of line, but it is not a disaster. When she is found, she will be questioned. In the interim, we will continue to treat her as a soldier in good standing."

"Thank you, Ma'am," Gates says. "With the help from the locals, we're ready to push further into the city. There will be wounded. Request back-up for the medical teams."

Coin considers this. "Very well. Medical teams will be sent immediately. Are there other concerns?"

"Yes, ma'am. Commander Boggs was lost in the explosion -- "

"I'm aware of that, Soldier."

" -- and so was his holo. Another one took damage in a firefight. If there's anyone there who has a good handle on where things are here, it'd be real useful."

She doesn’t hesitate here. She may even smile. "That's quite possible," she says. "Soldier Abernathy has had a good deal of experience in the Capitol. He'll arrive with the medical team this evening."

After she closes off the connection, Plutarch says, "Soldier Abernathy doesn't have combat training."

"Nonsense," she says. "He was trained by Gamemakers." She signals to Beetee. "Find Soldier Abernathy appropriate arms. He will join squad two-six-nine in the front line assault on the Capitol."

I follow Beetee over to Special Weaponry. His hands are shaking. We both know that she has just sent me to die. I don't plan to indulge her deliberately. I plan to help Katniss however I can. But she still might get her way.

"It's to punish Katniss," Beetee says.

"Yeah, well. It won't be a punishment if you don't tell her that it is. And don't let Coin tell her, either."

He nods. After some fishing, he comes up with a small handgun, which is less than useless to me. I've never been good with ranged weapons. I take it anyway. It looks reasonably powerless, which means Coin will consider it appropriate. On a more useful level, he finds me a multi-bladed utility knife. "No time to give it special properties," he says.

"It's a knife. It has an edge. That's the only property I need." I reach into my boot and pull out Gale's knife. "Speaking of knives, give this one to Johanna when she's out of the hospital. It's from Gale. He wanted her to have it. And... make sure the Hawthornes are taken care of. I promised him I'd look after Hazelle and the kids if he didn't come back."

"Anything else?"

"Watch out for Johanna and Annie. And Ruth, if she'll let you. And listen to Delly Cartwright. She's smarter than most people you'll meet around here."

By the time I get back to Command, several combat uniforms have been packed into a backpack for me. I am not given a chance to go back to my apartment for anything. The transport is getting ready to leave.

It is a large hovercraft, with a hastily installed panel identifying it as a craft of the Union of Districts -- apparently what Coin, with her usual flair for the dull and uninspiring, has decided to call the rebellion. There's some kind of coat of arms, but I don't get a good look at it before I am escorted inside. I strap myself into a chair. I feel something pressing against my pocket, and discover Effie's pictures. I think about Katniss's pearl, and wonder if I might have brought these anyway.

I doubt it. I never think about Effie when I need to. If I did, she'd be here now.

"Haymitch?"

I look up. "Prim?"

She smiles faintly. She's carrying a medical bag and wearing her hospital clothes. "I guess this is my combat medicine training."

"You shouldn't be here."

"I don't have a choice. Do you? They came and fished me out of the apartment. Mom was still screaming words I didn't know she knew when the elevator doors closed."

With a jolt, the hovercraft takes off, and I am headed back to the Capitol, with Primrose Everdeen at my side, Reaped once more, with no one to take her place this time.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eighteen
Once the launch is over, we unstrap ourselves from the seats and go up to the observation lounge. Prim looks out a curved window as we pass over District Twelve. Even before it burned, the district itself would barely be a blip at this speed, but we can see the line of the seam -- the actual seam, the coal mine -- as it snakes down toward District Eleven. Fires wink out of areas that have collapsed, and a large section of out-district forest is in flames around one of them.

"Someone has to put that out," she says, looking down at the flames.

"It's in the out-districts," I remind her. "No one's in charge."

"We breathe air that comes from the out-districts. Someone needs to put that out."

She is called away to an extended meeting with the medical team a few minutes later. I try to get a message to Winnow Robinson -- she might still be in Eleven, and she might be able to spare someone for the fire -- but the best I can do is a local command led by an old woman in work clothes several sizes too big for her. She says Winnow is back in District Four, but she'll see if there's anyone else to help fight the forest fire. She doesn't sound hopeful. The fence on District Eleven has been pulled down, but nearly a century of being brutally guarded has made people leery of going beyond its line. Most of them believe that the brutal raiders who used to wander the country are still out there, despite Snow's war against them. I've never given the matter much thought, since raider territory tended to be well south of Twelve, but they might be right.

I watch Panem unfold beneath us -- the vast, empty out-districts, the smoggy haze over District Eight, the little hamlets that oversee fields in District Nine. We pass over the main town, and I even get a glimpse of the wreckage in the Victors' Village. The hovercraft flies low enough that once, I actually see a tractor going about whatever business it has in early November in the wheat fields. A train runs along on the route between Nine and Six. I've rarely traveled anywhere directly in Panem, other than to the Capitol for the Games. The central train system, with everything routed through District Six, has jerked me around the country at strange angles during my sanctioned and unsanctioned visits to the districts, and until now, Thirteen has traveled circuitous routes around Panem airspace.

I never looked out the train windows much, didn't notice all of these places between places. I was going from one set point to another set point, after all, and didn't have time for sightseeing.

Maybe I should have made time. I only know these people through their victors' filters, and through books I've read, and most of those books came through the heavy hands of Capitol censors. I have a nagging, uncomfortable feeling that knowing even that much puts me ahead of some of my allies.

We arrive in the Capitol in late afternoon, and I almost don't recognize it. It's not just coming down from the sky instead of gliding in on a train. The city itself is a nightmare. Smoke rises from battered buildings. Landmarks like the Martyrs' Spire and the giant statue of the first president of Panem are simply gone. All the glass on one side of the art museum has been shattered and hastily covered with sheets of plastic, which blow in the wind. Cars are burned out in piles of rubble at the edges of the streets. Rebels are camped in every park on the north end of the city, giving it the look of a series of shanty towns. I imagine it as I've always seen it, imposed on this destruction.

I'm surprised by a rising tide of fury inside of me. Maybe some destruction was unavoidable, but between my rebels and Snow's loyalists, they've wrecked the place. It didn't need to be this way.

Prim finds me and follows me out, looking around with wide eyes. "It's ugly," she says. "We're not going to leave it ugly, are we?"

I think about Thirteen, where aesthetic concerns aren't exactly top priorities, and am not sure, but I say, "I hope not. The one thing the Capitol always had going for it was that it was... well, not ugly. Not on the outside, anyway."

A young woman runs up to me and salutes. "Soldier Abernathy," she says. "You're required to report to Command immediately. Soldier Everdeen, you'll join the medical crew."

I barely get a chance to give Prim a quick wave before she's swept off among the tents. The woman with me identifies herself as Soldier Grant and says, "There's bad news."

"Katniss? Peeta?"

"No, sir. You'd best hear it from Command."

I stop walking, my hands cold, my heart booming in my chest in a kind of slow, half-frozen beat.

I do not want to hear it from Command. Or from anyone else. Being summoned to bad news means it's worse than can be conveyed by a subordinate.

Grant pauses for a moment, obviously understanding, and waits for me to start breathing normally. I nod to her, and she leads me to a large tent.

I don't need to ask what the news is.

I close my eyes and try not to see it, but it's too late.

There is a broken, bloodied trident lying on the table. A few other items surround it, but I don't recognize them.

I open my eyes. "Finnick Odair," I say. His name seems strange on my tongue here, with the bloody weapon in front of me. Surely, he's going to come through the tent flap and say, I know… they broke the trident Beetee made. Guess I'm in trouble now!

Except that he's not going to.

The boy who lived through the Games and everything after them is gone. The man who made a happy home for a few weeks in Thirteen will never return to it. The boy who said he loved me, and that he felt freer because I promised him he'd be free…

I don't breathe after I say his name. It's irrational, but I know that if I can just stop time, I'll never hear them confirm it.

"Yes, sir." A boy, barely out of his teens by the look of him, sits down at the table and indicates that I should sit as well. He is apparently named Creelman, judging by his badge.

I don't sit down. I don't want to touch the table. I breathe out. Finnick's trident is still on the table, and he has not yet come through the door to explain it. "What happened? How did this happen?"

"We don't know everything. We do know that several large mutts were set loose in the tunnels. They killed everyone in their path, including Peacekeepers. Surviving witnesses say they were clearly sent after Soldier Everdeen -- they report actually hearing the mutts say her name -- and several members of her team died defending her, including Soldier Odair. She set off an explosion, probably by putting the holo on self-destruct. One of our spies works near the blast site. She went down into the tunnels and pulled the trident from the rubble before the Capitol sweepers came in."

"Maybe he just... dropped it." I can hear the panic and petulance in my voice, but I can't seem to stop it.

Finnick. I think about the way he flung his arms around me after I hid him in a closet to get him away from reporters. I've never known why he adopted me.

Creelman must hear the panic as well. He lowers his eyes. "Sir... when we found it... his hand was still on it. Our spy brought it back."

"Maybe someone else was..."

"We scanned the blood, sir." Creelman stands up. "I’m sorry. I know you were friends. I didn't want you to hear it bandied around camp before you heard it from us."

I try to say something, but I can't. I think of the stories he and Annie told each other of the wonderful things they would do with their life together. I think of him bringing Peeta back from the dead in the arena. I think of the pleased look on his face when Peeta told him that I'd called him "one of my other kids."

I manage to get one word out: "Annie."

"Mrs. Odair has been notified."

"I need to talk to her."

"We're putting the call through now."

I manage, somehow, to get to the next tent, to the communication station. Annie doesn't come to the phone, which doesn't really surprise me. Beetee picks it up.

"Haymitch? You heard?"

"Annie," I say again.

"About what you'd expect," Beetee says. "She's down in long term with Johanna right now -- "

A flicker of anger surfaces, and I grab for it. It's real. "They put Annie in that tomb?"

"No, no. She's there with Johanna. She went down on her own. I'm going to go back down with them when we finish talking. Johanna was Finnick's friend. Annie wanted to be with her. They tried to send her away, but Johanna... um, well, Jo knocked out three guards with a pair of clipboards and threatened to share some kind of information she's gathered if they dare move Annie from her side. I gave her the knife, in case there's trouble. Hazelle and Ruth are down there, too. They've both... you know. They've lost their husbands."

I have never really listened to that phrase before. "Lost their husbands." Just somehow misplaced them. Aren't going to see them again. It doesn't seem to really express the idea of the trident on the table. The trident that was still in Finnick's hand when it was blown from his body.

I try desperately to come up with a scenario where it's anything other than what it seems like.

There isn't one.

From some impossible distance, Beetee tells me that Katniss and Gale were still moving after the explosion, promises to take care of Annie, tells me not to disrespect Finnick's sacrifice by getting drunk right now, then goes.

The next four hours are mostly blank.

I am sure I meet with Command, and I have a vague idea that they show me a map and I point things out on it, but by the time I am installed in my tent in the middle of the shanty town, I can't recall anything that's been said to me since I got off the phone with Beetee. It has gotten dark at some point, and what Beetee said last comes back to me, the part about not getting drunk, and I realize I could drink. I am in the Capitol. I know where everything is. I want to find a bottle of the strongest thing there is and drown myself in it, maybe literally. Just drink and drink until the empty space is filled up. I picture the liquor pouring down into the darkness, welling up until everything is level again.

I'm getting up to do it -- my plan is to march straight into the center of town, hole up in a bar, and stay there -- when Prim Everdeen comes in, looking worn out. I think I may have seen her earlier. I don't know.

"Don't you dare," she says, and sits me down on my bedroll. "Don't even think about it."

"It's a little late for that, sweetheart," I say.

"Fine, stop thinking about it, then." She pulls out a standard issue stool that came with the tent and shines a light in my eyes. I doubt it has any diagnostic purpose, since it has nothing to do with what she says next. "You're in shock, Haymitch. I told you to stay warm."

"You did?"

"Yeah. Blanket." She points at a crumpled silver blanket behind me and waits for me to put it over my shoulders. "They found a sign of Katniss," she says. "It's on the Capitol news. She shot a woman when she came up from the tunnels, and I guess there are some clothes missing from the apartment. She's out on the street now, with the others."

"Which others?"

"According to the Capitol -- they ran fingerprints from the apartment -- she's with Gale, Peeta, Cressida, and Pollux. There was blood. They say Peeta and Gale are both injured."

I start to ask how they'd know whose blood it was, but of course, I don't have to. They have everyone's DNA on file from the Games. Wouldn't want the wrong person reporting to the arena.

"Finnick's dead," I say. I think I must have said it before.

"Yeah. I know."

"He wasn't really my son. I just called him one of my kids."

"Like Katniss. And Jo. And Peeta."

"I'm not their father. You shouldn't have to… I shouldn't be in shock." I move to get rid of the blanket, but she forces it back around my shoulders. "It's not my place to..." I gesture around weakly at the blanket and the empty tent, at the haggard old man I see in the shaving mirror. None of it means anything, but Prim seems to understand me anyway.

"Is that what you think?" she asks, giving me an alarmed look. "Haymitch, you have a right to grieve for people you love. And you have a right to love anyone who fits in your heart."

"For all the good it does them. Finnick. Chaff and Seeder. Jack. Drake. My mother and Lacklen. My father."

"It does them all the good that's in you. And that's a lot." Prim pours a mug of coffee. I guess some Capitol luxuries have made it into the camps here. She hands it to me. "Do you want me to stay with you?"

I shake my head. I don't need a thirteen year old child to get through this. I just need a damned drink.

Not going AWOL to find one is probably the hardest thing I've ever actually managed to accomplish. After I practically push Prim out the door, I sit on the hard, cold ground, the blanket wrapped around me, my fingers digging into my hair. None of my ghosts comes to me, asking me incessant questions. I wish they would. I wonder if Finnick will join them now, telling me over and over that he feels freer already.

I sleep at last, and I dream of Finnick's wedding. He's happy and free. He turns to me and smiles. He doesn't say anything, but I still feel it. He is free. Not just of the Games, and the humiliations Snow put him through. He's free of the war, and of Thirteen. It would have been better to live free, with Annie at his side, but at least he died free and on his own terms.

It doesn't help that much. But it's something. I wake up before dawn and lie there in my tent, staring up into nothing. I can't just stay here. I can't go and get drunk. I can't swallow a bottle of pills or cut my wrists or wait for some mutt to attack me. If I want to honor Finnick, I need to try and live on Finnick's terms: keep going. No matter what they hit me with, I need to stay on my feet and keep going.

I force myself to get out of the sleeping bag. I go to the mess for breakfast and put a call in to Command back in Thirteen.

Annie herself picks up. She sounds hollow and tortured, but not insane. "Haymitch," she says. "It's true. It's really true."

"Yeah. Annie, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I got him into this mess--"

"You all got into it together," she says. "For good reasons. But we still have each other, right? The victors? I got them to let Johanna come up and stay with me." She pauses. When she speaks again, her voice is thick. "Win this war, Haymitch. Win it and come back."

"We will. You have my word."

After we talk, I straighten my uniform and go to Command. The world is coming back into focus. I still feel hollow and everything still hurts, but for good or ill, I'm here.

Creelman welcomes me and gives me a handheld with the notes on what I've missed. Capitol citizens are moving in toward the center of the city. There's been some looting in the mercantile district. No direct sign of Katniss and her team.

The tent flap comes up, and a lanky boy comes in with a brown-haired girl a little younger than he is. The boy smiles at me, and my mind tries to read him as Peeta -- he has the same blond curls (though these seem bleached a bit lighter than nature would have it), and a kind of easy grin that brings Peeta to mind, though they're certainly not twins. His eyes are a sort of muddy green instead of blue. His hair is longer and tied back with a leather strap. But there is something Peeta-like about him.

"You don't remember me?" he says, smiling. "But we sponsored you."

I frown, then realize who he is. I'd just forgotten that he was a rebel. "Aurelian!"

Now that I recognize him, I'm pretty sure the girl beside him is Tazzy Vole, a young woman who was not earning her own money selling lemonade. Tazzy snuck into the prison this summer and found out that Effie was needed there to help Portia. Effie invited her to stay the night so she wouldn't be out on the street. When I last saw her, she was dressed in a sparkly mini-dress with a flame pattern on it. Now, she's in jeans and a standard issue combat top from Thirteen. She looks more her age.

"You know our spies?" Creelman asks. "It was Soldier Vole who... " He stops. "Who I mentioned yesterday. Who works near the blast site."

The one who pulled Finnick's hand from the wreckage. I look at her.

She nods. "I'm sure sorry about Finnick. He used to come down to the corner... you know, where I worked... and bring us food and things. We all saw the story he told. I guess that's why he always helped us. I wish I could have helped him."

"You did," I tell her. "You brought what you could to his friends, instead of leaving it for his enemies."

She nods.

They sit down at the table. I know they would not be allowed to join a council in the Capitol's ranks, and I have a distinct impression that they would not be welcome in Thirteen proper, but here, they seem to be fine.

"Word on the street?" Creelman asks.

"It's getting dangerous," Aurelian says. "People are really scared. That thing on the news yesterday, where Katniss shot the woman... that's got them terrified. They remember her in the Games. They think she's going to come after them."

"I don't think Katniss is just out hunting civilians," I say.

"Do you know what she is doing?" Creelman asks. "Because that's a question we'd like answered."

"No idea," I lie without looking at him. "I haven't talked to her any more than you have. But if she shot a civilian, it was in the line of doing something else. It wasn't something she set out to do." I hope this is true, that even without Peeta's steadying influence, Katniss hasn't gone completely over the edge.

Tazzy nods. "I think they know that, when they think about it."

"But who's to say they won't be the next ones in her way?" Aurelian points out. He sighs and takes the leather string out of his hair, letting his curls fall down almost to his shoulders. "That's the problem. They remember the parade last summer. The way Katniss and Peeta were so angry. Wouldn't talk to them. And now, a lot of them have it in their heads that they're out for vengeance."

"It doesn't help that there's a price on their heads," Tazzy adds. "Dead or alive. It doesn't bring out the higher quality of Capitol citizen."

We all talk for a while about how to get around the mounting panic in the Capitol. The sooner we end it and topple Snow, the easier it will be to stabilize things. Plutarch can take control of the television and start soothing the population with a little bit of the truth. Creelman and the others from Thirteen have a separate meeting to discuss "minor matters," most of which I assume from their tone are spelled K-A-T-N-I-S-S. I go out with Aurelian and Tazzy.

"I heard Primrose Everdeen is here," Tazzy says.

"Where did you hear that?"

"Just people talking. They say she's with the medics. I should tell Solly -- remember my sister Solly? She'd get a kick out of it."

"With all the panic, I hope you told her not to carry that Katniss doll of hers around," I say. I look at Aurelian. "And maybe you ought to think about going back to your natural hair color."

"Solly's way out at the lake with the little boys," Tazzy says. "She can carry whatever she wants. They still love Katniss. As to his hair" -- she points at Aurelian -- "maybe you'll have better luck with that than the rest of us."

"If people weren't saying nasty things about him, I probably would. But I got to meet him -- I lied my way onto his prep team and helped with his first interview prep -- and I'm not going to do something that looks like I'm going over to the other side." He seems to consider something carefully, then just shakes his head. "The only thing he asked about, in the middle of all that hell, was how everyone else was. Junie'd gotten into the minimum security prison, so I could tell him. She was pretending to be a guard."

