This story exists as a companion piece to my other story, Borrow, Blood and Steel. It is centred around the Capitol's reaction to the alliance between Clove and Foxface.

Before you read this, go back and read up to Chapter 16 of Borrow, Blood and Steel, otherwise this won't make any sense whatsoever.

Done that? Good.

As always, I own only this piece of text, not the text it was based off. Reviews are always appreciated.

Seneca Crane was a very busy man. He had an entire city to look after, not to mention 24 murderous kids to keep an eye on. The problem wasn't that they were murderous- it was that they were kids. Crazy kids with stupid ideas. Already he'd had to deal with that troublesome couple from District 12. The girl was especially irritating. She had already escaped death at the Control Room's hand once, and was looking to form dangerous relationships. To make matters worse, the girl's mentor was just as annoying.

"Just give them something to root for." Were Haymitch's final words, the last time he had slipped into the control centre and seized Seneca by the arm, dragged him over to the wall and started begging for the Control Room to leave his precious tributes alone. Seneca had his hands tied, as it was. The people cried for blood- his President cried for blood. In reality, he had only two options; he could take matters into his own hands and put the action into the arena himself, or he could edit what footage the public saw. The former was often easier, but sometimes it made for more boring Games, and that would only serve to make things worse. After the first attempt, Seneca chose to let the Girl on Fire forge her own death. The girl drew a lot of attention, and the more he thought about it, the better keeping her alive looked.

For a while, the Arena seemed to be taking care of itself. There was only one fly in the ointment, one thorn in poor Seneca's side- a strange occurrence, unprecedented in previous Games- the vicious District 2 girl had run off with the elusive and quiet girl from District 5. At first, he let it be. It was a shaky alliance that was sure to dissolve, considering the cunning nature of the District 5 girl and the sadistic predisposition of the girl from 2.

As time passed, Seneca became more and more concerned. The two girls were getting far too close for comfort. It was evident that the alliance between the two was serving a purpose beyond mutual protection and survival. From the footage he had seen, they genuinely appeared to like each other. The girl from 2, in particular, had significantly softened up. Those who had bet hefty sums on her were beginning to get restless, and rightfully so. District 2 had let her guard down and was letting the girl from 5 do all the work. He couldn't let people see this. He had said in his interview with Caesar that the point of the Games was to bring the districts together, but he didn't mean it like this. Whenever a shot of the two girls was broadcast, the Capitol was met with a bitter reception from District 2. He had received notices of recall of sponsorship. As far as the district was concerned, they had been betrayed.

The reception in District 5 was the exact opposite. Never had the Capitol seen more requests for sponsorships towards the District 5 girl. The majority were weapons, letters from the district and, crazily enough, a small, ornately embellished metal key.

Seneca saw both of these movements as dangerous. He withheld all the sponsor gifts for the two and made it clear that he was going to let the Game run its course. One of them would end up dead, and they could do damage control from there.

Of course, that was what he was hoping for. But his hope for such an outcome dwindled late one night with two ironically fatal sentences;

"I don't think I could kill you, Fox."

"If it means anything, hurting you would be an impossibility."

Oh God. He couldn't let that be seen. Seneca cursed himself for not doing something about it earlier. Now it was out in open air, and he had less than a minute to stop an uproar. Seneca made his way up to the editing booth and barged through the door.

"Don't air that!"

The chief editor swivelled around in his chair. "Why not, Crane? It's gold. What do you want me to do instead? More footage of Two cleaning his sword again?"

Seneca was furious now. "You broadcast that footage, and you answer to President Snow."

The editor nodded numbly, turned back around and deleted the clip from the screen.

Seneca let himself settle a little bit. While the immediate threat was gone, he had to do something about the two girls before it was his head on the platter. He lifted a hand to his earpiece, clicking the button.

"What's the problem, Seneca?"

"Plutarch, call a meeting with the rest of the Gamemakers. Make sure Enobaria's there. Also, as much of a pain as he is, Haymitch might be able to help out here."

"Roger that."

"Oh, and Plutarch?"

"What is it, Crane? Make it quick, I've got some Mutts I need to go tweak with the biodesigners."

"Kindly make sure that President Snow doesn't decide to invite himself along."

"Oh. It's that bad?"

Seneca exhaled. "No, it's not. It's worse."