You said, Sister, you're like me

by Seta Suzume

Cecelia, after her Games and before her children.

This fic was written for lls_mutant on lj as a treat for Rarewomen 2014.

Please be warned for some disordered eating, and mainly background killing/death/violence, drug use, and sexual exploitation.

"You don't want another Chrissie Warp," Chrissie broke her sentence up with a wry laugh, "You're not sick of the old one yet."

Woof looked over at his mentoring partner. Chrissie was very different from himself or Pal or Miranda. Laughing was never a part of his telephone conversations with sponsors. But Chrissie knew people with money and she drew them in like no other Eight victor could. She might have a victor of her own sooner than not if only there would be a tribute able to climb that step stool of blood money to reach for the crown. Too many Eights died too soon for a proper stab at it.

"Cecelia's not like me," Chrissie crooned to her would-be client, "Cecelia's a nice girl."

"Come here. Come here, sweetheart. I won't hurt you," Cecelia had crooned to the tiny girl from Twelve. She had held that girl in her arms at night and hushed her tears like a mother. The boy from Ten had found them too and was drawn to her gentleness though he was not as small.

Cecelia was with the Twelve girl for five days and the Ten boy for four. She mashed ordinary blackberries together with poison. She used a leaf to smear the mixture on a flat piece of bread from home. "There's not enough for all of us," she said and split it lovingly for the two of them.

Chrissie cackled with glee in front of her screen. "You can do it! You can do it, Cece!"

Career mentors across the room were groaning in frustration as the pack self-destructed prematurely, dividing in paranoia at the entirely accidental death of the Four boy upon falling from a tree.

"A 'nice girl,'" Woof repeated to himself, watching Cecelia.

In one day, the field narrowed from nine tributes to three, and the Two girl, for all her training, was in worse shape from from fighting her way through the pack breakdown than the girls from Eight and Nine.

"You don't need this like we do," Honey sighed to the Eights, considering her place as Nine's second and last female victor for over thirty years as opposed to Chrissie's less than a decade old "triumph."

"They're beyond the point of our controlling," Chrissie answered.

This was no entirely true when Two and Eight commanded enough resources to send a medicated bandage and packaged food, respectively, to their tributes while Nine could conjure nothing of use for their girl. With their last victor, Holland, fading almost twenty years into the past, what small cache Nine had ever possessed was only shrinking smaller. At this point, they needed a tribute any clear-headed mentor could sell and they had not had one.

Chrissie and Woof held their collective breath as their potential victor fretted over the simple granola bar they had sent her, afraid to eat.

The poisonings had been her first kills. That was always a tough spot. Cracking now could spell her end.

"It's factory-sealed," Chrissie murmured to the girl who could not hear her, "It's safe. Cece, I wouldn't send it if it wasn't safe."

Cecelia unwrapped the granola bar and took one tiny bite. And waited. And did not seize or spasm or die.

Chrissie could practically imagine she heard Pal and Miranda cheering this positive sign all the way back in Eight. They had jumped up and spilled their quilting project on the floor and were squeezing one another tight. That was how she saw it. They would love Cecelia and, for the first time, they would be proud of her for something other than just continuing to live. The victors in Eight were all too aware of their position as district outcasts to judge, and they were kind besides, but Chrissie knew she was the odd one out among them.

The Capitol wasn't any more perfect than anywhere else, but she had found so much there that she liked. If only the others weren't so old, maybe. If they weren't so meek and conservative. They might find a freedom or two that suited them in the Capitol- in medical procedures that might improve their health that they were too afraid to ask for, in people who would compliment them when they found the courage to put on bright makeup instead of shaming them as "tarts" (and Chrissie herself got plenty of that when she went to town, but she wasn't ashamed of who she was, so why should she care?), in sexual mores that freed them to openly love who she was sure they really loved.

What little she knew of Cecelia, Chrissie had liked. Whatever else she came to know, she was determined to try and like too. She considered it part of her job as a mentor.

Just like Miranda had let Chrissie be Chrissie (all night parties, designer drinks, skin tight dresses, kissing girls (in public, at least) - Chrissie enjoyed all of these things, but could never imagine them suiting Miranda), Chrissie would try and facilitate letting Cecelia be Cecelia.

Chrissie charmed the new boy, Khamphan, (while Blight looked on and laughed) to go out and pick up a few things for her in the city.

Woof came and went in a natural manner, but Chrissie stayed up through Cecelia's victory for thirty-two hours straight, and tears carved tracks like tiny canyons through her days-old makeup when the horribly wounded Two girl turned down Cecelia's proffered poison and took her up on her offer to: "Kill me with some honor or die with it."

The blood from Two's slit throat ran down between Cecelia's fingers.

The Two girl seemed to be thinking, "That's more like it."

"She's got your spunk, I think," Two's mentors for this round shook Chrissie's hand, "You should watch it with the uppers." In her daze, she barely felt their touch; wasn't sure which of them said what.

Woof put her to bed: "Until you can see Cecelia."

Cecelia had the sneaking suspicion that Chrissie Warp was roughly as dazed as she was, if less actively traumatized, when they met again outside the arena. "…You're so pretty," Chrissie said.

"She means we're so glad you made it," Woof translated.

"No," Chrissie rubbed her aching head, "Well. Both. You were brave. And never let anyone tell you for a minute that you don't deserve to be here. …But you're also pretty."

"I don't like girls like that," Cecelia replied in a very tiny voice. "…At least I don't think I do."