"You have someone in the prison?"

"Yeah. Caesar got her the job. He got me on the prep team for real, too, after I got out of questioning. And he got Tazzy the key to Effie Trinket's apartment."

Tazzy frowns at what I guess must be confusion on my face. "Her cat," she explains. "Solly loved the cat when we stayed there, so I broke in and stole it, so it wouldn't starve."

I find a bench and sit down, putting my head in my hands. I'm dizzy. For months, I've been haunted by that damned cat, and it's been safe with a little girl all along.

"You okay?" Aurelian asks.

"Yeah. I'm good." I sigh. "This has to be the dumbest question I've ever asked, but what's the cat's name?"

"It's Sweetheart," Tazzy says. "Why?"

I can't answer. I can't say why the cat's name mattered to me in the first place, or why I feel like crying when I learn it. I don't know if there's a word for the feeling it brings up in me, the sense of some hidden knife -- or maybe an axe -- going deeper into my guts, cutting through the old scar tissue and finding new nerves. I shake my head. "Have we heard anything about Effie since she was moved? Has Junie been able to get to maximum security?"

"No," Tazzy says. "I'm sorry."

"But if they had done something," Aurelian says, "I think they'd show it everywhere, like they did with Peeta's real preps."

That's true. Unless they saved her to torment me later with whatever they've been doing to her. Unless they did something so horrible to her that people wouldn't recognize her.

Unless they've hijacked her.

I don't mention this to the kids. I send them off together, and hope that the arms they sneak around each other mean that they're going to find something to be happy about in all this mess.

A squad goes out later in the day, but is forced back by several activated pods. I meet with Command about how to deal with these bizarre defense mechanisms, since their holos are outdated. I suggest running unmanned cars up and down the streets to deliberately set them all off. This is lauded as brilliant, and no one listens when I tell them that it will only work for the first few blocks, and after that, the Capitol will put the things on manual control.

We start the experiment the next morning, as Capitol citizens stream through the streets, trying to find shelter further into the city. Creelman listens to me at first and tries the cars on streets that have already been deserted, but gets orders later to take a more direct route to city center. I guess Coin has decided to get to Snow before Katniss can.

The cars set off deadly explosions, release gases, even send out vicious mutts. The Rebellion is safe behind the lines. The vast majority of those hurt by the pods are Capitol citizens just going about their business and trying to get to safety. I ask Creelman to at least let them walk ahead, hoping that there is some mechanism that will keep the pods from firing on citizens. There are children in among them. He does it. The stream of refugees gets wider and faster, and the cars keep pace about two blocks behind them, with soldiers following. The casualty count among the civilians goes down. I guess they turn on the pods after blocks have been evacuated. It takes about three hours for the Capitol to switch control over to manual.

In the middle of the afternoon, Tazzy comes looking for me, because Aurelian has done something phenomenally stupid. He's deliberately re-dyed his hair and styled himself like Peeta, and walked down the street in a neighborhood far from the one we believe the kids are in, trying to set out a false trail. It works a little too well.

Tazzy and I are still a few blocks away when we hear the sirens. The crowd has mobbed Aurelian and started beating him, and possibly even stoning him. Before we can get to him, he's taken off to a hospital, but luckily, it's one where we have a lot of the Capitol rebels on staff, and they make it easy for Tazzy and me to sneak him out into a rebel-run ambulance before the Capitol can come and start interrogating him. Plutarch's doctor spy, Galerius, spins a story about how he died en route to the hospital, and goes on television begging people to leave these things to the proper authorities from now on. When he finishes the conference, I tell him to get out. It will be sooner rather than later when the authorities realize there's no body to show.

I hope the real Peeta sees the press conference and takes it as a warning to stay inside, wherever he is. I don't bother hoping Katniss will take the lesson. I sit with Aurelian in the medical tent while Prim tends his wounds. I am tired of sitting by hospital beds. Tazzy comes in and takes over the watch. I introduce her to Prim, then go for a walk. The hovercraft we came in is gone, probably back to get more supplies. There is a panel sitting against the wall of the train depot with the "Union of Districts" name and seal on it. The seal is black and shows a minimalist white bear prowling through a circle of thirteen stars. Boring and Coin-approved, no doubt.

I sit and look at it for a long time. There's something wrong with it. I decide that it's the symbolism of thirteen districts and one central figure. Does it mean that she means to wipe out the Capitol after all, leaving only the districts? Or that they've given up on re-settling Twelve? Or that Thirteen, the bear, is going to become the center? I can't say I like any of those ideas. I suppose it's also possible that someone miscounted the stars, or just had thirteen districts on the brain.

That's it. That's what's wrong with it.

I continue to stare at it.

It's very late when Prim comes out of the medical tent and joins me. She's bundled up in a heavy jacket. "I wonder what they sent for," she says, looking at the empty space where the hovercraft was. "I hope it's bandages. We're running low."

"You're very good at what you do," I tell her. "They're right to train you. But you shouldn't be here. It's not safe yet."

She doesn't answer this, exactly. "Other than the techs who came up for shoots after the Games -- the preps and Effie and the stylists and so on -- I never met a Capitol citizen before. That boy, the one I was taking care of… he's as brave as Katniss or Gale, isn't he, just going off into the middle of all that?"

"Yeah. And as stupid."

"And the girl says she takes care of her sister, like Katniss used to take care of me. I have a feeling she doesn't put food on the table by hunting, though."

"There's not much game in the Capitol."

"We're really wrecking these people's lives, aren't we? I mean, this is their home. Did you see them in the street?"

"A little bit."

"We must have looked like that when Twelve was burning. We were moving faster because the fire was faster, but... we must have looked the same. Like nothing makes sense anymore. They're just normal people."

"I know. Some of them are my friends." I put a hand on her shoulder. "It's ugly. I know. I guess when I thought about the war, I thought it would just be... like the Games. Maybe everyone wouldn't want to be there, but everyone would know to fight. It's not how it works, though."

"Snow's putting out human shields," Prim tells me. "It's on the news. He's inviting citizens into the presidential mansion. They're scared. They'll go."

"Yeah."

She breathes out softly, her breath making a cloud in the cold, early winter air. It catches the moonlight, frozen in the blackness. I will think about this later. A lot. I will think about Prim's breath, caught in the dark, shining in the moonlight, then disappearing.

She looks out at the Capitol, where fires are burning in many of the streets we're clearing. She crosses her arms over her chest and says, "How do we put the fire out, Haymitch? When all of this is over, how do we put it out?"

I don't have an answer. We sit together until she is called back to her unit and I am called back to mine. As she gets up, she looks at the seal and frowns. "I wonder why they took that off the hovercraft," she says mildly.

Neither of us has an answer for that.

I don't see her again that night.

The next morning, it's like a signal has come from everywhere at once. The Capitol citizens speed up as they head for City Center. The Peacekeepers swarm up the empty streets. There is fierce fighting downtown. Here in camp, giant mutt rats crawl up out of the sewers and attack the shanty town, weakening us before a squad of Peacekeepers descends. The hospital is evacuated onto a train, and the train gets clear. I have a moment's hope that Prim is on it, but as I fight with the Peacekeepers, I catch a glimpse of her on a flatbed transport, being pulled away toward city center with most of the other medics. I guess the casualties are really starting to come in.

By mid-morning, we've pushed the Peacekeepers back. I grab a gun from one of them, but don't use it unless I'm almost close enough to use my knife. No sense wasting ammunition, and between my regularly bad aim and the heavy snow that's starting to fall, anything I fire would be a waste.

Creelman gets orders for us to help "maintain order" in the city while the final push toward the Presidential Mansion goes on. I don't know what the endgame is. I hope that Katniss is trying to sneak in with the refugees, and that she'll find the way around Snow's human shields before something really catastrophic happens.

People around me are firing blindly. Stupidly. I see some of ours on a far rooftop, and they are actually firing into the crowd. A little girl in a yellow coat falls to the pavement, bleeding. I can't see who shot her. If I ever find out, that person is going to have his throat slit.

Pods are opening everywhere, killing rebels and Capitol citizens without distinction. One opens on the street just ahead of me, sending people screaming into the depths. A few manage to hang on. I see a girl most of the block away from me in a heavy overcoat and layers of coverings on her head leap for the corner. She makes it. The boy she's with is dragged up into a building by Peacekeepers. She is screaming something, but I can't hear her over the din.

A pod opens near me, sending electrified wires across the street, killing Creelman and two other members of my squad.

I don't know what the plan is.

I make my own. In case Katniss doesn't make it to Snow, I'd better be there for backup. I slip around the corner, and start to make my way down alleys that don't appear on our maps, narrow paths where drunks and morphling addicts sleep off their stupors on safer days. I see someone moving ahead of me, someone lurching on an unsteady leg.

A curl of blond hair escapes from under his scarf.

"Peeta!" I call.

He doesn't hear.

I follow him.

We have nearly reached City Center when the world is shaken by an explosion that sends glass shattering down from the buildings above us. Peeta has reached the opening of the alley, and suddenly runs forward. I go after him.

Inside a newly walled off area, I can see screaming children, and blood and body parts. For some reason, arena parachutes are scattered among them. A Capitol hovercraft floats in the sky.

There are piles of overturned cars in the way, but Peeta is trying to scramble around them. Medical teams rush in.

Then the world is on fire.

Chapter Text

Part Three: Peace

Chapter Nineteen
The sound of the explosion in City Center blasts out, shattering glass, even cracking the walls of the buildings behind me. My ears start to ring horribly. I have the impression of people screaming around me, but I can't hear them. There's a line of heat above my eye, but I'm not aware of any particular pain.

I stumble over the rubble, out to the street. City Center has been obliterated, and whatever blew up, the fire burst out from there like a deadly flower. Limbs are strewn in the ashes, many of them too small, but the real horror isn't the dead. It's the survivors, the ones who were far enough from the blast not to be ripped to pieces, but who were caught in the mortal breath of the flames.

People burning like embers, crying out as they fall to the ground. A woman stumbling forward with her hair on fire. A girl burned like Digger, her face melting as she crawls. So many. I see the white tunics of District Thirteen medics as well, and something tries to connect, but my mind refuses to do it.

I have other duties. Peeta was halfway out of the alley when the blast threw him backward, toward me. He's lying face down on the cobblestones. The heavy scarf wound around his head has flames flickering at the base of it, and the sleeves are burned off.

I speed up and run to him. "Peeta! Peeta!"

I can't hear him, but I can see him trying to move. I pull off my coat and cover him with it to smother the fire. I turn him over. His eyebrows have been burned away, and a bright red burn crosses his forehead. He has more furious burns on his arms, and he is bleeding from a cut on his head. He moves his lips: "Haymitch."

"Yeah, it's me," I say, though I doubt he can hear any better than I can. "I'm here. I have you." I start to yell for a medic, then the truth hits me. It hits me before I can even start to reject it.

The medics were running into the crowd, going to take care of the wounded.

Prim was there. I saw her on the truck.

I feel Peeta seize up beside me, and his body starts to jerk, and I can't think about it now. "I have you," I say again. I can't seem to say anything else. "I have you, I have you..."

There is a blast of hot air. Overhead, a Capitol hover craft vanishes. People in the street -- people not wounded -- fire guns at it. Most of these people are Capitol citizens, whose children are now in pieces on the stones. I feel what they feel, but I can't let go of Peeta to draw my sidearm and fire. I can't afford to think of it. I can't afford to think of Prim right now, or Katniss, wherever she is. I can't do anything yet. Not until Peeta is safe.

His seizure passes, and I pick him up carefully. I know it's not safe to move someone with unknown injuries, but it's not safe to leave him here, either.

I don't know how long I carry him through the smoky streets, how many blind alleys I stumble through with him, trying to think of a safe haven. He is heavy, and my arms and shoulders scream in protest, but the idea of putting him down never occurs to me. I may stagger over the stones, my body drooping down under the weight, but I will not let him touch the ground again. I don't know why this is the most important thing in the world -- it probably wouldn't hurt him at all -- but it is.

I finally find my way to the Grove, the gracious old neighborhood where so many of my elderly sponsors live. Many of the garden walls have been knocked down for some reason, and there are a lot of broken windows. There are a few piles of rubbish out in the mall in the middle of the street, burning merrily. I see the edge of a portrait frame in one of them, but I don't have time to figure out why in the world anyone is burning portraits. I stumble from home to home, yelling for help, even though I can't hear myself. No one answers. Some of the homes look abandoned, but not all of them. People are just afraid to come out. I can't blame them.

An orange glass door opens and a small, frail woman comes out. Her blue wig is askew and the little dog at her heels is yapping.

It's Tryphaena Buttery, one of my oldest sponsors, an often silly woman who loved math for some reason, and once sent Elmer Parton a math puzzle book, to keep his mind busy while he waited for the Games. She holds out her arms to direct me to her.

I lurch over to her and she steers me to her door, guiding me inside. She is talking at me, but I still can't hear. I think I tell her that, but I can't tell what I'm saying. She shows me a notepad with a short message on it. As I read it, I notice that I'm bleeding. Bright drops fall from my face onto the paper. Before they wipe out the message, I see that it just says, "I will help."

I take Peeta to the extra bedroom she directs me to and set him down on the bed.

Then I black out.

I dream darkly. Prim Everdeen stands in the night, her breath a ghostly cloud, and when she turns to me, her eyes are flames and she starts to melt. Katniss runs at me, screaming, her claws out. Maysilee dies in agony. The disjointed images finally resolve into a dream of District Twelve in flames. I walk through it, carrying Peeta, knowing that I have to get him somewhere safe, but there is nowhere. The stage in the square is set up and Effie is there, dressed in her finery, her arms forced into the Reaping balls, now filled with a river of blood. "Ladies first!" a stranger yells, only it's not a stranger, it's me, and I dunk Effie's head into the blood, holding her under. In some other place, I try to run to her, but with Peeta in my arms, I can't get there in time. I trip on the cobblestones and start falling, falling... I am still falling, holding on to Peeta as he falls with me into darkness, when I wake up alone in a room in a sponsor's house.

A small dog with a bow in its hair is standing over me. The room is flooded with strangely bright sunset light. All of the curtains have been taken down. A mirror over the dresser is broken, and the tables in the room are much barer than I would normally expect in the Grove.

I can hear again, though my ears hurt badly. Outside, there is a lot of faraway shouting and occasional bursts of gunfire.

The dog yips twice, then jumps down and trots off importantly. A moment later, a doctor is with me -- not one of our rebel medics, but a Capitol doctor with a high tech bag of tricks.

"We stitched your cut while you were out, Mr. Abernathy," he says coolly, shining a light toward my hairline, where I can feel a certain tightness. I assume that's the cut that was bleeding.

"Peeta," I say.

The doctor sighs. "He's in worse shape. I had him taken to the hospital with the others. There are a lot of people on the burn ward right now. President Coin has ordered that rebels be given treatment first, so he's near the front of the line. The girl, Katniss Everdeen, is already in intensive care."

I wake up fully. "Katniss! What happened? Was she there when the bombs went off? Does she know about her sister? Does she --"

The doctor shakes his head. "I don't know what she knows or doesn't know. Everything I have is second or third hand, though Miss Buttery told me to get as much information as I could. She assumed you would want to know." This kindness is almost too much for me, but I don't let it show. The doctor is less than sympathetic. He checks his notes. "Everdeen was found at the edge of the blast, dressed in Capitol clothing and unconscious. Luckily for her, it was one of yours who discovered her. The rumor is that it was one of the medics who hadn't reached the blast site yet, and heard her yell something."

"She knows," I whisper. "She was yelling to her sister. There's nothing else she would have compromised her disguise for."

The doctor wrinkles his nose, and I realize that he despises me. "I suppose that makes sense." He looks out the window. "She was hit by the backdraft flames, and her burns were devastating. Worse than the Mellark boy's, and his injuries were no laughing matter. She has third degree burns over most of her back and arms. She's lucky that she was bundled up as much as she was. She'd climbed a flagpole near the blast site and was blown away from it. She fell face down, and the fire passed over her. It burned away her coat and three separate shirts before her rescuer quashed the flames."

"Is she all right?"

"She hasn't regained consciousness. The next few days will tell if she lives or dies." Something in his voice tells me that he doesn't care much which she ends up doing.

I close my eyes, then open them again. "Wait. You said President Coin gave orders at the hospital?"

He nods. "After Snow's bombs killed four hundred and thirty two Capitol children, we stormed the mansion and arrested him ourselves. Coin took him into isolation."

"Then the war is over."

"If you say so." He examines me dispassionately and says, "Your injuries were minor. Some shrapnel hit you in the head, but it's just a scalp wound. It'll heal. You have no need to be admitted to the hospital. Miss Buttery has indicated that you may stay with her, but believe me, if you take advantage of this nice lady's generosity, you'll hear about it from me and everyone else who still cares about civilization."

He walks out without any further explanation.

I get up, feeling woozy, and go out to the parlor, where Miss Buttery assures me that I may stay as long as I like. "Imagine, the gall of some people, being rude to an injured man who's worried about children in his care." She obviously wants some company, so I stay up with her. She tells me of the day's events after I arrived at her door. Other than the citizens storming the presidential mansion, Coin arrived with reinforcements and established herself as president of Panem. She charged Snow with war crimes for the bombing of City Center, which was a popular move, but no one is terribly enthusiastic about her. She has moved into the presidential mansion for the time being, along with her top advisors.

"No one knows what to expect," she says. "They say people are being arrested all over the city. Doctors at the hospital. Peacekeepers. People of means. I -- " She looks down. "I told them that I was taking care of you and Peeta when they came, so they wouldn't take my things again."

"Again?"

She points around the room at empty spots on the walls and tables. "The Capitol soldiers took my metal things for bullets. The rebels have been through. They burned my great-grandfather's portrait outside. They took most of the food."

"I'm sorry…"

"It's things. I keep telling myself, it's just things. The medics were nicer. They asked for the curtains, for bandages. I gave those. Stopping bleeding is more important than stopping sunlight."

"Thank you."

"They've conscripted every doctor that they decided they could trust. I didn't have a lot of options to help you, other than the ones who flatly hate the rebels. I'm sorry about that, Mr. Abernathy. But you needed someone to stitch your cut, and he is still bound to do no harm, no matter how he feels. I reminded him of that."

I look down, thinking about the soldiers firing down into the crowd of civilian refugees. "I never wanted this."

"Anyone who's ever met you knows that, dear," she says gently.

I squeeze her hands. "I have to go and find out what's going on. Thank you. For everything."

Miss Buttery smiles. "Will you come back to visit? I have so few people come to see me."

"You can place a bet on it," I say, and I mean it.

I go out into the night. Around me, much of the city is still in flames. Streets I could walk in my sleep (or in a drunken stupor) are impassable, filled with rubble or strewn with bodies and detritus from pods. I don't know how I got Peeta all the way out to the Grove. I have no memory of which streets I took. I finally find a partially cleared road and take it to the harshly lit remains of City Center. Beyond the barricades, the presidential mansion is lit up brightly. Huge crowds have gathered outside of it. Some are there to grieve, to leave tokens for the dead from the bombs. Others are just leaning against the fence, looking beaten. Some seem angry.

