Brutus is six years old, the Career Centre still a year and several fistfights away in his future. Now he sits and watches Dad twirl Mama around the kitchen. "First time I saw your Mama, she was dancing." Dad pulls her in, hands on her waist. They're laughing. "Prettiest girl in the room."

"Handsomest boy, too." Mama grins at Dad, winks at Brutus. "You will be too, if you're lucky. Got your Mama's eyes."

Brutus wiggles, pleased. "Will I find a girl like Mama?"

"If you're lucky." Dad kisses her. "If you work hard, might even deserve her one day."

Brutus dislikes fighting girls; they're soft and smell nice, and he hates hurting them. He's erased his parents except for one niggling voice, his father's: real men don't hit girls.

Real men might not, but real Careers do. Brutus knocks them down, chokes them, slashes at them with swords, but it doesn't feel right. It twists inside him; the trainers notice, give him a woman for his second kill test. His friends tease; he snarls.

In his Arena he kills four girls, two with his bare hands. They don't smell nice, just fear, sweat, and filth; it helps, a little.

He's walking through town with Odin when a girl strolls past, fresh from the gym with hair pulled back, sweat glistening on her shoulders. Brutus turns to look, then whirls back, face burning. Odin chuckles. "Feeling better?"

Brutus sputters, but that weekend he heads out and picks up a girl; his first since the Centre. He's eager to learn, she to teach; afterward she grins. "Not bad, first timer."

Brutus kisses her shoulder. "Gotta practice."

"For what?" He pulls away, embarrassed; she draws him back. "C'mon."

"I want to get married someday." He glares, daring her to laugh. She doesn't.

Career Victors have a short window to find a partner; after that, the gaps in hierarchy make any kind of equal relationship impossible. Brutus dates a few former Careers, but he could never share his life with someone who hasn't tasted Arena blood.

At the 50th Reaping, two gorgeous, deadly girls stand proudly onstage. Maybe, Brutus thinks, one could be his future wife. Tabitha chokes on her blood under D12M's knife; Carissa burns when the volcano erupts.

Each year Brutus thinks maybe; each year they die. Glorious, valiant deaths, but deaths all the same.

He stops hoping. It's bad luck.

Finally, a girl wins. Lyme is six years younger, almost two-thirds his size. She snorts, bats his hand away when he holds the door.

At dinner, they stare across the table. Brutus sighs. "This won't work."

"Damn, really?" Lyme rolls her eyes. "I so wanted a giant caveman boyfriend. I'm here because my mentor made me."

Brutus gnaws his lip. "Same."

Lyme gives him a keen look. "You're not a bad guy, I just don't want to fuck you. Friends is fine with me."

He pays for dinner to piss her off; she cusses him out. Friendship ain't bad.

Carlotta's eyelashes have tiny jewels on the end; men went down into the dirt and dark to dig those out so she could fight to keep her eyes open. "You won Panem's Sexiest Killer back in the day, if I recall."

"Twice." Maybe if he keeps it neutral it'll sound like fake modesty.

"Do you have anyone special?"

He doesn't blink. "I'm married to my work. And I gotta say, she gets awful mad if I don't make time for her."

Carlotta winks. "Maybe she'll have to learn to share."

Brutus smiles like a Career, sharp and genuine as zirconia.

"Ten years out." Lyme clinks her glass against his bottle. "How's it feel?"

They're drinking on his porch, watching the sunset. "Like borrowed time. Thought maybe one day I'd stop feeling like any minute they'll send me back."

"They won't." Lyme punches his arm. "Free and clear, that's the deal."

"Yeah." Brutus peels the label off his beer with one thumbnail. "You never wish you could share it?"

Lyme shrugs. "Got you and Nero. Got my kids. Never wanted a relationship; winning didn't change that."

Must be nice, never to compromise. No regrets, nice and neat. Brutus takes another drink.

Brutus ages, tributes stay eighteen. Commentators call it 'mentor's reward'; Brutus never laughs.

He almost doesn't take Petra. He'd wanted kids; she's the same age as the daughter he never got to have. It's been a rough run for Twos, messy deaths these past years, but her eyes dig into his gut. He can't say no.

When D1F's mace shatters her pelvis, Brutus leaps from his chair. Lyme grabs him, talks him down. "Easy. No cannon yet."

Petra wins, but won't walk unassisted again. "I should've died. I'm a disgrace."

Brutus glares. "You're perfect."

They joke she's turned him soft.

The Reaping ball chooses Enobaria's mentor to die beside her, and in a flash everything makes sense. Brutus' vision tunnels, everything fading but the square, Enobaria on stage, expression closed. Coincidences are for idiots; Brutus believes in larger things.

This is why he's alone. No wife, no children to be evicted if he dies. No responsibilities at home to confuse him, make him give in to selfish preservation. His Victors are grown now, and Enobaria deserves her mentor if she wins.

It's almost cheating; with nothing else to live for, sacrifice is easy.

Brutus lunges at the stage. "I volunteer!"

He's dying. The pain doesn't tell him; Brutus smashed his fist through a tribute's skull, took a sword to the gut, fought a pack of mutts, and that didn't kill him. Pain isn't the indicator of death; pain means life, means effort. Pain is nothing.

He knows because he's not alone. He is alone in the jungle, not another tribute in sight, but also not; a cool hand touches his forehead, wipes the blood from his nose and mouth.

"It's all right." A woman's voice, soft, coaxing. "I'm here."

He's fading. "You're not real."

"Does it matter?"

Brutus smiles.

Boom.