Disclaimer: The Hunger Games is not mine.

She doesn't come here often. The Meadow is technically open to everyone at all times, but that presents as much of a problem as it does a possibility. She comes to the Meadow when she needs quiet, but there is no guarantee that there will be any quiet to be had when she gets there. There may be grazing goats or running children or any other of a number of options that will mean that she should turn around and start walking back to the shop or their little home above it and give in to the fact that she and quiet will not be having a rendezvous on that day.

She loves her sister, but she feels, sometimes, that the two of them drown in each other. They are always the Donner twins - a collective unit rather than two separate individuals. Even Ari, who is their (collective again) best friend, sort of scrunches them together as if they are incapable of functioning without being part of a pair. She doesn't mind most of the time, but she thinks it might be nice to have someone look at her and actually see just plain Maysilee instead of the incomplete half of a whole that she always feels like when someone's eyes ghost over her to find the other Donner girl that they seem to expect to be always attached to her side.

The days when things like that stick with her and worry her - those are the days that she goes for the Meadow. If it is otherwise occupied when she gets there, then she bites down on her frustration and undefined longing for something to be different and goes back about her day. If the Meadow is empty, then she takes advantage while she can. She tosses herself down into the grass and lets herself be still. She has so little of being still in her life, and those moments in the meadow are something she cherishes and harbors as a closely held secret that she has never divulged - not even to her mirror image.

They've fought again. It's ironic that any random person in town would say that the Donner twins are model children that never seem to squabble and are unfailingly polite. The truth is that they fight, and they fight often. It just so happens that they both feel they have better options than to succumb to the temptation of getting loud. Lately, the fights have all been the same - their parents' history lessons. Maysilee is fascinated. She cannot hear enough. She wants to know the whys and the whats and the hows. She is intrigued by the structure of before. She memorizes long sections of text from pamphlets that they are not supposed to have because the paper may wear out, they may be found and confiscated, but they can't take away from her things which she already knows.

Her sister does not see it that way. She has gone from asking why to asking why does it matter. The two of them have this ever growing rift between them when it comes to what it is that they consider important. So, they fight. Then, the smooth it over and cover the rift with the things that they have in common and do their best to pretend that it is not there part of the cycle begins. They do their best to pretend that it does not matter. It may be that her sister is right, and it really does not. They are fifteen. What can she do about injustices? They live in Panem. What can she ever do about the glaring wrongness that she sees around her?

The silent dismissal of her concerns contained in her sister's reproachful glances gets to be too much sometimes. The Meadow is calming. There is something about the grass and the wildflowers and the simple being of a place that is beautiful and practical all at the same time that soothes her frazzled nerves and makes her feel less like she is hovering on the edge of something important without knowing what it is. The Meadow allows her to just be and think her thoughts and not worry about what anyone may think about her thinking them. She can think through her questions for the next time she can get her father or her mother alone. She can ponder why it is when they make the before the before of the rebellion sound so pleasant and sensible that anyone would have ever been willing to let it go in the first place. She has so many questions that do not have answers. She has so many thoughts that will never be safe to voice (even in the carefully constructed solitude of her parents' collection of forbidden things).

She can even wonder what it is that caused the difference (when the two of them are identical in so many other ways) in how the two of them have responded to everything that their parents have tried to teach them. The history they are not supposed to know has taught her to hope that better is something that can be had. It has taught her sister that worse is something that can always be coming. She supposes that means that people are not entirely wrong when they treat them like two halves of a whole.

The Meadow is empty, and she revels in the moment. She takes deep breaths, and she lets the sun soak into her skin. Her peace does not last for long. She brushes the sound off at first thinking that it is carrying from one of the little houses that make up the Seam (crying children are hardly an unusual noise). It doesn't quiet, and she finds herself unable to tune it out. She sits up and shakes off the remains of her physical lethargy and tries to determine the direction of the origin of the sound. She is startled when she realizes that it is coming from the fence. The thought of some poor toddler wandering off and squeezing through one of the gaps only to be unable to get back brings her to her feet, and she rushes in that direction. There are things on the other side of the fence that could kill a small child in a matter of seconds. Fear inducing propaganda or not - wild animals are wild animals.

She follows the noise and finds a small bundle of blankets inside the fence. This is much to her relief as she feels fairly confident that she would have done what was necessary, but the thought of going on her own to the other side is a frightening one. She has only ever crossed to the other side just as far as the first row of apple trees, and she has never gone by herself. The child is maybe two (she is not around small children up close very often), and the three blankets wrapped around him seem excessive for the time of year until she pulls them back and realizes that the little one is burning up with a fever.

Her head is full of questions - the child obviously didn't walk itself to the fence and then wrap itself up so tightly. Her heart clenches at the thought of someone trying to abandon him, but she frowns even as the thought crosses her mind. No one would ever get away with such a thing. All the children of District 12 are registered. She shakes that and all other thoughts off; she has more pressing matters to which she needs to attend. The little one is sick, and she can't just leave him in the grass while she ponders. She scoops him up, and his crying softens just a bit with the motion of walking.

She'll take him to Ari's parents first. They can tell her what to do for him before she goes to the Justice Building. She isn't about to trust that the Peacekeepers would put taking care of a sick child at the top of their priorities. Finding out where he came from can wait - the fact that he is hot enough that her arms feel like they are too close to the stove cannot. She shushes him and tries to be generally comforting, but she really does not have any experience with small children, so she does not know if anything she is doing is right.

The walk back to the shops in town has never felt longer in her life.

D13 D13 D13 D13 D13

"You cannot seriously be considering such a thing," the man shook his head glancing at the stack of papers in front of him that contained statistics on infection rates and fatalities and all the other associated numbers that never seemed to quite convey the reality and the tragedy of what it was to deal with a full-fledged epidemic.

"I always seriously consider all possibilities," the woman replied. "That's what makes me the leader here."

"One of the leaders," he reminded her with a sharp look. "The ethics of that plan . . .," he began.

"Ethics don't often have a place in our dealings with the outside, and I won't apologize for that given what we are dealing with every time the above ground is part of the equation."

"I will not be party to . . .," he tried again.

"You won't have to be," she cut him off before he could finish.

"I'm glad you are seeing sense," he sounded relieved but surprised.

"You won't have to be because the decision has already been made," she told him with a smile that was just a touch vindictive. "As a matter of fact, it has already been implemented. You can go off and enjoy your clear conscious and moral high ground. I'll be in my office reflecting on the balance of power remaining intact."