I don't know what they're all doing here. Maybe they don't have anywhere else to go. I find a soldier from Thirteen and ask which hospital the wounded have been taken to. He directs me to the largest, most well-appointed one in the city. There's no point in trying to find a ride. The roads are still filled with rubble anyway. I walk.

The first person I recognize when I walk into the hospital is Hazelle, who is pacing in the lobby. "Haymitch!" she calls, and runs over to me. "Oh, we've been so worried. No one knew where you were."

"The doctor who brought Peeta knew exactly where I was."

Hazelle mutters a few choice words about him, mainly to release tension as far as I can tell. "Gale's been shot," she says. "He's going to be okay. Katniss is hurt really badly. And Primrose... Haymitch, she was in the City Center when the bombs went off."

"I know," I say. "I didn't see her, but I know our medics were there. How's Ruth?"

"Working around the clock to keep from going crazy. She helped get Katniss stabilized, but once Katniss was in a holding pattern in the ICU, she just started going from patient to patient."

"Is there word on Peeta?"

"He's in the burn ward, in a medically induced coma to heal, but he'll be all right. They think the scarring might not even be bad in the end."

I nod. We go to see Gale, since he's awake. Johanna is with him. He tells us about the wild flight through the city after the landmine exploded on the street. Katniss led them through all of it with the explicit purpose of killing Snow, and they agreed to it. He is adamant on this point, because he is sure she will feel responsible for all the losses. Johanna, perched on a stool beside the bed and holding Gale's knife, announces that she will happily kill anyone who tries to blame it on Katniss.

Gale and I look at each other. The only one likely to blame Katniss is Katniss, and we both know it.

I go to the intensive care unit. Katniss is lying in a vat of liquid bubbles. It's really a large tube that encases her like a glass coffin. Her back is a raw, open wound with black edges, and much of the skin has been seared on her arms and legs. Machines keep her breathing. A tube is taped into her nose and mouth. Her face is untouched around it, but it looks almost pasted on to the rest of her. I want to take her hand, but she is in a sterile environment. I can't touch her.

I can't think of anything to say to her. I stay for an hour, with no one to bother me. They're monitoring her remotely through her machines while other patients get treatment. Annie comes in and sits on the other side of the coffin and whispers, "It's not your fault." There's nothing else to say about it. Instead, Annie tells me about what happened in District Thirteen when the bombs went off, when the people of the Capitol dragged Snow out of the mansion. Coin had already been on the way, apparently, because she appeared in the crowd to announce herself and arrest him.

When the transports started loading up to send in reinforcements, Annie and Johanna stole uniforms from the supply room and joined the throng. No one noticed them except for Ruth and Hazelle, and they weren't exactly in a hurry to turn them in. It turned out to be a good thing. A Peacekeeper tried taking a pot shot at Plutarch Heavensbee as he came down the ramp. Johanna tackled him and Annie bound him, and after that, there was no questioning of their presence.

Annie tells all of it in a distant, wounded voice, and when she finishes, she falls silent. I can't think of anything else to say, since she's already heard everything I know. I go. Annie stays.

I go down to the burn ward, where Peeta is sleeping. He's not in a sterile tube. He has bandages around his head and plastering his hands and arms, but he is breathing on his own. Delly is there with him. We sit with him, silent, until both of us drift off again. Sometime in the middle of the night, a doctor -- not the rude one -- wakes me up to check on my cut. He lets me go back to sleep.

The last day of the war ends.

I don't wake up feeling any freer than I did before.

It's dawn, and an alarm I've come to know well goes off. It is the sound of the schedulers in Thirteen, but projected to the whole building instead of just going off by a bunk. Delly looks up groggily.

The screen flickers to life. "Good morning, free citizens of Panem," a gray-clad woman in a chair on Caesar Flickerman's Games stage says. "I am Soldier Theodora Thornton, your new morning greeter. Welcome to our new world. Today, November the ninth, is heretofore known as Liberation Day."

"You feel liberated?" I ask Delly.

She doesn't have a chance to answer. Alma Coin sweeps into the room and looks up at the screen with satisfaction. She is accompanied by a cameraman and a doctor with a large needle. I've never seen her look quite so perky.

"Wake him," she says, nodding at Peeta.

"Hey!" I stand up. "The doctors put him in a coma to heal."

"And he'll return to it. But he should be awake to see the end of those who tormented him and publicly humiliated him." She smiles coldly. I don't know what she has up her sleeve. "After all, when a person is forced to say such awful things, things he couldn't possibly mean, then naturally, he'll want to see the people involved with it punished."

The doctor jams the needle into Peeta's side, and he comes up from his deep sleep with a confused look on his face. "Haymitch?" he says.

"You're all right," I say. "You're in the Capitol, and the war is over. President Coin wanted you to wake up."

"Yes," Coin says. "There's something you should see."

"What is this?" Delly asks.

"Oh, a little surprise." Coin looks at her, obviously not having the faintest idea who she is, or caring.

While Peeta struggles up from sleep, Delly goes to Coin and whispers urgently, "He was tortured with videos. What are you going to show him?"

Coin doesn't bother to answer her.

She situates her cameraman at the base of the bed and goes to stand beside Peeta. A moment later, she is live on screen, Peeta blinking owlishly behind her.

"I am coming to you live from the hospital where so many of those wounded in Coriolanus Snow's last brutal war crime are being treated. You see beside me Peeta Mellark, burned and damaged, but standing with us, despite being forced by the agents of the Capitol to tell lies at Snow's bidding. Today, those responsible for disseminating that hateful propaganda -- for misusing and torturing this boy, and publicly humiliating him -- will pay for their crimes." She taps an earpiece she is wearing and says, "Bring them out." The screen splits. I see Coin and Peeta here on one side, and on the other, Caesar's stage.

First out are two men in technician's uniforms, and they are followed by four Peacekeepers. All have been bound and gagged. They are forced to kneel.

"Read the charges," Coin says.

Theodora Thornton holds up a handheld device and stands behind the technicians. I can see now that the screens around Caesar's stage are showing Peeta to them. They look terrified. "You are charged," Theodora says, "with constructing various torture devices used to undermine the stability of Peeta Mellark, thereby causing him to participate in vile propaganda films. You have been found guilty."

From the area where I know the audience usually sits, two soldiers come forward. Each holds a gun to a technician's head.

There is a loud, flat bang. They slump to the stage in puddles of gore. Peeta's eyes are wide mirrors, his mouth open like he's about to gag.

Theodora moves to the Peacekeepers. "You are charged with misuse of authority, torture, and inhuman cruelty against captives. Your records on this matter are clear and incontrovertible. You are guilty."

The Peacekeepers are shot. It's no great loss, and they are certainly guilty, but I see Peeta going white. "Please stop," he says.

Coin looks at him coldly, and any lingering thought I have that she really believes this is about avenging Peeta disappears. "Bring out the last," she says into her earpiece. "I'll read the charges."

From the green room, six soldiers drag out Caesar Flickerman. The feed of us disappears.

"No!" Peeta says. "No, not Caesar. Please. No. I'll say anything. Just tell me what you want. Please." He grabs at her sleeve, but she shakes him off, and nods to her cameraman, who mutters something into a microphone.

"Caesar took care of the captives," I say. "As well as he could."

"Now, why do I find that so hard to believe?" Coin asks.

"Because you don't know anything!"

"Please," Peeta begs. "Please don't do this. Please. I'll tell them anything. Just please. Not Caesar."

I make a wild grab at her microphone, thinking in a disjointed way that she can't give the order if I take it away.

The doctor pulls a gun from his waistband and points it at me. I step back, and Peeta falls silent.

Coin reappears on screen. At the moment, only her face is visible. I can't see Peeta in the shot at all. "Caesar Flickerman," she says, "you stand charged as a colluder in the crimes of Coriolanus Snow. For over three decades, you have treated the deaths of district children as an amusement. You have turned murder into entertainment. And you willfully participated in the forced lies of the propaganda machine." The screens around the stage change, though Coin is still on the split-screen broadcast. Now the stage screens show Peeta, looking like a live feed, but they've done something to his image. It's the image they had before, but they've replaced his horrified face with a satisfied smile, probably taken from one of the interviews on that very stage. They've marked it with burns and put the bandages around it.

Caesar looks up at the image, heartbroken.

A soldier puts a gun to the back of his head and fires.

Something red and unspeakable hits the camera lens. They cut to Coin's shot. "So perish the tormentors of Panem," she says. "The rest will pay -- those who have brought your children here to die. District by district, they will be brought forward to pay for their crimes." The screen goes off.

"Why would you do that?" Delly demands, looking at Peeta, who can't seem to breathe. "How could you use him like that, after all they did?"

"We had to establish that those propos were made under duress, obviously," Coin says, then looks at Peeta with a poisonous smile. "They were, weren't they?"

He looks at me, takes in the gun pointed at me. He nods, then whispers something that I can't hear.

The doctor picks up a new needle, and sends him back to sleep while Coin and the cameraman leave, their work done. The nightmares will be waiting for him, I'm sure, and he won't be able to wake up.

Delly sits down heavily in the chair beside the bed. "She did the same thing to him that Snow did," she says when the doctor finally leaves. "Why, Haymitch?"

"I don't know. I really don't know."

I think of Caesar, doing everything he could to help the tributes, making every kind gesture he knew. He was always our strongest ally. I see the smear on the camera lens.

I see it through the rest of the morning, floating in front of me, obscuring everything. Another transport comes in from Thirteen, carrying the technical experts, including Beetee. Beetee is spooked. He saw the executions, and keeps saying that it wasn't a proper legal proceeding. He's almost hysterical on this point. Since I don't want him to be the next one dragged up on stage, I tell him to shut up, and get him to the hospital to sit with Annie.

I walk aimlessly through the hospital once he's settled. Spend time by Katniss's bed. Try to talk to Ruth, who hasn't slept since yesterday. I talk to Gale, who doesn't understand about Caesar any more than he understood about Katniss's preps. Johanna follows me out of his room. She says he's refusing to see anything that's wrong, but she's sure it's the shock. She knows that Peeta wasn't smiling when Caesar died. Every victor knows that. Even Enobaria probably knows it, wherever she's holed up. I nod a lot. There doesn't seem to be anything else to do.

By lunchtime, I know I can't stay any longer. The people from Thirteen try to herd everyone into cafeterias to eat some prepared gruel that they call a meal, but this is an utter failure. I hear a few soldiers muttering that they suppose it will take people time to learn the new way. I don't know why they feel a need to attack Capitol food. Maybe it's just an insult. My father once said that the surest way to insult a person was to insult the food he grew up on. But that makes no sense, unless they want the Capitol to keep fighting.

I wander out into the snow. It is blanketing the carnage in City Center now, making tiny hillocks of the debris strewn around. I am careful to keep a good distance from it. I don't want to step on some child's severed arm.

I am going to get a drink. There is a bar nearby, and if it's been closed, there are liquor stores, and if they're closed, I can steal it. If it's been removed, I may try to find a morphling dealer. They won't be out of business, not in the middle of all of this horror, not with people being shot on television, not with bits of their brains sliding down the camera lens.

Not with the promise to keep going with it. To punish the people who led district children to their deaths.

District by district.

The need for a drink is blown away suddenly by something much bigger, an awful, spreading fire of dread inside my mind. I have reached the bar, but I turn away, start running, ignoring the barricades and the soldiers and the piles of memorial gifts. I run all the way to the presidential mansion. My lungs feel like they're exploding, but I can't stop, not until I fix this.

There is a soldier from Thirteen on guard at the gate and I introduce myself to her. She scans my fingerprints, then lets me in. I'm stopped again at a desk that's been hastily installed in the grand hall -- an ugly, beat up thing that looks like it belongs in Thirteen, not in the middle of the opulence of the mansion.

"Soldier Haymitch Abernathy," I say.

"What is your business here?"

"My... I'm on the Command staff."

"Your name isn't on the list."

"Then I need to see Plutarch Heavensbee. Don't tell me his name isn't on the list."

The soldier at the desk doesn't have time to look, because Plutarch is coming down from an upper balcony. "Haymitch," he says, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me around the desk. "I'm so glad you made it through. I got word from Hazelle Hawthorne, of course, but she was under the impression that you wouldn't want to be disturbed. I'm so sorry about Finnick. And I will make sure that Katniss and Peeta both get the best care --"

"Plutarch, shut up," I whisper, and pull him aside, pull him away from the earshot of anyone from Thirteen. "Just shut up. It's not over."

"I know..."

"You saw what she did to Caesar."

He looks over his shoulder, then says, quickly, "Yes, I did. And we'll need to do something about it. We'll need to institute reforms. We need to push for a constitution, something that will prevent the government from ever doing something like that again. I've been talking with Baize Paylor from Eight. Her unit is in charge of guarding Snow, and she thinks -- "

"Just stop. Now," I say. "Plutarch, did you hear what she said after? About the people who sent children to die?"

"Yes. But our spies --"

I grab him by the arms and shove him into the wall. "EFFIE!"

He goes pale and sags. I let go of him. "Oh, no..."

"Plutarch," I say, trying to keep my voice steady, to keep it from carrying to the new maniacs in charge. "No more messing around. No more worrying about what's coming tomorrow. We have to get Effie. Right now."

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty
To my unending gratitude, Plutarch doesn't call attention to us or ask me to clarify what I need him to do. He simply signals up to a soldier that we're leaving and takes me around to the back, where Snow's fleet of cars sits largely untouched. Plutarch has apparently been given one of them as a spoil of war. He presses a button on a keypad, and a low slung, shiny blue car drives itself over. We get in. It takes a long time to make our way through the broken streets near the center of the city, but once we're clear of it, the rest of the roads seem easy. We do not talk on the way to the prison. We both know why we need to go.

The prison is nearly outside city limits, on a bleak patch of desert overlooking a non-descript wilderness. I didn't get a really good look at the approach when Gale's team came here, and it seems weirdly mundane. It doesn't look like a dungeon or a torture chamber, although it's both. On the surface, it's just a large but squat brick building, surrounded by a parking lot with charging plates for the cars. Bright white fluorescent lighting shines out through cheap clear glass doors.

Plutarch steers us onto a charging plate and we get out. I can hear the wind whistling across the desert, as if tonight were the same as any other night.

When we go inside, I see a few signs of a struggle. There's a broken window and a broken water pitcher. The guards here had to be subdued, but I guess a lot of them must have been away at the battle, because it doesn’t look like it took much.

The guards at the prison are now all from Thirteen. Peacekeepers who worked in maximum security -- at least the ones Coin didn't execute -- are in the cells, and I'm not going to waste any worry on them. These are the ones who tortured Johanna, who broke Peeta. Let them rot. I'm not shedding any tears over the ones that were killed this morning, either.

Plutarch flashes his identification and tells one of the new guards that we have orders to retrieve Euphemia Trinket, an imprisoned rebel, from Maximum Security. The kid can't be more than eighteen, and he takes the order at face value. He leads us downstairs, past the newly imprisoned former guards. As we pass their cells, they curse us and threaten us when Snow regains power.

Effie is in the bottom level of the prison, the same row of cells where Peeta, Johanna, and Annie were kept. I can still see bullet scars in the walls from the rescue. The guard keeps checking a readout on his handheld device, and finally comes to a door in the middle. He unlocks it.

I see everything in an instant: Effie Trinket, dressed in a ragged set of prison clothes, her face unpainted, her hair a nimbus of strawberry blond curls that fall, disheveled, around her ears. Her lips are dry and cracked, her eyes wide and unfocused.

I am across the cell in two steps, and I hold her as tightly as I can. She is limp and listless, but her arms come up around my neck. "Haymitch?"

I press my fingers against the back of her head, kiss her cheeks. "I'm here," I say.

She pulls away and blinks at me owlishly. "Your hair is a mess."

I pull her to me again and say, "Of course it is. You know I can't take care of my hair for anything."

Plutarch clears his throat. I try to let go of her to bring him into the conversation. There are things more important than my messy hair, or how Effie is here, really here, alive and apparently unharmed. I can't let go. I whisper into her ear, "Effie, this is really important. Whatever Plutarch and I say over the next few days is the truth. You don't argue with it. Don't embellish it. Don't do anything other than agree with every word we say. Do you understand?" I finally pull away. She looks at me blankly, then nods. I take her hands. I notice that the knuckles on one of them are scabbed. She is too skinny. She looks like she hasn't slept. But she's whole. She's not attacking me. She's still Effie. I kiss her fingers. "We're going now."

"Where?"

"Your apartment will be fine," Plutarch says. "I have a pass key to the whole city."

She looks around me, noticing Plutarch for the first time. "Mr. Heavensbee," she says, then her hands fly to her head. "Oh! My wig!"

She looks mortified. Her hair has grown out pretty -- a little messy, but pretty. Still, she doesn't like people to see it. I don't understand it and never have, but I take off my jacket and tie the arms under her chin, so she can wear it like a scarf.

A set of new guards want authorization to remove her from prison. Plutarch acts annoyed that they dare question him (which I'm sure is not entirely an act), accuses them of insubordination, and starts to make a speech about how he needs Effie for… something. I don't follow it, or care. Something about the war effort that they finally buy. I'm mostly holding Effie and trying to get her to stop shaking. They finally let us go.

We go back to the car. I settle Effie in back. She won't let me put the seatbelt on her. I let it be. I let go of her hand long enough to run around to the other side and get in beside her. She puts her arms around me and holds on tight.

"Effie, you are a rebel," Plutarch says as we pull away. "You have been a rebel for several years."

"I--"

"Don't argue," I say. "Please, Effie, just go along."

"But I--"

"You are a tribute right now," Plutarch says. "And Haymitch is your mentor, and I'm your escort, and we are going to get you through the arena, but we can only do it if you do what we say."

She looks at me, dazed. "Haymitch, what's happening?"

"The Capitol fell yesterday," I say. "And the new government is going after anyone involved in the Games."

She puts a hand over her mouth.

Plutarch and I start weaving a story. Anything that sounds feasible. I wish Peeta were here. Peeta would make it better. He'd make it unassailable. But Effie is stuck with Plutarch and me. I can say truthfully that she passed messages. She did give me a note from Cinna once, and it absolutely contained rebel information. She also brought him a cake from Danny Mellark's bakery that had coded information with it.

"It did?" she asks. "I brought information for the rebellion?"

"You did. And you knew it, Effie. That's the important part. Do you remember that cake?"

She does. She describes it hesitantly, more concerned about the beautiful decoration than the message under it, on the lining paper. That's all right. It's detailed, and if worse comes to worse, I'm reasonably sure that, after this morning, Peeta will back me up if I say there was coded information in the design.

She frowns. "And when I found you and the others in the park. That was rebel business, wasn't it?"

I nod. "Yes. Yes, it was, and you saved us, and that's why the Capitol punished you."

"Okay," she says. "I was… " She bites her lip nervously, and says very quickly, "I was a rebel and I saved you for the rebellion."

"Very good."

"That's not why I saved you."

"It is for now." I kiss her forehead. "Effie, you need to play it this way. Please. Please. They shot Caesar."

She lets out a sob, and holds me tighter.

We have to end the conversation when we get to her apartment. I am afraid that it will still be a mess, that she'll be upset. But when we get there, we don't even need Plutarch's passkey. The door is open, and Tazzy and Solly Vole are there, sweeping the floor. Everything has been picked up and put in order. Solly is holding Sweetheart the cat, whose long white hair has gotten matted, but who otherwise looks no worse for wear. Effie takes Sweetheart and starts petting her. I thank the girls. Tazzy is a legitimate rebel with impeccable credentials, so I ask her if she remembers how Effie helped out with the war.

"Oh, sure," she says without a pause. "Effie was the one who got me into the rebellion. That night before everything went crazy. I'm pretty sure that's why the Capitol arrested her. They knew she'd told Aurelian and me how to find the rebel leaders in town. I mean, they knew I was looking for her. I told everyone and his brother that I needed to find Effie Trinket. I wanted to get to the Rebellion, and everyone knew she was connected. That's why I came over to clean up. I knew as soon as someone said you'd been to see Colonel Heavensbee that the new government was finally springing her. To thank her for everything she did."

"Thanks," I say.

"She let my sister play dress up," Tazzy says. "Solly had a really good time." For Tazzy, apparently, this is not a non-sequitur. She goes back to cleaning up, and makes a simple meal.

The girls stay for half an hour. Effie finds a silk scarf and excuses herself to the bathroom for a moment to put it on in place of my jacket.

Solly is crestfallen to give up Sweetheart, and Effie finally finds a smile, albeit a tentative one, and says, "Maybe Sweetie can stay with you a little longer, until I'm ready to take care of a cat again."

Solly gives Effie a big hug and a kiss and runs out, the cat safely in her arms. Tazzy follows. Plutarch fabricates one more story about how he remembers Effie specifically requesting Cinna and Portia as stylists, clearly a rebellious act, then he goes as well.

I go to her room and find her a wig, but she doesn't put it on. She doesn't go to change into her fancy clothes. She just leans against me, silent and dazed. "Please don't go," she says.

I don't.

I sleep on her bedroom floor that night, because she is not in any state to make rational decisions and I don't trust myself at the moment, but she won't let me out of her sight. I don't want to be out of her sight.

I wake up in the morning to find her dressed in one of her more demure outfits, a green suit with gold buttons. The shoulders curl upward a little, but it's nothing outlandish. She's dug up one of her simpler wigs as well, a plain white one that puffs up a little bit then curls around her ears. It is askew, and I can see a wisp of her hair coming out under the edge.

She is sitting at her dressing table, holding a mascara wand to her face. Every time she tries to put it to her eyelashes, her hand shakes. I can see several dark smears on her cheeks.

"You don't need to worry about your makeup," I tell her. "Almost no one in District Thirteen wears any."

"Are you telling me to go without? Or just saying I could?"

"I'm telling you to go without," I say. "It may not be necessary, but let's make it plausible that you've just been waiting to throw off the Capitol."

She nods. "And my wig?"

"Do you really need it, Effie?"

She blinks at the mirror. "When I was sixteen, I started wearing them. It was a whim. Trying to look like the rich girls. Some boys…" She puts her hand to her head. "They tore it off. A lot of my scalp came with it. They kept coming at me until the teachers came."

"Effie…"

"They put up pictures. All over the place. I was bleeding and crying. And they laughed. They all did. Even the people I thought were my friends. That's when I decided to test out of school. I got the scars removed years ago, but… I hate having my head uncovered. Especially if someone's forcing it. They took my wigs away in jail, too." She looks up. "I just want to be Effie again. I need them."

I get up and go sit across from her. I have no idea how the wigs are held on, so I don't try to straighten it (in fact, I make a resolution to never do anything to her that might remind her of that) but I do tuck in the loose curl. "You wear them if it makes you feel safer." I take her in, ready for a day out. "Where are you planning on going?"

"Can't I go out?"

"Yeah, but... where?"

"I want to see Katniss and Peeta," she says. "And I should pay a call on poor, poor Annie. I saw on the news about Finnick this morning. And that Katniss is alive, but she's hurt. They say she might not regain consciousness." She looks at me, her odd eyes trying to focus. "Poor Haymitch. So many of your friends."

I nod and give her hand a squeeze. "That's why I'm not going to lose any of the ones I have left."

"Am I your friend, Haymitch?"

I try a joke. "Well, when you're not trying to bury me in rules and dress me up and put me on a damned schedule..."

She smiles faintly. "In other words, when I'm not actually around?"

I run my thumb over her hand. "They have a machine in District Thirteen that puts a schedule on your arm every day. Tells you when to be at lunch, and when to go to work. I named mine Effie."

This gets a better smile, then she looks at me slyly. "They wanted me to say something bad about Katniss on television when everyone was saying she and Peeta were dead. I told them I wouldn't. They said I had to. I thought to myself, 'What would Haymitch do?'" She holds up her hand with the bloody knuckles out. "I never punched anyone in the face before. I didn't know it would hurt."

"You punched someone?" I grin at the image.

"One of Claudius Templesmith's production assistants. Will that help?"

I think about it, the amusement value of imagining Effie making an ineffectual little fist fading. "It'll help," I say. "But let's tone down that it was about Katniss. Make it about not saying anything bad about the rebellion."

"But -- "

"Effie, when Katniss wakes up, which she will, you can tell her the truth. But right now, it's about the rebellion."

"Haymitch, why -- "

"Because I want you to stay alive."

"This... is what you wanted? All along?"

"No. And it's going to get fixed. But right now, short term, we have to play by the rules."

"But -- "

"Effie, for seventeen years, you told me to make nice with people, to get them to help my tributes stay alive. It's not going to be seventeen years, and we're going to have better luck. But do it."

She looks at me steadily, almost focusing on me. "Promise it's going to be fixed, Haymitch."

I kiss her. "I promise."

I have no idea how I mean to keep this promise, but I do mean to keep it. Somewhere between Snow's sadistic bread and circuses and Coin's brutal crackdown, there is a narrow path to something that will actually work. I will find it. Somehow.

I take Effie to the hospital. Gale is up and about already. The shots he took were superficial, and he has received the best care the Capitol has to offer, the sort of care victors get -- got -- to be prepared for the post-Games events only days after being pulled from the arena. There are stories circulating that he was captured by Peacekeepers and, unarmed, managed to steal two weapons and kill most of his captors before taking a single wound. He dismisses this as ridiculous. The soldiers who are now under his command point out that he had, in fact, gotten away from the Peacekeepers and was halfway to City Circle when the bombs blew, and that the wounds he took are at angles that suggest he was fighting with several soldiers. They are in awe of him. I introduce him to Effie. He tries to be polite. He isn't good at it.

Johanna, who is nearby, is much better. She's adored Effie since her own Games, when Effie lent her some kind of skirt that was in that year. She announces that they are "fashion buddies" and makes a fuss over Effie's dress. "I'm going to have to raid your closet," she says. "We're about the same size, and my whole wardrobe went up in flames in Seven."

This gets disapproving stares from workers.

Effie and I go to visit Katniss. Ruth is there, looking half dead, and Effie manages to not accidentally say anything insensitive. Annie comes. She says they are growing cells for new skin to go onto Katniss's back. There will be surgery later today, the first of several. Effie gives her condolences. Annie seems genuinely grateful.

We go down to Peeta's area. He has been allowed to come up naturally from his sleep. He's groggy, but not too groggy to recognize Effie. He smiles, then horror crosses his features. "Haymitch, she's -- "

"Effie's glad to be out of jail," I say quickly. "She wanted to see you and the rest of the rebels she's worked with as soon as she could."

He doesn't even blink. Even under the remains of sedation and the influence of whatever nightmares he's been having since yesterday, he says, "Oh, of course! Why didn't I know that? I should have realized it in District Eleven when you covered for Haymitch meeting with Chaff during the Victory Tour."

Shortly after we leave Peeta, there is a news broadcast on every screen in the city. Strato Calmenson, the District One escort, is tried and executed, along with the stylist and prep team. Tomorrow, we are assured, we will move on to District Two.

I start meeting with Command again that afternoon. I doubt Coin really wants my opinion on anything, but she seems to consider it a good idea to keep a close eye on me. She says she is investigating our claims that Effie is a rebel. Plutarch has apparently spent the night in his production booth -- his real one, with all of his Gamemaker's tools -- because he is able to present her with video evidence of Effie passing messages and even obtaining weapons. It looks very real. Coin is still skeptical.

Plutarch proposes a series of television shorts about "Heroes of the Capitol" -- Capitol rebels, like Effie or Tazzy or Fulvia or, in all modesty of course, himself -- for the sake of trying to bring the Capitol citizens on board without any counter-revolution, which, he has heard, is a going concern with all the executions.

Coin shakes her head. "I can't do that. There are still angry people in the districts. They feel the Capitol has already been given too much leeway. Until they accept their complacent role in the atrocities of the Capitol Empire, I can't have you coddling them."

"We can't have a perpetual war, either," Beetee tries.

"It will hardly be 'perpetual.' Once we have achieved justice for the districts, of course it will end. We will move the leadership from the districts here."

"But what about the native population?" I ask.

She sighs. "Obviously, they will need to learn to accept the new shape of things. I am still seeing a good deal of wastefulness here, frivolous uses of district resources. I've arranged for an adult school to open tomorrow, to teach the citizens of the Capitol about reality... a matter with which they appear to have little experience. Attendance will be mandatory for all Capitol-born civilians over the age of sixteen."

The Command staff is split fairly evenly -- Beetee and I, along with five others, want to start trying to calm things down. The other half, which unfortunately includes Coin, has prioritized punishment to serve the presumed interests of the districts. I ask who's complaining, hoping that she's making it up, but she produces videos of rabid-sounding district leaders calling for blood.

When I get back to the hospital, Effie is sitting with Annie, Peeta, and Delly while Katniss undergoes surgery. Peeta is not allowed out of his area. Cressida arrives with a film crew to ask us about Katniss. We all give glowing reports. Cressida says that she and Pollux are heading out to the districts tonight.

I go home with Effie. She lets me out of her sight enough to sleep on the couch.

The next day is the same. Katniss is in recovery. I sit with her during her morphling daze while doctors manipulate her body around the first grafts. Command meets and argues. Velatus Norman, the District Two escort, died defending a shop in the fashion district, so he can't be executed, but he is held guilty. The stylists and the prep teams die on Caesar's stage. Enobaria finally surfaces from wherever she's been hiding to comment on camera, but if she has any objections, she keeps them to herself. People flock to hear her speak, even though she doesn't say much.

I continue to stay with Effie. During the days, I try to find every reasonable person I can in Command, but none of them seem willing to denounce the executions, and one even tells me that I'm spreading sedition, but he'll overlook it, as I'm clearly not right in the head… though he strongly suggests that continuing my search would be a very bad idea.

The District Three escort and stylists have disappeared. Beetee claims to have no knowledge of this. The preps died in the fighting (one as a rebel, the other two for the Capitol), so there are no executions the next day. Katniss has another graft. Delly sits with her for a long time, trying to be cheerful.

Coin tires of going day by day, and executes the Games workers from Districts Four, Five, and Six the following day, then takes a break from the arduous task of killing beauticians to put down all the mutts in the Mutt Zoo, despite the protest of the president of the Muttation Appreciation Society. He storms into the mansion and demands to know who is responsible. I sympathize with him.

Not that I'm overly concerned about those damned squirrels, which they kept replenishing because they were a popular attraction. I'd be on board with not making any more in the twisted Capitol labs, but they weren't actually responsible for what the Gamemakers used them for, and they weren't hurting anyone anymore. There was no need for a death sentence.

Every morning, Effie heads off to Coin's mandatory adult education, and every night, she comes home with her hands shaking. She doesn't tell me much about the content, though I gather that it's largely an excoriation of Capitol history. I wonder how the Daughters are taking it. Hopefully, they're all smart enough and calm enough not to start arguing.

On the day the District Eight stylists are set to be murdered, there is no meeting at Command, probably because Coin doesn't want to hear anyone else's opinion. I decide to see for myself what's happening. After I make my ritual visit to the hospital to check on the kids, I go to meet Effie for lunch.

The classes take place in the Games Museum. I've never been there. I never wanted to be. I can tell that it used to be a pretty nice building -- at least until something blew up in the vicinity -- as soon as I walk in.

I pass through the Hall of Tributes, trying not to look at the images. It's almost impossible, especially when I reach my year, where there are so many. I turn a corner and find myself staring at… me, or at least a full color statue of me as a sixteen year old. It's life-sized and eerily accurate, like I really did die in there, and they found some taxidermist to preserve me. I have my knife partly raised, and I'm staring out into the distance, most likely at that plastic hedge, but it's hard to tell, since there's no context for the tableaux.

The statue has been defaced with the word "Traitor" (it's been scrubbed a few times, but I can still see it), and has chips where I guess Snow was letting people throw things at me for the last few months. There's a charred statue further down the hall, and I can guess who it is, but I turn off on a side corridor before I get there and go to a small information desk, where a guard sits in the place where some bored volunteer probably sat for years, handing out maps and pointing the way to the restrooms.

"Why are you here?" the guard asks when I give him my name and assignment.

"Just picking up my…" But I have no idea what to call her anymore, so I switch to, "I'm meeting Effie Trinket."

"For what purpose?"

I raise my eyebrows. "Why do you care?"

"She was quite pampered in the prior system, you know. She was involved in the Games."

"Yes. As my escort. She's… well, she's a friend." That much, at least, is indisputable. "I was going to take her for a walk in the park, if that's completely all right with you."

Like most people from Thirteen, he misses the sarcasm entirely. He checks her schedule and says, "She will have thirty five minutes designated for the meal. Are you on the same schedule?"

I don't check. I just assure him that I am. I move past the guard post, pretending not to hear him timidly calling out that I really should have clearance to enter the adult education area. I open the door to what was once a theater, probably showing past games and hosting lectures.

A nervous little man, his voice shaking, is standing in a single spotlight on the stage, reading out a history of the Capitol that seems to boil down to abducting Catastrophe survivors from foreign lands, raiding and pillaging the virtuous collective that Thirteen had created in the East, and quite possibly having caused the Catastrophes in the first place, in order to bring about its own power.

The lunch break is announced with no fanfare, and barely any reaction. When the lights come up, I spot Effie in a back row. She's wearing the simple white wig and biting her nails. She's been doing this a lot. I slide in beside her and take her hand, not commenting on it.

She looks up, surprised. "Haymitch?"

"Let's go for a walk," I say. "Get a little sunshine."

She nods vaguely, her eyes glazed, and lets me lead her out of the room and out into the museum. She stops by the statue of me. "I'm sorry," she says.

"It's okay. I can live with a chipped statue."

"You were so brave. So smart. And you were nice to me."

I frown. "Let's get out of here."

I lead the way into the entrance hall. The sun is bright in the door, and I slow down long enough for her eyes to adjust. When we go outside, I see that it snowed again. The bright mountain sunlight is flooding the whole city, blinding me enough to make it difficult to see the damage. There's a long promenade leading from the Games museum to the shuttered mutt zoo and I walk her about halfway down it, then brush some snow from a bench and sit down with her. I take both of her hands and kiss them. "That's what they do every day?"

"Yeah. I had to read the casualty list from the bombing of District Eight this morning, and say that I understood about the complacency of Capitol citizens." She leans against my shoulder, and I let go of her hands to put my arms around her. Her arms slip comfortably around my waist. "Thank you for the sunshine," she says.

"I ordered it special."

This gets a ghost of a grin. "How are the children? By the time I'm done at this, visiting hours are over."

"Katniss is out from the latest surgery. The grafts are taking. But she's…" I don't know how to explain how Katniss is. I've always had the words, until now. The words I know don't seem to apply to anything anymore. "She misses her sister."

Effie nods, then starts to cry.

I pat the back of her wig, kiss her head a little bit, and mutter some kind of nonsense to her. I don't know if it means anything, or if she hears it.

Who's going to put the fires out? Prim Everdeen asks in my head.

I just hold Effie quietly for the rest of her lunch break, and walk her back to the museum afterward. She goes in for the rest of the day's session, and I go back to the apartment. I pull out a notebook and a pen, meaning to write some of this down, but I never make a mark. Instead, I make dinner. The best Capitol dishes I can think of, given what I'm able to procure for ingredients.

I don't end up sleeping on the couch.

It's not anything we decide, per se. It just happens.

While I don't think it's as meaningless as Dalton suggested it would be to our relationship -- after a decade and a half of abstaining, we are both quite aware of the addition -- but I think I understand what he really meant: It was just the last piece of the puzzle. We've known the shape it was taking for a long time. Nothing else is different in how we are with each other, or anyone else, the next day. She goes to her class, and I go to Command for a priority one meeting.

For some reason, Katniss is not talking at all. People are starting to get concerned. They want her on camera soon. Coin has been getting a great deal of communication from the districts. They want to see Katniss, to hear her speak, to tell them that they've won. They want her to kill Snow, live. Coin picks up on my suggestion back in Thirteen and declares that the Mockingjay will fire the final shot of the war. After the other colluders have been punished, Katniss will perform the final execution. This means she will have to wake up. When Coin tells her she can kill Snow, it at least seems to motivate her.

Plutarch announces a television show with the remaining victors in the Capitol, minus Katniss and Peeta, since they're in recovery. I expect a relatively full stage, even after everything, but it's just me, Annie, Johanna, Beetee, and Enobaria. I guess everyone else is in the districts. We're supposed to talk about how good it is that the war is over, and how the arenas will be destroyed, but he's obviously pursuing his own agenda, as he asks us about all the people in the Capitol who've helped us.

Things are calmer. People ask for autographs as we leave, and weep over Finnick and Chaff and all of the others who've left us. Whatever mob anger consumed the people who beat Aurelian, thinking he was Peeta, has dissipated, and we are now just familiar faces who are making things a little less alien.

Two weeks after Plutarch and I got Effie out of jail, Coin installs the Command staff and other prominent rebels in rooms in different parts the Presidential mansion. For our protection, of course, and because we deserve to share in the spoils of war. We are not allowed to turn this gift down. I ask if Effie can come stay with me. She can't.

I call on Tazzy and Miss Buttery to help her, but I don't know how well it works out. I am not exactly forbidden to see Effie, but I am kept busy and so is she. At first, I'm kept so busy that I don't even realize that they're playing keep-away, and when I do notice, Beetee teases me on the theme that I'm not exactly keeping track of time with my brain. After a week, even he is starting to get suspicious. I drop a meeting to go find Effie, but when I get to her, she's in the middle of a mind-numbing task involving lists of Capitol orphans needing homes. She is supposed to match them with rebel families in the districts, and families of fallen tributes. I imagine them being given away like consolation prizes. We can't talk.

Katniss continues to recover. She is moved to a regular bed in the ICU. She still won't speak, and she's assigned a psychiatrist. Plutarch insists on a man named Aurelius, who analyzed Katniss's actions during her first Games. Annie seems to know him and think well of him. He claims that Katniss is a "psychological Avox," the trauma of her sister's death forcing her into a nightmare world where she has no voice.

Another week passes.

I take to wandering around the mansion. Snow is being guarded in his private greenhouse, a concoction even more elaborate than the one I got caught in during the Victory Tour last year. Baize Paylor, of District Eight, is in charge of his guard. She is tight-lipped and angry about a great many things. She says that she wants Snow to talk to Katniss. I can't imagine why.

"Yes, you can," she says. "But you don't want to."

Peeta is moved into the mansion the next day. His burns are still very visible -- angry red marks on his face and arms -- but they are healing well. He has asked to see Katniss. They've turned him down. "I guess it makes sense," he says. "I did try to kill her. But after everything... I don't think I would."

He doesn't sound sure. Aurelius starts talking to him as well.

Gale is abruptly shipped off to District Two to lead soldiers in clearing out Peacekeepers who've holed up in the hills. I am not present when it happens, but rumors start to spread that he challenged Coin over something. It was behind closed doors.

Beetee is badly shaken after Gale's departure. He mutters about notes and traps, but he is abruptly very obedient.

I go to sleep that night thinking about what I don't want to imagine, what Gale might have challenged Coin over, why Beetee is skittish.

I think of Prim, her breath glowing, then disappearing. And I think of her looking at the unscrewed panel with the emblem of the Union of Districts and saying, "I wonder why they took that off the hovercraft."

There is something huge and horrible trying to break through my mind. I sit through a Command meeting. I don't ask any questions. I think I open my mouth a few times.

Back at my room, I find a crate of liquor from Snow's private cellars waiting for me.

I drink. There's nothing else to do.

The next several days -- I can't tell how many -- swim together, and I am lost. Whatever Snow's been keeping in his cellars makes white liquor seem like soda-pop. I seem to be back in the Victors' Village, in my house, surrounded by my mess. I wonder why Hazelle hasn't come to help me keep clean, then I remember that I'm not a licensed employer. I see Peeta, frustrated, trying to clean up around me. I tell him he should try and understand Katniss a little bit more. Somewhere, I hear that Katniss has recovered. I remember that she can't talk. I think it has something to do with the Quell.

I drink more. I look at the ceiling and I see a white bear moving among thirteen stars. I hear Prim ask her question. I tell her that it doesn't matter. How could it matter?

Images swirl into each other. I have lost my balance entirely. No one comes to take the booze away, or if they do, someone else comes and replaces it. I want to stay drunk. I want my mind to not make any more connections. I let the bear walk through the stars. My mind is much blanker than it usually is.

I start to see the bear, even when my eyes are closed. I start to dream of it. I see Beetee riding it, pulling back uselessly on the reins. I see Gale feeding it.

I drink more. I need the bear to vanish. I start sleeping with a knife again.

My mind slips back comfortably into an older time. I am at my house. Next door, Peeta is painting at all hours of the night. He isn't bringing me bread anymore. I'm not sure why. I hear that Katniss is pouting, not talking to anyone. I decide drunkenly that it must be about Gale and Peeta. The whole rebellion counting on her -- Plutarch visits me all the time and says they need her -- and she won't even talk. I figure she'll come to me. She always comes to me with problems. I don't know why.

So I am not surprised when something touches my leg, reaches me in the alcohol-induced stupor. This isn't enough. A moment later I am doused in cold water, and I open my eyes. Katniss is standing above me. She says, "Haymitch."

"Oh," I say. "You."

Her voice is shaky, but it's there. Her eyes are wide. Something in my mind says that I've forgotten something, but I can't get hold of it. "Haymitch," she says again.

"Listen to that," I say. "The Mockingjay found her voice." I laugh. "Plutarch's going to be happy." I reach for a bottle. I am shivering, and I can feel the real world lurking far too close to me. "Why am I soaking wet?"

"I need your help," she says.

Of course she does. "What is it, sweetheart? More boy trouble?"

Suddenly, her face goes pale and she makes an awful, wounded, choking sound. Everything comes back.

Everything.

The bombs.

Prim.

The bear and the stars.

She doesn't have boy troubles. She has almost been killed in an explosion that killed the one person she admits to loving. "Okay," I say, and I hear the slur in my voice. I am disgusted. So is she. She runs for the door. "Not funny. Come back!"

But she's gone.

I try to stumble from my bed, but I am tangled in the sheets and disoriented and ashamed.

I sit on the floor, in the midst of a forest of empty bottles, and I pick up my knife.

I look at the knife for a long time.

Then I put it carefully down on the dresser, change my clothes, and go out to look for Katniss.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-One
I stumble down the hall, thumping against walls and doors, calling for her. She hasn't been particularly careful. A bit of burned hair is caught on a door hinge here, a vase left askew there. Even I can handle tracking this simple.

It doesn't take long to find her. She has buried herself in silk sheets in a closet, and she doesn't even seem to see me standing in the door, though her eyes are open. I watch until she falls asleep. She seems happy here. Who am I to argue?

I stay there a long time, looking at the singed hair on her head, the burn scars on her arms where they poke out of her cocoon.

The scars seem like they've faded too quickly. Her hair is growing again. A fluttery, nervous wave passes through me.

I have spoken to her recently. I'm sure of it. I'm not sure when. The closet sways along like a boat in my mind, tossing us on a furious, wine-dark sea. Islands of memory try to come up.

Something is wrong here. There are too many islands, and they are too far apart.

I need to talk to someone, but I can't leave Katniss alone. She needs to be watched, and I don't know where Peeta is, so somewhere in the small hours of the morning, I go to Paylor, up by the greenhouse. She promises that her people will keep a guard, then says, "Are you ready to sober up, Abernathy? Or can we look forward to a few more weeks of this?"

"Weeks?"

She sighs. "Weeks. After the first week, no one even bothered to try and rouse you. You've been up and about a little bit -- do you remember about Snow's trial?"

I try to form a memory. Sitting in command while words floated around me. Going to sit by Katniss, either in her room or at the hospital, and trying to express that Snow was going to die. It's there. Somewhere in the mist, I know those things happened. But if asked to pinpoint just when, I'd be lost. There has been no time.

I sit down, put my head in my hands. The room seems to swim around me. "I've never been out for weeks before. I didn't know. I thought it was only a few days. It's never more than a couple of days." This may not be true. There were times after the Games when it might have been weeks. But it hasn't been that way for years. And I was doing all right. I'd been dry for months.

And then you started drinking, I remind myself. You were doing fine, then you started drinking, and it's your own damned fault, because you did it to yourself, as surely as if you climbed the hanging tree. All because you didn't want to see…

I close my eyes, but it's useless. I see Prim's breath in the moonlight, the panel leaning against the wall. I think of Gale being sent away. And about the traps he made with Beetee. Especially about those.

Paylor sits down on a foot stool and makes me look up. She runs her finger back and forth in front of my eyes, then gets one of her soldiers. "Find one of the District Six medics, and Mr. Abernathy's friend, if you can find her -- the one who's been trying to get in. We might have a bigger problem than booze here."

"Katniss wanted to talk to me," I say, after the guards leave. "She needed me, and I was drunk."

"She had a chat with our friend," Paylor says, nodding toward the greenhouse. "She said she found what she was looking for."

"What was she looking for?"

"The same thing you were when you got sidetracked by the contents of Snow's cellars," she says bitterly. "The same thing I was when I got kicked out of Command. That hovercraft."

The image of the bear walking among the stars comes into my mind again. And the panel. And Delly saying that somewhere in fabrication, where they painted things, there was a room with a Capitol flag.

And Beetee's notes.

Beetee's damned notes. The traps, the tricks. Gale's hunting strategies, the ones Beetee thought were so sadistic no one would use them.

The Capitol was an arena, full of Gamemakers' tricks, but I didn't think about the last one. I couldn't.

Because it didn't make sense.

At least not for Snow. Not for the Capitol. There was no strategic sense to it at all for them.

For us, on the other hand… for my side… for my own people…

I get up, wanting to go back to my room, wanting to start drinking again. I can't think this. I can't think it or I will go crazy. I'll have no choice. I've managed to absorb a lot without cracking, but this is beyond me. This is my whole adult life. This is everything that's mattered to me since I held Maysilee Donner on that hill, as she shook and thrashed her life away. This is me screaming into the wind that I'd take them all down, that they'd pay.

And they have, haven't they? More dead children in an instant than in a decade's worth of Games.

Paylor catches me and sits me back down easily.

"You need to wait for the medic," she says.

The medic arrives five minutes later, and in his wake, Effie.

I've left her alone for weeks.

Paylor stands up and lets Effie take the stool. She grabs my hands. "Haymitch, I've been so worried! I told them you needed detox pills, but they said that you couldn't have them. That it was against the law. They wouldn't let me in to see you. I thought you were trying to hurt yourself again!"

"I'm sorry," I say, though I'm not sure which of those things I'm apologizing for. Effie stands up, leans over, kisses me. I can't look at her. I'm ashamed to look at her.

"Miss Trinket," Paylor says, "I need you to go to Haymitch's room. Get me as many of the full bottles as you can. And at least one empty. I'm sure there's one around."

Effie nods and scurries off.

The medic looks around furtively, then shoves four detox pills into my mouth. He picks up a light and shines it in my eyes, and I think about Prim Everdeen saying, "You're in shock, Haymitch. I told you to stay warm."

Prim is dead. She burned up a day after telling me that we needed to put the fires out.

She burned up in a bombing that was a trap -- a small explosion to draw the rescuers, then a big one to kill everyone.

I try to force my mind off the path. It won't leave.

There is a lot of poking and prodding and blood-drawing, but the medic seems to know what to expect. He has brought exactly what he needs for testing. It takes him less than ten minutes to discover enough morphling in my bloodstream to keep Berenice Morrow happy for a month.

"I don't take morphling," I protest.

"It just spontaneously appeared in your blood, then," the medic says dryly. "It's a medical miracle."

Of course, it isn't. Effie arrives a few minutes later with one full bottle. "The rest of it is gone," she says. "Someone must have been in to clean."

"I'm surprised they left anything," Paylor says.

Effie rolls her eyes. "I know where Haymitch stashes bottles in the Capitol. There's always one more in case I try to cut him off. This one was in the toilet tank. They must have found the one behind the heating grate."

"Give it here," the medic says. He takes the bottle and pours a little bit onto a white cloth. Then he takes out a bottle of clear liquid and puts two drops of it onto the cloth. The drops turn a deep plum color. He grimaces, hands the bottle to Paylor, and says, "Dump it. Not into anything that will go into the water supply." She takes it and goes to a side room.

"What does that mean?" I ask.

"Paulin Gibbs used to do this deliberately," he says. "But I have a feeling it was done to you. You're either lucky or so used to poisoning yourself that it doesn't faze you."

"No one did anything to me. I started drinking. It's my fault."

He shakes his head. "They laced it with liquid morphling."

"Who did?" Effie asks.

That's a question I don't need to ask. "Why would they, though? I don't know anything. I didn't ask anything. I didn't do anything. I haven't said anything to anyone."

"Would you excuse us?" Paylor says, coming back. "I need to talk to Mr. Abernathy."

The medic leads Effie out. She keeps looking over her shoulder, so I give her a signal -- a kind of nondescript wave -- that I hope she interprets as, "I'll be right along."

Paylor sighs and leans against a desk. She is dressed in ragged, ill-used clothes, her limbs bruised and scarred. Her sidearm holster is worn to nearly nothing from constant use. "There are a lot of people asking questions. Beetee is keeping his head down. Rumor has it that Gale Hawthorne demanded to know about the bombs. He said it was like an idea he'd had. Coin told him that he was being insubordinate. He made the mistake of telling her she owed him answers. Coin does not like being told what she owes. The next thing anyone knew, Hawthorne was off in District Two. He was still changing the dressings on his bullet wounds twice a day when they sent him. He's back now, but he's behaving himself. You'd gotten quiet. You were keeping an eye on Beetee. Someone took pre-emptive action."

"The bombs were ours," I manage to say.

"Officially, I don't know. Officially, there's no word. Snow swears he didn't have any reason to drop bombs on his own citizens and break his own base, but who knows? He may have made a huge blunder and is playing one last game with it. I wouldn't put it past him. Maybe Coin is just shutting up people who question her by habit."

"Has she denied it?"

"When I went to see her, she said she shouldn't have to deny it to someone who is supposed to be in her upper command structure. Take that however you want to."

"I don't want to take it at all."

"Me, either," Paylor admits. "I think -- "

But what she thinks, I don't find out that night, because I am summoned abruptly to Command, practically frog marched by one of Coin's assistants. I pass Effie on the way. She is being led off as well, and the people doing it better hope that they're not taking her anywhere I don't approve of.

The Command staff is around the table, in varying states of wakefulness. Beetee seems most normal. I'd wager he was up working on something and didn't even realize what time it had become. Gale looks like he's fighting to keep his eyes open. Others are asking for coffee. Plutarch has brewed a pot of it, but he's keeping it for himself and constantly refilling his cup.

Coin herself looks quite perky, happier than I've seen her. Apparently, executing beauticians puts quite a spring in her step.

"Well," she says, "I understand our mockingjay is talking again."

"She's still pretty shaken up," I say.

"And her mentor has managed to crawl out of a bottle, how delightful." She gives me a disgusted look, then continues. "As you know, I've been waiting for Soldier Everdeen to recover enough to perform the execution of Coriolanus Snow. Once that's done, everything left is clean-up. That will be the final Games-based execution. The trials of Capitol liaisons in the districts have been completed. We will allow the districts to choose their own modes of punishment. I want to have the Mockingjay prepared for the execution by noon. Heavensbee, you see to it that the filming and broadcast are impeccable. There are people all over Panem waiting for this. I get word every day that people are looking forward to seeing the Mockingjay kill Snow." This must gall her, but she limits herself to a patronizing little smile. "Soldier Abernathy, you and Miss Trinket, as always, will get her ready. Miss Trinket is being taken to prep as we speak, and we are retrieving Soldier Everdeen's team from District Thirteen as well. They have been granted pardons for their service to the Rebellion."

"Don't you think it's a little soon?" Gale asks. "If she just started talking today..."

"I believe this has been delayed quite long enough. If she has broken through her self-imposed muteness, then the rest can certainly be handled medically." She looks at Dr. Aurelius, who glares, but nods. "Very well, then. Beetee, Hawthorne, prepare the Mockingjay's weapons. Everyone else, you are assigned to making sure that every citizen of the Capitol is there in the square to watch the execution. They will cheer." She gets up and straightens her papers, then says she has "further district business" and dismisses us. I go to Katniss's suite of rooms and sit there, smelling the high stink of the burn ointment that has permeated the whole place.

Coin does not want to give her time to recover any further. Paylor's guards find me and tell me that Katniss has woken up and they are bringing her here. I draw her a bath. I don't know which of the many things in here she likes, so I just toss in some honeysuckle scented bubbles. I assume she'll want a bath, and even if she doesn't, her prep team will insist on it. There is a white rose in her bathroom, opening in the steam. It's one of Snow's, I'm sure. I don't know why she has it. Aurelius comes by with pills for both of us -- more detoxers that he slips me quietly, then a handful of stimulants and mood stabilizers for Katniss. There's also a tray of food.

When the guards bring her, they leave her with me. "Katniss," I say. "I'm sorry. About yesterday. I--"

She sees me now. She knows I'm here, which is a step up from last night in her closet. But she looks away quite deliberately. I don't blame her.

"Talk to me, Katniss. Call me names. Do whatever you need to."

She doesn't do anything.

"You need to take your pills," I say. She obediently takes them, still not looking at me. "Katniss..." No response. I shake my head. I deserve it. "Go take a bath."

She pads off without argument, and a minute later, I hear the splash of the water as she steps in.

I wait for any other sound. I'm not sure what. I feel like she should have supervision in a tub deep enough to drown in, but I'm not going to go in.

Effie solves the problem. She arrives a few minutes later with Venia, Octavia, and Flavius, and we send them into the bathroom. Effie herself has been done up in her usual Games fashion. She is wearing a heavy gold wig, shiny shoes, and a smart black dress with oversized golden buttons. She's even managed to get her makeup on properly. Either that or Katniss's preps did it.

"It feels good to be in nice things again," she says vaguely, and I wonder if they've discovered the wonders of chemistry in controlling her as well.

I reach out and touch her face and she looks at me fondly, but without any of last night's concern, let alone anything of the days we spent in her apartment after we pulled her out of prison. "I'm sorry I disappeared, Effie," I say.

"It's all right," she says, and wanders over to Katniss's window. "Everything's very strange, isn't it? I don't really understand it all. But they told me Katniss needs me to be normal. Am I normal, Haymitch?"

"Yeah," I say. "Yeah, sure you are."

She nods and watches the snow melt, then says, "Oh, dear, I almost forgot. You're to report to the ground floor. There's a staging area near the balcony. You need to be prepped."

"What do I need prep for?"

She turns and smiles. "Well, you can't very well show up on camera in clothes you've slept in, and they'll need to make you up a little bit, at least. You're practically yellow."

She doesn't offer further conversation, and I leave to go down to the staging area. Some of the production workers are there. They give me a military uniform, but tell me to wait to put it on until I've been prepped. At least it's not as extensive as a Games prep. They just give me a shave, comb my hair, and dust me with something that presumably makes me look less sallow. I am just finishing getting dressed when Peeta comes in, already in a uniform, looking confused. He still has an angry burn mark on his forehead, and they haven't tried to cover it up. His eyebrows are singed off, but I can see a few brave hairs trying to re-grow already.

"Haymitch, what is this?" he asks as we're herded into a conference room, where a small, shiny table sits in a bar of pale winter sunlight.

I don't know. Technically, we do both hold a rank in the army, as does Johanna, who appears after us, and Beetee, who is wheeled in. But Annie Odair was certainly never military, and as far as I know, she can't inherit Finnick's rank. And when Enobaria saunters in wearing a rebel uniform, my confusion is complete. She might not even have been on our side.

"Looks like a little reunion," she says. "Who's missing?"

"Who isn't?" Johanna asks, and puts herself protectively in front of Annie. Annie actually seems relatively serene.

"Katniss isn't here," Peeta says.

Beetee pulls himself up to the table. "She's coming. She's in prep."

"Well, then, that's everyone," Enobaria says. She looks around at the rest of us. "Didn't you know? We're the last seven victors."

"In the Capitol?" Beetee asks.

"Anywhere," Enobaria says, smiling tightly. "Makes me feel lucky just thinking about it."

I close my eyes. Like Beetee, I'd really convinced myself that Plutarch's little show before Coin locked us up in the mansion was just the handful of us who happened to be in the Capitol. It wasn't.

"This is really it?" Peeta asks.

"Yeah," Enobaria tells him. "Between the arena and the fight at the Viewing Center, we lost thirty before the war started. Of course, Finnick" -- Peeta winces -- "and Lyme, in District Two. I always liked her. Others in the war. Both sides. After that? Executions. Plain old murders. Vengeance." She says this dispassionately, then looks out the window. "So, yeah. Fifty-two down. Seven left."

"They killed Caesar, too," Peeta says. No one quite knows what to make of that non-sequitur. "Why aren't we dead?"

Johanna shrugs and sits down. "You're not dead because Haymitch dragged you through a war zone to a sponsor's house. Haymitch isn't dead because he's too ornery to die. Katniss isn't dead because there was no way in hell they were going to let her die. The rest of us? Who knows?"

"I know," Annie says. "I'm alive because I need to be." She doesn't elaborate.

The door opens and Katniss comes in, dressed as the Mockingjay. In the past, this has looked rather fearsome. Today, she looks like a small child playing dress-up. Her preps have done some kind of magic on her hair and covered most of her scars. She's carrying a glass of water with the white rose in it.

We have the same conversation again -- about being the last of the victors -- and Beetee elaborates on the targeting. I guess he's been working on this. When he points out that the rebels have been targeting Capitol sympathizers, Johanna wrinkles her nose at Enobaria and says, "So what's she doing here?"

Alma Coin chooses this point to come in. "She is protected under what we call the Mockingjay Deal. Wherein Katniss Everdeen agreed to support the rebels in exchange for captured victors' immunity. Katniss has upheld her side of the bargain, and so shall we." She gives Katniss a rather smug look at this, probably a reminder that the deal is still in effect on both sides. Katniss doesn't notice the implied threat, as she is distracted by Johanna's subsequent promise that she will personally kill Enobaria. This is old news. Johanna and Enobaria aren't exactly friends, but this kind of thing is their version of a friendly conversation.

Coin loftily calls the meeting to order, as if we'd been just waiting for her to arrive before daring to talk about anything.

"I've asked you here to settle a debate," she says. "Today, we will execute Snow. In the previous weeks, hundreds of his accomplices in the oppression of Panem have been tried and now await their own deaths."

This takes a minute to sink in with me. I've been paying attention to the Capitol, to the executions of Games workers. It never occurred to me that she's been doing this all over the country. I wonder if those hundreds of people really are still alive, or if they've already disappeared somewhere.

Coin catches my look, and I carefully rearrange my face, before she decides to force feed me some new drug. "However," she continues, "the suffering in the districts has been so extreme that these measures appear insufficient to the victims. In fact, many are calling for a complete annihilation of those who held Capitol citizenship."

Genocide. She is talking about genocide. I don't know who in the hell she's been debating with. I know it's not me. Judging by the look on Beetee's face, this is the first he's heard of it as well.

It must be her cabal from Thirteen. And maybe some of the lunatics who've been executing victors in their own districts. The leaders of Panem.

Of my side.

She assures us that this would make it impossible to keep up a viable gene pool, so of course, we don't want to do it. No other reasons for abstaining come up.

"So, an alternative has been placed on the table. Since my colleagues and I can come to no consensus it has been agreed that we will let the victors decide. A majority of four will approve the plan. No one may abstain from the vote."

I sit up straighter, on alert. There's no reason to consult victors in particular unless it has something to do with the Games, and nothing is supposed to have to do with the damned Games anymore.

Katniss is staring at her rose. Peeta is staring at Katniss. Johanna doesn't seem to care what's going on, and neither does Enobaria. But Annie and Beetee are alert as well. Whatever Coin has in mind, I doubt she's worried about a consensus. She never has been before. Whatever she is planning to do, it's bad, and she means to blame the remaining victors for it.

"What has been proposed is that, in lieu of eliminating the entire Capitol population, we have a final, symbolic Hunger Games, using the children directly related to those who held the most power."

This gets everyone's attention. Johanna says, "What?"

Coin repeats herself, as if Jo were really asking for clarification.

Peeta looks lost. "Are you joking?"

"No. I should also tell you that if we do hold the Games, it will be known it was done with your approval, although the individual breakdown of your votes will be kept secret for your own security."

This has a horribly familiar ring. A Gamemaker's ring. I close my eyes. "Was this Plutarch's idea?"

I am grateful when she tells me that it wasn't. It was hers. "It seemed to balance the need for vengeance with the least loss of life. You may cast your votes."

I don't really listen to the votes. Peeta is furious. That's not a surprise. I wonder if he realizes that voting against the Games is voting for genocide. She hasn't given an option in which she does nothing. She has turned the whole thing into a debate on whether or not to hold the Games, and if we vote no, she will say, "What a shame. The victors decided to kill a million people instead of just twenty-three." If we vote yes, she will declare that we -- the people who risked everything to stop the Games -- have decided to hold them again in retaliation. Sooner or later, we'll be held responsible for the outcome, and that will take us out of her power equation. I imagine her sighing with her fake regret, saying, "I'm sorry to lose them, of course, but the people are demanding their blood, after what they did. There's just no choice." Maybe she'll even choose to hold another "symbolic" Games to get us to do her dirty work for her.

Either way, that's how it will end. It's just a question of which crime we want her to commit on our supposed behalf.

Coin herself obviously wants the Games. She is practically salivating at the thought of holding her very own version of them.

I wish I could believe that Johanna and Enobaria vote yes to stop an even bigger crime, but they're both pretty clear. They want a little payback. Jo even recommends Snow's granddaughter. I doubt that, if she saw the pretty little nine-year-old girl with her long black ringlets, she'd stick to it... at least I hope she wouldn't. Enobaria just plain doesn't care.

Beetee and Annie and Peeta are adamant that we not start the Games again. They don't address the issue of the mass murders that are the alternative. Maybe they think she won't go through with it, despite the escalating scale of executions.

The vote comes to Katniss.

I look at her.

She is staring at Coin, and I know she's seeing a bigger picture than any of the others. She's heard the whole question, or at least most of it. She knows that we are being thrown into the fire again, sacrificial offerings to keep the flames raging. She knows that Coin will not stop at one Hunger Games. How can she, when the Games have always been as addictive as morphling, dangling hope in front of people like a shiny apple, even if they know, somewhere in their minds, that the apple is poisoned? But here is Coin, the wicked witch of every fairy tale, ready to hold it out again.

For a long time, Katniss just stares. She doesn't look at me, but I feel everything in what she says is aimed at me: "I vote yes. For Prim."

This is met with utter silence. The vote is tied. I don't know what the others are thinking, but I look at Katniss. I look at her face, unreadable to most people. Her eyes are cast down at the table. She has shut everyone out.

"Haymitch," Coin says, "it's up to you."

I know it is. And I know what it will mean.

Because I know what Katniss means to do. I know it with absolute certainty. She could have just said yes. But she didn't. She voted for it for Prim. She knows what happened, and she knows what Coin is. And she needs me to know that she knows.

Prim's last wish -- at least the last wish that anyone knew about -- was to put out this fire, not spread it. Katniss might not have been there to hear it, but she knew her sister. Her vote is for Prim.

But not in the way that Coin will hear it.

Coin has just heard the one thing she has wanted from the start: an obedient Mockingjay. She will now assume Katniss is on her side permanently. She will be compliant. She will not be careful. She has tamed her mockingjay after all. She will have nothing to fear.

I can feel her waiting for my vote.

If I vote no, I doubt it will change what Katniss means to do. She'll just feel completely alone when she does it. Worse, it will put Coin back in a temper, maybe make her more careful than she would be otherwise. Peeta is haranguing me, begging me to vote no, to keep my soul.

It's too late for that.

"I'm with the Mockingjay," I say.

Katniss and I don't look at each other as Coin cheerfully jumps to her feet and declares that it's time to take our places for the execution. Wouldn't want to miss our cues, after all. Katniss is pulled away by producers. I even catch a glimpse of Effie, though I want to make sure I'm not near her right now.

"How could you?" Peeta asks. "Haymitch, after everything, how could you -- "

I turn on him, wait until the bustle of the room covers everything I say. "Listen, Peeta. There was never a choice. Do you understand me? There wasn't a choice."

"There's always a choice!"

"There is now. Katniss is going to create a choice." I look around. "Get toward the front. She's going to need you there."

"She just voted for -- "

"Peeta. Think. Use your brain, and think."

He goes still. Suddenly, he grabs the wrists of his uniform and pulls them harshly down against his skin, some of it still burned. He gasps at the pain. I try to touch him, but he pulls away.

Finally, he stops. He looks up, his eyes looking even wider than usual without his eyebrows to frame them. "Haymitch," he whispers. "Oh, Haymitch, they'll kill her..."

"I think that's her plan. She's not going to get her way. I'm going to take care of them," I say, nodding toward the guards. "You take care of her."

He nods, and weaves his way up toward the balcony doors. Crazily, someone asks for his autograph. He smiles and gives it before I turn away.

I head for the back of a cleared area, where an honor guard has assembled in an arc. They aren't just decorative. They're present to make sure no one tries to defend Snow. Their guns are at the ready. Each has a shiny knife in his belt.

Coin appears on the terrace in front of the mansion, and the crowd, apparently well-trained after a few weeks of re-education, cheers wildly. Katniss comes next, showing herself in profile with the bow raised. Her image is all over the screens that surround us in the shattered ruins of City Center. Finally, they bring out Snow and secure him to a post, just in front of Coin. He is a little bit slumped, and she stands on a podium so that she is above him.

Katniss raises her arrow. It looks like she really does mean to shoot Snow. She stares at him. On the screens, I can see that he smiles back wickedly, blood dripping from his mouth.

Katniss straightens her shoulders.

Raises the arrow only the smallest bit higher.

She fires.

Coin falls.

Snow laughs.

Everything falls into chaos.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Two
I grab the guard beside me, who is raising his sidearm, and hurl him into one of the others, grabbing his knife away from him. I am not fighting to kill -- there's been enough of that -- but I'll do it if I have to, if it means keeping Katniss alive. Somewhere above the fray, I see her on the screens. She bites at her shoulder, but Peeta gets his hand in and keeps her from taking her nightlock pill. Then I am drawn back into the fight.

Johanna appears beside me, wielding Gale's knife. I tell her to keep them alive if she can, and she responds by switching the knife's direction and butting a guard in the head with it. Some flash of motion catches my eye, and I see Annie dragging a guard back with her belt. She grabs him by the hair and slams his head into a wall, then takes his gun and holds it on another guard. On all of the screens, Katniss is screaming for Gale to kill her as she is dragged back into the mansion over the heads of people thronging up onto the terrace, but since he is intent on tackling a guard with a large gun pointed at her, I don't think he intends to play along.

It seems like a long time while it's happening, but I guess we can't really have been fighting long when Paylor's team emerges and starts breaking it up. There are no casualties, except the dignity of a large man who's apparently been taken out of commission by Tazzy Vole, who I didn't even see run in.

Well, the large man, and Coriolanus Snow, who is hanging dead on his post when Paylor gets the terrace cleared. I'm not exactly broken up about it. In fact, I don't care one way or another, which surprises me after all this time. Whatever made Snow a bogeyman was gone weeks ago.

Paylor runs up to the podium where Coin was standing and uses the microphone to order, "Heavensbee! Get the cameras on me!"

Plutarch closes the cameras on her, and apparently turns the volume up, because when she speaks again, it is so deafeningly loud that everyone forgets we're in the middle of a melee.

"ENOUGH!" she says. "We are not re-starting this war, not today. President Snow is dead. President Coin is dead. Katniss Everdeen will be tried. It will be done through legal channels. We aren't animals. We aren't going to turn on each other. I want every person in this square to go help someone else up and then go home, wherever that is. The following people report immediately to me, so we can get some kind of working government." She takes a deep breath and starts listing people. I make the cut, as do the other rebel victors and Gale and Plutarch and Fulvia. Enobaria gets a call, and looks surprised. Paylor also lists several commanders from Thirteen, members of her own staff, and a handful of Capitol civil servants who have managed to avoid Coin's purge.

I take her advice and help up the kid who I was fighting with. He looks bewildered, but then, we all do when they first throw us into the fight.

"Go back to camp," I tell him.

I wait until I see him moving, then gather myself and head for the main doors of the mansion. Peeta is already there waiting for me. A bloody bandage is wrapped around his hand. He doesn't explain it.

"They took Katniss," he says.

"I know," I tell him.

"No. Not Paylor's people. Coin's people. They took her before we could get anything organized. Effie got knocked out trying to get to her. They locked the door. I couldn't get through."

"We're not on separate teams," Paylor says, opening a door to the conference room beside us. There is still a cup of coffee on the table from this morning's meeting. "Come inside. We're all going to talk." She looks over my shoulder.

Peeta and I go in. Effie is sitting there, shaking. She has a bruise on the side of her face. One of her high heels is in her hand. She's holding it like a bludgeon. She blinks and looks up. "Haymitch... Peeta..." Her eyes go wide. "They took Katniss!"

"I covered it," Peeta says and sits down beside her. He calms himself by making a fuss over her. I join him. It seems like as good an idea as any.

The remaining people on Paylor's list wander in, looking dazed. Effie was not on the list, but Paylor sees that she's calming Peeta and me down and lets her stay.

The victors (and Gale) gather in the corner where we are. The people from Thirteen are knotted up by the door, glaring at us. The Capitol bureaucrats huddle protectively by the window. Paylor's rebels, mostly from Eight, are whispering urgently to each other.

Paylor goes to the head of the table. "I haven't had to do this since they took away my kindergarten class, but if you people don't mix on your own, I'm going to assign seats."

No one makes a move.

Paylor promptly starts counting us off, sitting us around the table so no one is sitting with peers. Even Effie is given a seat, between a soldier from Thirteen and one of Paylor's people. I am between a low ranking bureaucrat from the Capitol and Soldier McCanley, who I briefly remember meeting in the Command bunker during the bombing.

Paylor sits down. "Please don't make me do that again." She sighs. "Before our victors revolt, and with good reason, I want to address the situation of Katniss Everdeen."

"She murdered Alma Coin!" someone from Thirteen yells.

"Yes. We saw. And she will get a trial." Paylor looks at me.

"They all knew!" McCanley blurts beside me, gesturing vaguely at Peeta and Johanna, who are separated by two people on the far side of the table. "Why else would they all be there, ready to fight?"

"We're always ready to fight, honey," Enobaria says, standing up and baring her teeth.

Paylor doesn't look at Enobaria. She looks at me.

I turn to Enobaria. "Sit down."

I have no reason to believe that she'll obey me, but by some miracle, she does.

"Who knew what is a matter for the courts to determine," Paylor says. "As well as the question of motive, and of Miss Everdeen's mental state. She was ordered to fire the last shot of the war, and it will be the last shot. She is safe now, in the training center, and she will remain safe. Right now, we have a serious problem. There is a vacuum in the leadership -- "

"Aren't you leading?" one of the bureaucrats asks. "I thought you were leading us now."

"I'm running a meeting," Paylor says. "I will run for the position when the time comes, but this meeting is about establishing the legitimate government of Panem as of this moment. I don't have any expertise in the law, but I think Mr. Latier knows something about this subject?"

Beetee nods, but speaks uncertainly. "I can tell you the laws of Panem, but there was a regime change, and the laws of Thirteen were somewhat different."

"Where are they the same?"

Beetee squirms a little. "Unfortunately, both are rather murky about succession. Both called for the president to name a successor."

Paylor swears under her breath. "Did either have a contingency plan for emergencies, if the president was unable to act?"

Beetee closes his eyes, and I imagine him going inside his head and running his fingers over his vast internal library. He shakes his head. "Both governments strongly resisted clear lines, other than bloodlines, and quite honestly, even that was not entirely approved. There's always been a rumor that Snow had his son killed because he had some kind of legitimate claim and people liked him better. Coin died childless. Snow's granddaughter is nine. And missing, at the moment."

Johanna turns paper white, and I wonder if she's finally realized what she called for an hour ago. She says nothing.

"It probably wouldn't be a good bet, anyway," I say. "It would endorse one or the other."

A soldier from Thirteen gapes at me. "We just won the war for President Coin! How can you suggest that someone following her would be equivalent to someone following Snow?"

"Because she wanted to start the Games again," Peeta says, before I have a chance to point out that I never gave a rat's ass about Coin. "She was exactly the same. And maybe you ought to get that through your head."

"Maybe you ought to stop talking for your girlfriend."

"Katniss was right," Gale says. "If Coin was really talking about starting the Games again --"

Paylor slams a heavy tray down on the table. "No. We are not doing this. Not today. Not until we have a working, stable government."

Plutarch clears his throat. "If I may, Commander Paylor?"

"Please," she says.

He stands up. "I think we need to accept that what we create today will be temporary. If we sit in this room and impose a permanent government, then we are no better than our predecessors. I suggest that we create an ad hoc committee from the group you've called here to handle basic governmental responsibilities and set up elections -- not just for president, but for a legislative body with members to be elected from the districts, first order of business to create a workable constitution."

"That sounds a little sketchy," Beetee says. "We're going to have a government of the first twenty names Commander Paylor remembered?"

There is a strange quiet after this, then Effie giggles. Peeta catches it. The laughs are alone and aberrant for a moment, then it starts passing around the room, earning more goodwill than Beetee intended. It's an odd and frightened laugh, but it's a shared one.

"All right," Paylor says when it passes through her. "All right, it does sound sketchy, but we will choose an absolute date to end it. That day, the elections will be held, and we will pass into a new government. In the meantime, we have to keep the country functional, or we'll end up back at war. We'll want to make sure immediately that people know that normal, decent behavior is expected. Laws against things like murder and rape and assault are all in force, and will remain in force throughout the transition. Make it clear that we are not an anarchy."

Fulvia steps forward. "As a producer, I suggest that you maintain the practice you established here, of having representatives of all the factions as often as you can. And that we all make a particular effort to be seen and heard cooperating with each other."

"I'm not just giving in to you!" a Capitol bureaucrat squeaks.

"I said cooperating, not agreeing. And I think we can at least all agree that we need to get water running in the mercantile district, get the fires out in the woods north of District Eleven, and dispose of the dead in whatever way seems right to their districts! We can't just leave the body parts in the vault where the street cleaners dumped them."

There's no argument to be made with this, though I can't think why none of that has been done in the weeks I've been out. The only thing I can imagine is that Coin was so focused on her purge that she forgot to actually govern.

Paylor nods. "Is there anyone here who refuses to serve on an ad hoc committee?"

Gale raises his hand. "I... I shouldn't. I think I designed -- "

She cuts him off. "It's a matter for another time, and the fact that it weighs on you makes you ideal. You know what's at stake. Will you serve?"

He looks at his shoes and nods.

Peeta begs off, and is allowed to, on the grounds that he knows nothing about government, wants to watch over Katniss, and thinks he can be of more use helping on the ground, working with the people to try and calm them. "They're scared," he says. "I can do more to help them than I can help write a legal code."

I raise my hand. "Commander Paylor, I don't know anything about -- "

"I need you here, Abernathy." She glances in Enobaria's direction, and I realize that what she wants me for is keeping peace among the victors, at least. Good luck with that.

Two soldiers from Thirteen are allowed to leave, and one of the Capitol bureaucrats, though promises are exacted from all three of them to behave as role models. Effie smiles and says she knows she wasn't invited.

I shrug. "As a member of this committee -- whether I want to be or not, apparently -- I nominate Effie to keep us all on schedule and behaving right."

"That's not a bad idea," Paylor says. "Would you be willing to serve as a secretary and etiquette consultant? I think we all may be a little rusty, and it really does help to have some boundaries." She grins. "And heaven knows, we'll need someone to keep Soldier Abernathy on time."

The members who are excused leave. Peeta tells me that he'll be in the Training Center, as close to Katniss as he can get. I tell him to get whatever information he can, and I'll meet him there later.

"Mr. Mellark?" Paylor says. Peeta turns. Paylor smiles. "Do what you can to calm people down, if they'll let you. But don't put yourself in needless danger."

"Yes, ma'am," he says, and leaves.

I'd rather be going to look after Katniss myself, and possibly seriously injure whoever made her scream the way she was screaming on the screens over my head, but Paylor is right. Paylor is saying what Prim said: Someone has to put the fires out. Our unlikely little team of arsonists is all we have.

We start with Fulvia's priorities, creating an emergency response committee to work with the military and civilian forces in the Districts and the Capitol to deal with fires and other natural or war-caused disasters. Gale offers to head up a committee to bury the dead in the Capitol, and proposes a monument to them. This latter is deferred to the presumed incoming government. Beetee takes on infrastructure troubles, like downed power and communications. Annie, who has had a good relationship with the Capitol merchants during her saner moments, proposes a street clean up to get downtown working again. She's offered leadership of the committee, but says that someone else will need to do the heavy lifting.

"In a literal sense, anyway," she says. "I'm not taking any more physical tasks."

"You need to pull your weight!" one of the remaining bureaucrats says.

"I'm happy to help Panem," Annie says. "But my first responsibility is to my baby."

Johanna stands up. "I'll do any physical work Annie's supposed to do, plus whatever I need to."

"We can all pick some up," I say. "You don't have to do everything."

Paylor smiles broadly. "Thank you for sharing your good news, Mrs. Odair. I don’t know about anyone else, but I feel better knowing it."

"Me, too," Annie says. "And I mean to stay healthy and... right in my head. So I need to be doing the right things."

We move on to getting the schools running again, and the district industries, and a dozen other things I haven't ever felt the need to think about before. Committees are duly formed. I am somehow on one involving transporting refugees. Every hour, we release something on the news about a committee that's been formed. That's Plutarch's idea. He thinks that it will help if people know we're doing something. Paylor asks him to implement any other ideas he has for calming people down.

By the time we leave, he seems to have been proven right. People are dazed and wounded and deeply troubled, but on the street, it's quiet. Weeping shopkeepers are clearing broken glass. From the time Gale's committee was announced, people have been arriving to volunteer for burial and cremation duty, and Gale leaves us to take responsibility for them and get them organized. Johanna, who's on an entirely different committee (the one about district industries), goes along and starts to help. Annie pushes Beetee's wheelchair, and I walk along beside Effie, not holding her hand, though it occurs to me that I probably could at this point and no one would think twice.

We get to the Training Center as the sun sets, and find Peeta down in the lounge. He's obviously agitated, but he's made himself useful helping Ruth Everdeen, who is keeping herself busy checking and changing bandages on outpatients' wounds. She finishes securing a bandage on a small boy, then comes over to us, looking lost. "Haymitch, what is it? What is happening here? I had to keep them from taking my girl to prison. I had to say she was crazy! Is she crazy, Haymitch? They won't let me see her. What happened this morning?"

"We need to find a private place to talk," I say. There really isn't much here. The lounge is full of tired-looking soldiers and stunned civilians. Effie goes to the guards to try and get us permission to see Katniss (Ruth bitterly wishes her luck). I finally steer Ruth to the elevator, signal to Peeta to join us, and take us down to the training level.

I don't think twice about the rows of weapons on the walls or the human-shaped training dummies that still wait mutely in the shadows. I've seen them for years. Peeta has seen them twice and isn't particularly disturbed. Ruth puts her hand over her mouth and gags. "This... this is..."

"Think of it as a gym," Peeta says.

"A gym where they practice murder?"

He nods. "But still a gym." He sits on a bench beside the weights, under a wall full of throwing knives. "This doesn't seem to be the best place to talk without cameras," he tells me.

"Plutarch's the only one who'd think to get a feed from down here, and he knows."

"Knows what?" Ruth asks.

"Why Katniss killed Alma Coin."

It is a long conversation, a confusing one, trying to untangle all the threads that led to this morning, all the choked up allegiances that Katniss's arrow cut through this morning. Peeta tells her about the meeting, about Coin's desire to re-start the Hunger Games. I turn over in my head whether or not to tell her the truth about the rest. About the double-exploding bombs, and the panel that was taken off of our hover craft.

In the end, I tell her. I feel she is owed the truth about what killed one of her daughters, and has turned the other into a prisoner. I stress that it's not something we should talk about until we have proof.

She goes still and quiet as I speak, sitting primly on a weight bench, and I think I may have made a mistake, that I may have sent her into another tailspin. When I finish, she stands up, her eyes dull.

Then she grabs one of the throwing knives from the wall and rushes at a training dummy, stabbing it over and over, keening, yelling incoherently.

Peeta, who hadn't suspected about the bomb before, is still able to respond first. He comes up behind her and catches her wrist, gently prying the knife from her hand. She turns to him and starts weeping.

He hands me the knife absently and rocks her until she stops crying.

"What are they going to do to her?" Ruth finally asks.

"I don't have an answer," I say. "We're not going to let them kill her, but so much depends on..." I grimace. "On the politics."

"She was ordered to execute someone who was held guilty of the crime that you say Coin committed. So she executed the person who actually committed it. That has to be all right."

"We don't have evidence. There was no trial. There was no conviction."

"And there wouldn’t have been," Peeta says, dumbfounded. "How can you say that? If Coin really did that -- and I believe it -- then why would she ever have let herself be tried? Snow wouldn't have if he'd still been in power. He was sure never tried for anything when he was President."

"I'm not saying I agree. I'm saying that's what the argument's going to be. That she took the law into her own hands."

And she did, I realize. She's guilty as sin on this, and if we don't want to become Snow or Coin, we have to let her be judged by the rule of law.

I grind my teeth. The trial has to happen, but I'm not averse to using any legal trickery we can think of to get her properly exonerated. She deserves a statue in every town square, not a windowless cell.

"And what am I supposed to do?" Ruth asks. "You tell me that, Haymitch Abernathy. You tell me about the politics of how I'm supposed to not talk about what that evil woman did. Go ahead. Tell me to be quiet about who murdered my daughter."

I don't tell her anything of the kind. I just tell her to wait for evidence.

When we get back upstairs, Plutarch has arrived. He's re-wired the cameras in Katniss's room in the Training Center, and we watch her lying silently on the bed, dressed in a paper hospital gown.

"I need to see her," Ruth says.

"We're not being permitted," Plutarch says, grimacing. "I'm working on it. Right now, she's safe. She won't be if we start another war to get in to see her."

Katniss drifts to sleep. The only way to tell is that her vital signs are being monitored.

We are instructed by the guards to return to our homes. No one wants to go back to the mansion.

Annie puts an arm over Ruth's shoulders. "I have an apartment here in the Capitol. Well, Finnick did. I have the entrance code. Why don't you come stay with me? I know I'd feel a lot more comfortable having someone around who understands medicine right now."

"I... all right," Ruth says. "Thank you."

Peeta asks Plutarch if he has somewhere they can continue monitoring Katniss on visual. Plutarch and Fulvia have a video feed to their apartment at the lake (if it's still standing), not far from Effie's place. They offer to let him stay there. He accepts, claiming he sleeps better when he can check on her.

I go home with Effie. We don't really have much to say to each other tonight, but I'm glad to hold onto her until we're both ready to go to sleep. She goes to her room. I stay on the couch. We don't discuss this.

She gets up very early in the morning, agitated and shaking, convinced that the apartment building is going to fall down and no one will come to help us. She wants her pills, but she's out of them. Are they going to take her pills away?

She starts pacing the apartment, grasping at her little keepsakes, looking for her cat until I remind her that Solly Vole still has it. Then she sits down in her chair and cries inconsolably until she falls asleep again. When she wakes up, she remembers none of this. She is in better spirits by the time Paylor calls her and asks her to set a schedule of committee meetings. She does this before she even gets dressed, sitting at the table in her lacy blue robe with a glittery towel wrapped around her curls, calling committee members or sending out messengers for the ones who didn't leave proper contact information. She mutters about the necessity of this for a while, and I just stand at the kitchen sink, listening to her go on and feeling so relieved to hear her sounding normal that I almost cry. I stop myself by leaning over to kiss her mid-rant.

She smiles, keeping her eyes closed for a minute after we part. Finally, she takes a deep breath and says, "I need to finish the schedule. You're free for a three o'clock with the refugee committee, unless you have other plans?"

"I didn't have anything specific in mind. You just tell me where I need to be, and I'll be there."

"All right. I can get you space in the Training Center offices, so you can check on Katniss when you're done."

"Thanks."

"I'll try to get there while you're meeting with Moneta Brooks this morning --"

"With who?"

"Moneta Brooks. She's run a social services agency down near the docks for years, and she's been helping people find temporary housing. You'll want to talk to her about the refugees before you meet with your committee. I set it up while you were in the shower. I just assumed… did I overstep?"

"Nope." I look at her schedule for me, and I kiss her again. "Pencil yourself in sometime, though."

"Oh, I have you from supper on."

"Good."

"But we're both at work right now."

"In our pajamas."

"You should change. Moneta will probably expect a suit or a uniform."

I opt for a suit. I'm done with uniforms. Moneta Brooks turns out to be a fountain of information about who the refugees are and where they come from and where they might like to go, if they don't want to stay. I ask her if she'd join the committee meeting. I decide that everyone on the committee can vote for new members. Moneta is approved by six out of eight votes (the two dissenters are loyalists from Thirteen). I ask if we can also recruit some extra help, since the sheer numbers of people applying for travel permits will keep the nine of us busy until we die. The biggest problem will be the orphans. The Capitol has been artificially separating families for so long that a lot of grandparents, aunts, and uncles don't realize they have orphaned relatives, and many won't take them. Meanwhile, there's interest from district parents who've lost children in adopting Capitol children who lost parents, but the Capitol members of the committee balk at this, (probably rightfully) considering it an attempt to re-educate the children. Nevertheless, the kids need homes, and we take it upon ourselves to find them.

There's some discussion of whether or not Snow's granddaughter will show up in the flood of orphaned children, and what should be done with her if she does. I just hope she's smart enough to lie to all of us and get cleanly out of the Capitol, if that's what she wants to do. I have no ill-will against a curly haired little girl.

The meeting ends without a lot accomplished, though we at least agree on how many people we'll need to keep the travel station open several days a week.

No one is allowed to see Katniss that day, though we all watch her at Plutarch's. She's doing nothing. Paylor agrees to let our committees meet here, though some of our colleagues are less than fond of the environment.

Paylor herself is trying to work with the law enforcement teams from Thirteen who are managing Katniss's imprisonment. They think she is being held in luxury, being given full meals and all of her medications, though she has been refusing the morphling. Allowing visitors to someone who has quite publicly assassinated their president offends their sense of justice.

I go to Annie's place to explain this to Ruth. She doesn't take it well, though at least she doesn't stab anything. Annie has other visitors. This place was Finnick's den in the city -- the place where his less public business was conducted... the sort of business that became very public when he broadcast it in Beetee's airtime assault.

Apparently, the location was known to several of the "workers" in the area, though they didn't know he was in their line of work. He had come down before or after his "dates" to give them clean clothes, money for medicine, and food. They are now coming by on a regular basis to take care of Annie, and she is feeding and clothing them, and trying to convince them to try new careers. Tazzy and her friend Juniper are here, taking full advantage of the opportunity. Both are practicing moving around in demure business clothes, and Annie is trying to teach Junie to do her hair and makeup more subtly. Annie's hands are steady, and in the whole time I'm there, I don't see her cover her ears or try to hide once.

She walks me down to the ground floor. "There are so many of them," she says. "I never knew there were so many. Those poor children."

"Be careful Annie. They aren't all like Tazzy and Junie."

"And Finnick?"

"And Finnick."

"I know. I’m not naïve. And if I were, those two girls would make sure nothing happened, anyway. Not to mention Johanna, at least when she's not otherwise occupied with the various charms of District Twelve."

"Gale?"

"Partly. I don't know what's going on there. I don't think they're together, exactly. But I think she's enjoying his family, too. When I see the little girl, I think about the way Johanna was those first few days in the arena."

"That was an act," I say.

"Was it?" She shakes her head. "I'm not so sure anymore. Finnick was never sure. He always said he thought the act came later. Jo will never admit it."

"Finnick was the one who read her first."

"As strong. As determined. But not as a cynical nihilist, which is what she pretends to be." She smiles. "He never thought a person was weak just because she was afraid and cried."

I think of Finnick, and about his absence, and the image of the bloody trident comes into my head again. I make it go away. I won't make Finnick into a ghoul.

"Thanks for taking Ruth Everdeen in," I say.

"I wish I couldn't imagine what she's going through. But I'm very, very aware of what would happen to me if I lost my child after losing Finnick."

I kiss her cheek and head back to Plutarch's.

Paylor has set elections for February 1, a little less than a month and a half from now. Plutarch and Beetee are using the airwaves to encourage people to get involved -- to run for positions themselves or throw their support behind candidates. Plutarch is gathering actors to do a quickly staged play about a particularly exciting election that he's found somewhere in one of his historical tomes. He asks Peeta to act. Peeta declines.

I call Delly Cartwright over to keep him company, but it's not company he needs. She points out that all he wants is to see Katniss. "But if you have something else for me to do," she says, "I need it. I have nothing."

"Would you be willing to go back to Thirteen?" I ask.

"What?"

"Work with Dalton. He knows his way around there. Get everything you can on Alma Coin."

Delly nods. "Katniss had a reason, didn't she?"

"A few of them."

"Yeah. Me, too." She promises to head back on the first train, and contact Dalton as soon as she gets there.

The next day, Katniss's dependence on the morphling they've been feeding her for her injuries becomes clear. She has been refusing it, despite the deep lacerations on the new skin on her back. Around the middle of the day, she starts crawling around her room, searching the carpet for stray pills.

Ruth makes a plea for them to do something about the morphling problem. This gets a better response. I think they'd like to start cutting down on the cost of taking care of her.

Paylor is still working on getting people into the room without simply giving orders to people over whom she has no technical authority. She is also trying to quell vengeful demonstrations in the Districts. None of them, at least, seem angry at Katniss, but it's a tinderbox out there already, with embers under the fuel, waiting for a breath to start them up.

Around midnight, Peeta asks if Plutarch and Beetee can send videos into Katniss's room, as they were sent when he was held there.

"But I don't want to send anything bad," he says. "Just something to help her."

Plutarch promises to try, though Katniss, honestly, doesn't seem to recognize anything in her surroundings. She hasn't seen the people who've come up to clean, and has utterly ignored the occasional broadcasts on the television. She may as well be the only person in the world.

In the morning, Plutarch agrees to let Peeta send her something.

The something he chooses to send is the oddest thing I can imagine: a small painting of a dandelion, scanned and sent over the cables.

As I expected, Katniss doesn't register it. She doesn't even react when she passes the screen.

Peeta sighs. "I thought she'd know that one," he says. "I guess... I guess I can't help from this far away." He sits down miserably.

An hour later, Katniss starts to sing.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Three
Peeta hears it first.

His shoulders are slumped as he sketches half-heartedly in a fresh sketchbook someone has found for him. Little images of Katniss appear and disappear under his fingers until suddenly, he looks up, eyes wide, at the screen.

Maybe I have heard it as well. I'm not sure. But it's so soft, so afraid of breaking the silence that it just slips into the production booth like a sigh.

"In the deep, deep valley
In the tall, tall grass
lived a broad-shouldered miner
And his wee little lass..."

"I'll get Ruth," Annie says and slips away, stopping to look at the screen again briefly before she disappears. Katniss's voice is raspy and dry and weak, but she continues to sing.

"Said the wee lass, 'Oh, Papa,
in the dark, dark mines
Have you seen a sparkling diamond
that will glitter and shine?
Does it catch the little flame-light?
Is it clear like glass?
Does it shimmer like a river
in the tall, tall grass?'

Said the miner to his wee one,
'I might have seen a sign
of a little sparkling diamond
in the dark, dark mines.
It sparkled in the flame-light
and was clearer than glass,
But it wasn't worth a daisy
in the tall, tall grass.'"

"Haymitch..." Peeta starts, but doesn't say anything else. He just leans close to the screen, brushes it with his fingers.

Ruth arrives fifteen minutes later. She has set up a semi-permanent check-up booth for the wounded in the Training Center lounge, and is working herself ragged to keep her mind off things without actually leaving the building if she doesn’t have to. Apparently, this qualified as "having to." Her eyes go wide and she puts her hand over her mouth as she sinks into a chair. Katniss has gone into her sixth repeat of the valley song (she's interrupted it with aimless humming a few times). "She sang that with Glen," Ruth says. "They sang it back and forth to each other when she was little. What's happening?"

I can't answer. Katniss finishes this song, then draws herself a glass of water and starts singing, "Deep in the Meadow," then goes into "The Hanging Tree." She seems unaware of the songs. She is somewhere deep inside herself. When the cleaners go in to leave a new hospital gown and a meal, she drifts past them, unseeing. She's definitely not in her right mind, but something is happening.

We listen to her sing for a long time, then Annie asks us if we'd like to join her for dinner. She has been working with the restaurants in the mercantile district, and a few have opened. "I know no one wants to leave," she says, "but I think it's a holding pattern now. And she's safe." She bites her lip. "I'd really like to get out. With my friends. And they could use the business."

I don't think this will go over very well, but Peeta and Ruth were both raised by merchants, and understand the need for customers. Apparently, thinking of it as helping the merchants makes all the difference. We go out together. We talk about Katniss. We talk about bread, and elections, and a funny story that's been in the news about an actor who lost his pants in a bizarre escalator catch. ("He probably did it on purpose," Effie says. "He's always been a clown.") About an hour in, Gale and Johanna join us -- Annie must have called them -- and we fill them in on what's happening with Katniss, and they tell us about the clean-up crews.

Ultimately, we drift into the fits and starts of getting the entertainment business going again. Valerian Vale has been making noises about re-starting the old soap opera, Seagull Point, which was running the year I was in the Games and finally folded about five years ago. He wants to do some kind of next generation version, with all of the "exciting" changes in the Capitol, which we know means we've reached a real landmark: Now, pretty district characters will join in the brainless plots. We predict who the first fish-out-of-water will be. Johanna insists that it should be a misplaced lumberjack who likes to wander around naked. I point out that wandering around naked in Seagull Point is more or less what every character does. Mimi hated that.

"Who?" Gale asks when I mention her.

"Mimi Meadowbrook," Effie says. "A mutual friend of Haymitch's and mine. She… passed on a few years ago."

"I remember that name," Ruth says, but doesn't push it.

"Valerian was one of Katniss and Peeta's sponsors," I say, by way of steering the conversation. "He's a good guy. I hope this works out for him."

"You should write for it," Ruth says, grinning.

"What?"

"Danny told me you had better ideas for that show than they used."

"You watched a soap opera?" Johanna gasps, feigning shock. "My image of you is destroyed."

I make a rude gesture at her, then tell Ruth, "I don't write anymore. And I never wrote scripts."

"I think you should," Fulvia says. "You're a wonderful writer."

Given that she's enamored of poems I wrote as an angry adolescent, I don't take her praise seriously, but I thank her for it, and joke about contacting Valerian about a job.

Annie talks about "the children" -- the prostitutes she's been looking after -- and Fulvia tells us about her ne'er-do-well brother, who got out of debtor's prison and promptly got swindled out of the money she gave him. "I gave him my old apartment now. He doesn’t have the deed, so he can't sell it short".

I go home with Effie. We're back to me sleeping on the couch, and have been since I first came over. We haven't talked about the nights I didn't spend on the couch. I guess a few weeks of me falling back into the bottle has made her re-think that. She has made space for my things in her closet, but I don't have that many things. She says she'll see what's open in the fashion district while I’m working with the refugee committee tomorrow.

"Are we living together then?" I ask.

She smiles. "Well... you don't seem to be in any hurry to find your own place. And I like having you here."

"You're sure it's all right? I mean -- people do talk, and -- "

"I don't mind if they talk. They always talked." She looks at me shyly. "Besides, they're not really wrong, are they?"

I shake my head, then kiss her. That's as far as it gets, but that's all right. There's time for everything. The idea of having time to take on anything like this is a luxury on par with anything money has ever been able to buy.

Peeta calls before he goes to sleep at Plutarch's place. Katniss is still singing. "Dr. Aurelius came by to observe," he says. "He said we shouldn't get our hopes up for anything fast, but he thinks she's trying to find her way back to who she was before everything went crazy."

I sleep calmly, dreaming about the deep, deep valley and the tall, tall grass. There is bright sunlight, and daisies come up around me. I'm sixteen, and I'm with Digger, though she's wearing one of Effie's lacy dresses. Katniss and Peeta are around somewhere, but I'm not concerned about finding them. They're all right.

I wake up rested.

I drop by Plutarch's before I go to the train station. Katniss is singing a ballad about the last man in Adelaide. "Adelaide" is a girl's name as well as the name of a city, which gives the song a bawdy undertone, but I doubt Katniss would recognize it even if she were in her right mind. Plutarch and Beetee want to start the trial, but we can't do it without a government in place. Peeta offers to go with me to the station to help with the refugees.

"I just need to do something," he says. "Something that matters."

Plutarch gets an odd look on his face. I have learned that this look means he has some scheme in mind, and I am not surprised when Peeta and I get back in the evening to find that he has a room full of soldiers, Capitol citizens, and random children with winning smiles, all waiting their turns to get in front of a camera in the soundproof booth. Each has something very brief to say.

"It matters," Plutarch says momentously, coming up behind me and gesturing with his hands like he's pointing out an invisible banner.

"What?"

"It's the new campaign: 'It matters.' Fulvia and Cressida and I came up with it. We were thinking about that wonderful tape Katniss made, about when Peeta gave her the bread. I got thinking about it last night at dinner, and this morning, when Peeta said something about doing something that mattered, it all clicked. The bread mattered."

"It tends to when you're starving," I say, though I know he's not just talking about the food.

"It made a real difference in the long run. I'd put that little propo itself in, honestly, but with things being as dicey around Katniss as they are, I want to tone it down a little bit. So I'm asking people to come and just give us a sentence or two about something kind that someone else has done for them. They turned out in droves." Plutarch smiles. He is in his element. "I have another campaign planned, too. This one's Annie's. It's called 'I Choose Freedom.'"

"What's this all about?" Peeta asks.

"Elections."

"Are you running for something?"

"No." Plutarch looks around, then gestures us back into the sound area. "Coin wasn't wrong about how angry people are. Right now, they're as likely as not to vote in the exact people who wanted to kill everyone in the Capitol in the first place, and we'll be right back where we were, except that we'll have voted ourselves into it. We don't have much time to turn that around. I want to get people thinking about how to live together instead of how many more people they can kill."

"So we're back to trying to manipulate people?"

"I prefer to think of it as making an argument and giving them a clear option about what kind of life they want to create. We want to get them thinking about how to help one another, how to be their own better selves, rather than fanning up blame and rage." He sighs. "All right, yes. I have an agenda. But so do a lot of other people, and I'd rather win with mine. Mine's less dangerous."

"Putting out the fires," I say.

"An apt metaphor, considering how we started," Plutarch says. "Maybe I'll find a way to work it into the campaign. So, will you say something, Peeta?"

Peeta shakes his head, points to his healing but still visible facial burns. "No. I don't think anyone wants to look at me on television right now."

"You could talk about giving Katniss the bread!"

"No."

"Why not?" Plutarch asks, baffled.

I'm guessing it's because he knows how important that memory is to her, and doesn't want to turn it into one of Plutarch's political games while she's out of things, but I say, "Come on. It'll sound better if it all comes from the people who've been helped, rather than the ones who did the helping."

"Do you have anything?" he asks. "Effie thanked the little girl who saved her cat, and Beetee talked about how Wiress went and found him supplies when he'd given up on inventing something. I even got Johanna to cough up the story about the pine needles."

"You're not worried about her mentioning Katniss?"

"I think starting to put that kind of thing subtly into the message can only be good, as long as it doesn’t seem like we're trying to do it."

I almost refuse out of habit, but then I think again. I think about Coin saying that we could either re-start the Games or kill a million people. I think about the angry outbursts. I nod. I have something.

I wait my turn with the others. A little boy can't quite wait, and tells me how one of the Avoxes from the tunnels helped him find his parents, who'd thought he was dead in the bombing. Other people are telling each other stories as well -- lost keepsakes found for them, comforting gestures in the midst of chaos, water brought out when they were thirsty. My turn comes up, and I go into the booth. I say, "When I was tired and hurt, and carrying a boy who was nearly dead, a woman named Tryphaena Buttery opened her door and let me come inside..."

Plutarch and Cressida spend the night cutting together thirty-second bits, montages of what everyone has said, followed by the slogan, "It matters." These begin airing two days later, during evening programming. It quickly becomes popular. Plutarch starts receiving more clips from around Panem of people talking about little kindnesses done for them. He clips them together to add more to the regular schedule.

Another group creates a rival campaign, trying to say that "getting lost in the trivial" makes all the death and destruction "not matter." Plutarch wants to suppress it, but Paylor tells him to let it air. It airs. It has no impact at all, except to pave the way for the next campaign.

This one was Annie's idea. She is filmed at the lake shore (presumably doubling as the District Four coastline), and she is holding a basket of flowers. "My name is Annie Odair," she says. "When I was eighteen years old, I was reaped for the Hunger Games. My boyfriend at the time was beheaded in front of me. I only survived because I could swim. I fell in love with my mentor, Finnick Odair, who was prostituted by President Snow for years. I lost him in the battle for the Capitol. I was imprisoned here and tortured. I am angry." She crouches down and starts placing flowers on the lake. "But if I build my life around that anger, then I let all of those things control me, shape my life. I can be angry... or I can be free. I can't be both." She stands and looks at the camera. "My name is Annie Odair. I choose to be free."

Plutarch manages to get spots like this from many prominent rebels, Capitol citizens, and entertainers. He gets Winnow Robinson, now shuttling back and forth between Four and Eleven, to do one, burying her gun in the sand. Rue McKissack's family does one together, which ends with the video Caesar found of Rue dancing with Seeder in one of Seeder's free ballet classes while they say "We choose to be free" in a voiceover. Polly Dalton sits by a well-controlled campfire in Ten, feeding it her grievances. Baize Paylor builds a cairn of rocks from hers, and walks away from it. The young musician Julian Day introduces himself by his real name, Stephen Bregman, then talks about losing his family in the assault on the Capitol, then goes to sit by the lake and play a beautiful song on his guitar. Each segment mirrors Annie's, with the person re-stating his or her name and firmly declaring, "I choose to be free."

To my surprise, Peeta actually asks if he can do one. He has drawn his horrors, and he tears each of them and throws the shreds into the wind by the lake. He delivers the final line from outside the door of his old prison cell, which he shuts with finality before walking away. I go with him for the shoot, because the whole idea worries me. I don't know how he stands being in that room, but it doesn't even faze him. There's no shaking of his hands, no tremble in his voice, no frightening drift into his altered memories. He's just Peeta, putting all of it as far behind him as he can. Shortly after he finishes shooting, I see him having a long, quiet talk with Gale Hawthorne.

Through all of this, Katniss continues to sing. Dr. Aurelius is allowed in to see her, but she seems not to recognize that anyone is there with her. She goes to the window, looks out at the snow, and sings. Ruth is allowed in to try and reach her, but she fares no better, and the keepers do not allow further experiments. Ruth sits in the production booth and weeps. Nothing anyone can say makes a difference, and I can't think of anything that would. This is the same thing Ruth herself did to Katniss after Glen died -- not recognizing that anyone was in the world with her -- and it is no less painful to her than it was to Katniss.

I stop sleeping on Effie's couch.

There's no real decision, or any precipitating event. We just can't stay apart anymore.

I've never actually lived with a woman like this before -- there's always been someplace for one or the other of us to go after -- and I am surprised by how much sleeping actually goes on, and talking about trivial things (one night, we somehow spend an hour and a half talking about an old movie that's been on television), and lying beside her while she sleeps, playing with her curls. With Effie, of course, there is also a lot of worrying about our schedules. She is still Effie. I'm still me, and I still get frustrated with it, but I missed it so much when she was in prison that I don't mind nearly as much as I pretend to. She's there to make soothing noises when my nightmares come. I get her calmed down and back to sleep when she wakes up having a panic attack. It's a good arrangement.

Hazelle laughs at me when I complain that no one ever mentioned this to me, and tells me that no one on the outside is likely to understand it anyway. She tries very hard to make friends with Effie, and it's mutual, but in the end, they just have nothing in common except for me. I do come home one day to find them laughing uproariously about something which I suspect has to do with this common ground, as neither of them will tell me what it is.

Peeta gets his own apartment. One of the art professors from the university starts holding classes in the museum, and he signs up. He spends time with Aurelian, who is very uncomfortable at first, but then confesses that they are cousins. And that their grandfather -- Mir's father -- managed to get himself into trouble running a dice game in the park. Peeta's not naïve, and he does have the genetic tests run to satisfy himself that it's true, but he probably would have helped even if it weren't. If nothing else, the man was one of his sponsors.

In one of the odder occurrences I've witnessed, Ruth Everdeen decides to act on Mir's behalf (I can imagine the dumbfounded look on Mir's face) and scream herself raw at Justinian Benz… who turns out not to have been guilty of what we all thought he did. The whipping Danny took, the one that haunted me for a year, turns out to have been based entirely on a lie that Cray told Mir for his own amusement. Justinian and I both want to kill Cray, but apparently, he was in the Nut when it fell, and was not among the survivors. We have to settle for cursing him.

I don't think Peeta really bonds with the Benzes as family, but Aurelian, at least, seems to become his friend.

I visit Tryphaena Buttery, who weeps over my "It Matters" spot and tells me that it was all any decent person should have done. Effie and I invite her to our place for supper, and she is thrilled with the company. We start to track down the other Daughters, and I help them get the group going again. The ancient house they worked from was badly vandalized during the war, but it's structurally sound, and I find myself helping to rebuild it from the pieces left behind (as much as possible). It feels like keeping my childhood house together. Aquila Grant returns briefly, but declares that she has no need to live in the Capitol now that transportation and communication are open, and means to make her home in District Six, where she took her stand to fight with the rebels. She's adopted two orphaned children, and she takes the opportunity of the trip to give them history lessons at every site. She tells me that I'm at least starting to fulfill my potential. "But," she says with a smile, "I think we have a lot more to see from you, Mr. Abernathy. I think you will excel in peacetime."

The saga of Sweetheart the cat ends when Effie and I decide to buy the apartment next door to hers, which used to belong to a man who was killed in the war. It is ostensibly my place, but I stay with Effie, and the Vole girls move in. Effie makes the arrangement contingent on Tazzy going back to school as soon as we get the schools re-opened, and finding a new line of work. Tazzy is glad to oblige, and works hard with Annie to catch up on what she's missed. We cut a cat door in the wall, and Sweetie comes and goes as she pleases.

Apparently, Fulvia talked to Valerian about me writing for Seagull Point, because he calls me, full of enthusiasm for the idea. "Mimi would have loved it if I could get you on board!" I tell him that I can't concentrate on writing, and he sighs and says, "I guess not. But think about it, Haymitch. When things calm down. When was the last time you did something just for the fun of it?" I promise that I'll think about it, but I don't really plan to do much thinking. There are more important things to do.

Outside of our bubble, the elections are drawing nearer. Paylor is running for president against a bloodied rebel from Nine who wants to "finish the war once and for all" and a Capitol bureaucrat who isn't even bothering to campaign to the districts, which he identifies to Capitol voters as "the barbarians." There are also races for representation in the new legislative body. I lobby to give Twelve representation, even though no one lives there at the moment. Plenty of people are talking about going back and re-building, and there are nine big empty houses already there waiting for them. They try to shanghai me into running, but I have no intention of continuing my association with a command structure. Thom Lewiston, a miner who worked with Gale (one of the ones who helped carry him to the Everdeens' after he was whipped) is finally recruited to run, though no one can be cajoled, threatened, or bribed into running against him. Annie runs from Four, in the world's most good-natured campaign against a fisherman who used to work for her father. Most of the campaigns are not so amiable, and there is more than one case of the local law enforcement teams having to break up fights between the factions. These start to fade as people begin to commit to the idea of "choosing to be free," but they don't go away, especially in some of the harder-hit districts.

It's a week before the elections when Gale comes to the production booth. He has been in and out, keeping an eye on Katniss like the rest of us, but this time, he's in his full dress uniform and carrying Beetee's tricked out bow.

Peeta comes out. "Are you going to do it?"

"I don't know. It doesn't feel right to stop being angry. That's why Jo won't do one of these."

"It's a choice," Peeta says. "It's not saying you don't have a right to be angry, just that you're deciding to do better things. And you...you would make more difference than most people. You know that. Because they see you as one of them. The angry ones, I mean."

They look at each other for a long time, these two men who will probably never be real friends, but who have more in common than most lifetime companions do.

Gale nods. "All right. Yeah. Maybe it'll keep someone else from doing something that will follow them around for the rest of their lives."

"Maybe," Peeta says.

Gale turns to Plutarch. "Can we go up to the mountains?"

I don't go with them. I stay with Peeta, listening to Katniss sing. Her voice has gotten strong over the last month, though she still looks like she isn't really there. She's singing a love song now.

"We shouldn't be leaving her alone up there," Peeta says. "I don't care about the politics."

"She hasn't seen anyone who has been there," I point out. "Not even her mom."

"She feels alone, so she thinks she is alone," he says. "It's not right."

"I know. Have you talked to Aurelius about going to see her?"

"He says I could still be triggered. Make things worse." He sighs. "Haymitch, I don't think they can trigger me."

"The false memories are gone?"

"No. But I know how to recognize them. I didn't believe Katniss when she said I could just do that, but she was right. I can tell which ones are wrong. Which ones don't fit. When they come up, they just make me sad, not angry. I want the real ones back. And sometimes I still have to ask. Real or not real? It's mostly about things that are happening, though. I don't always trust that I'm seeing them right."

"I think you still see more than anyone," I say. I invite him to come with me to help with the refugees. He's good at getting people to feel better while they wait for the ad hoc bureaucracy to get them moving, and it seems to help him when he does it.

By the time we get back to Plutarch's place, he is cutting together Gale's "I choose to be free" spot. Johanna is there. I ask if she's decided to do one. She asks if I have. We both know that neither of us really knows how to function without being angry. Besides, I have a feeling Plutarch would decide I should start pouring out bottles of white liquor to symbolize letting go of my anger. I have so far managed to stay sober since the day Coin died, mostly by keeping busy and filling any downtime with worrying about Katniss or being with Effie or helping the Daughters, but having enough bottles around to suit his taste for excess would just be inviting trouble.

Plutarch and Gale come out. I notice that Gale isn't in his dress uniform anymore, but I don't think anything of it.

"We're going to focus this in Two," Plutarch says. "They love you there, especially after that stunt with the Head Peacekeeper."

"That wasn't a stunt," Gale says. "It was my job. I was supposed to be helping out. He had people trapped up there."

I have no idea what they're talking about, and neither of them clarifies. I have a feeling it's a major event that they expect me to know about, but I somehow missed with everything else going on.

Plutarch waves it off. "I'm also going to concentrate on Nine. I don't know what they're doing out there, but whatever it is, they need to knock it off. Fires in rival campaign offices. And that thing they did with their victors." He bats absently at the air around his head, like he's trying to swat an invisible fly, then cues up the video.

"I still don't know about this," Gale says while it loads.

"It's your brainchild. And it's good."

The spot comes on. It opens on a mountainside. Gale is wearing his dress uniform and carrying the militarized bow. I expect him to start shooting arrows off into the distance as he lists the things he should be angry about, but he doesn't. Instead, he sits on a rock and says, "My name is Gale Hawthorne. My father died in the mines when I was thirteen. My best friend was sent to the Hunger Games arena. My district burned to the ground, and more than eight thousand of the people I grew up with died."

He takes off the jacket of his uniform, revealing the plain tee shirt he's wearing now. "I went to District Thirteen, angry and wanting revenge. I was used, and I let myself be used. But I'm done with that now. I'm done spending my life thinking about everything that's wrong. I'm done trying to right things that can't be righted because they're over and done with. There's no one left to be angry at, and nothing can change what already happened, anyway." He pulls on a battered old jacket and switches out his military cap for an old knit one. I somehow doubt it's the one he actually wore in District Twelve, since he left in high summer and everything that was in his house is ashes, but it will pass. He sets down the militarized bow and picks up a simple hunting bow. "My name is Gale Hawthorne," he says again. "And I choose to be free."

He gets up and walks away from the rock, the camera following him as his uniform and the heavy duty bow fade into the background.

"So you're leaving the military?" Peeta asks.

"I'm going into civilian service as soon as we have a real civilian government." Gale shrugs. "I respect what they do. I'm glad they're around to do it. But I don't have any business doing it myself. Not when I'm still just trying to get payback."

"There's more to you than that," Johanna says. "How can you not know that?"

"You don't understand. About the bombs."

"Yes, I do," she says. "But you know what else I understand? You carried me out of prison on your back. I know I wasn't in the mission. The mission was to pull out Annie and Peeta to get Finnick and Katniss in line. I heard you arguing with Coin about that. You didn't know me. And in the condition I was in, you definitely weren't out to get anything from me. You did it because it was right. I hate that you don't see that."

Gale looks at her uncertainly. I honestly don't know what's going on between them, and I don't ask.

This is the last of the propos. It has an effect in District Two. Gale apparently did a lot of atoning while he was assigned there. Like everything else we've tried, it has no impact in District Nine.

Paylor wins the presidency fairly easily. She's been a very visible face, and people find her reassuring. In her acceptance speech, she swears that, whatever the new legislative body decides, she will not be president for life. She instructs them to work in a clear and concise law of succession.

District Nine is the only district to elect a warmonger. I really don't know what their grievance is, but the woman they send swears to her district that she will fight for the continued punishment of Capitol criminals. Districts Three, Ten, and Thirteen send hardened rebel soldiers, but with none of the incendiary rhetoric. District One actually elects one of its Capitol liaisons, and the Capitol, of course, elects one of its own. The rest of the districts seem to have gone for the more reasonable sorts. District Two sends the scarred man who Katniss talked to during the battle of the Nut. Annie is chosen for District Four, the only victor in the new government. Rue's father will serve for District Eleven.

Paylor brings them to the Capitol immediately. Because Katniss's case is pending and she has been in confinement with no conviction for so long, she instructs them to decide how to deal with her immediately.

It takes them three days to come up with the charges. She will be tried for murder, treason, and vigilantism. The trial will be presided over by a judge from Thirteen and a Capitol judge. Plutarch convinces them to drop the treason charge before the trial even starts, on the grounds that the government was not legitimate, and treason would be impossible to establish. "Treason to who?" he asks. "To the Capitol? To Coin? To the rebellion? Katniss Everdeen's act may have been many things, but it cannot be defined as treason."

That still leaves murder and vigilantism.

The subject of the debate continues to sing.

The trial begins.