When the situation actually called for it, sitting with Caesar Flickerman or engaging with President Snow, Cecelia did her own talking without an overabundance of difficulty. When it wasn't as required, she kept her thoughts to herself and allowed Chrissie to do much of the speaking for her. Chrissie seemed to love talking. Cecelia could also never tell when she actually liked some Capitolite versus when she hated them, because she was great at behaving like every person she conversed with short of the president was her best friend, then turning around and whispering to her new victor that she really despised such-and-such individual who was "very cheap," or "a terrible kisser," or had thrown up on her at a party and not even apologized.

Woof summed Chrissie up with a smile and a twist of his hand, like he was winding a clock.

In general, Woof was very calm and Chrissie was very stimulating. Woof was a morning person; Chrissie was a night owl.

Cecelia watched herself shown off here and there on so many- too many screens- as if the Cecelia Weaver onscreen weren't her at all, trying to sort out what to make of herself. In Eight they always said their people came back wrong and, in some ways, she did feel wrong and bad. But she didn't feel…unworthy like Chrissie had suggested. She just hadn't wanted to die. She was about as worthy or unworthy as anyone else.

It wasn't like anyone back in Eight wanted the tributes they knew to die…so why did they act like the ones who came back were so worthy of censure?

Cecelia wondered why she had never given much thought to this before.

It seemed there was so much more time in the day when she didn't eat.

And then there was considerably less time in the day when Woof and Chrissie realized she was barely eating.

"They'll force the nutrients into you, you know," Woof said, "The Capitol won't let you waste away until after your Tour at least."

Cecelia bit her lip. She hadn't pictured that part, but it made perfect sense.

"She doesn't want to die, Woof," Chrissie insisted, proved right by the way Cecelia whipped her head around to face her mentor, nodding slowly. "She's just afraid. …Right?"

"…Yes."

"So, we'll help you," Chrissie promised, crossing her arms under her breasts. "Can't say we can fix your being scared, but I'll get enough food into you one little bit at a time. …And I don't think I'm being too presumptuous when I say I speak for everyone in the Village."

"You're not," Woof agreed.

Chrissie was willing to try whatever method was necessary, but Cecelia had no suggestions. The only thing she was sure of was that she herself could never be involved in the preparation of the food.

On the train ride home, Chrissie bullied the staff into letting the two of them into the food-preparing area, so Cecelia could watch as each dish was made. Woof came in and even made some Eight-style food of his own. Cecelia sat on a tall stool and clutched at the fabric of her skirt in her anxiousness.

The distraction of Chrissie's talking helped some. Eating pre-made food directly out of perfectly sealed packages was a bit better than dishes from the kitchen car. Anything that happened out of her sight was suspect. Woof's personal touch eased her mind slightly as he put the spoon into her hands. Chrissie was better at not watching too carefully as she ate; at not acting like it was a big deal or there was any real problem at all.

Cecelia came home and at the party in her honor, ate precisely two bites, which was what Chrissie had told her was the minimum amount necessary to be polite, and no more. Her mentor brushed the single comment on the matter off as nerves.

Aside from eating, Cecelia felt capable of taking care of herself.

She moved into her new home.

The following morning, she showed up at Chrissie's during breakfast. "I don't want to bother you, but-"

"I'm your mentor, Cece," Chrissie yawned, négligée slipping down the shoulder she leaned on the door frame, "I promise, one hundred percent, you will never be bothering me. Come inside."

Drinking was easier than eating. Chrissie put on the kettle and made them both some tea. One sip at a time, Cecelia managed two cups. "I'd never been in the Village before yesterday," Cecelia admitted.

"Yeah, it was the same for me. I came across Jeymes once in town and I thought I he could kill me just by looking at me the wrong way," she laughed, "Of course, he didn't even make eye contact with me. He was just signing for some package from the Capitol at the same time I was helping a teacher pick up the new history textbooks. I was such a dumb kid!"

"Oh," Cecelia remembered, "I want to apologize, Chrissie! Boss Shalia, at Factory Six- she used to say such mean things about you and I believed them!"

But rather than scolding her or accepting her apology, Chrissie only laughed harder. "Shalia? Shalia Dempsey?!" She slapped her half-bare thigh, "Oh my gosh, she was a few years above me in school and we got in a fight once on the schoolyard and when I was reaped- by that time she was too old- she lied to the Peacekeepers and said she was my friend so she could see me and she told me I deserved it!" Chrissie put her hands on the table and leaned forward with glee, "That snotty jerk said I deserved to die and look at me now! …Has she lost any weight or is she still kind of bottom heavy?"

"St-still," Cecelia snorted over this unexpected response, then laughed even more at the ridiculous sound she had made, "Still like you said."

"Oh, woe is Shalie!" Chrissie postured melodramatically. "And I bet she still accepted the Parcel Day handouts from my victory."

"I never knew you were so funny, Chrissie."

"Okay, I know there's probably talk about the boob job I accepted after I won, but I turned down the nose job. I like my nose, even if it's kind of big. It gives me character. …Anyway, my breasts are only one of the top three reasons I have so much sex. My sense of humor is also up there."

Cecelia put her hands over her reddening face, "Y-yes," she kept laughing, perhaps as much from being worn down by everything that had happened to her over the course of the last month as from actual humor at Chrissie's audaciously bold talk, "They're both very nice."

"Both?"

"Y-your breasts and your sense of humor."

"You're wonderful, Cece!"

Cecelia managed her first tiny meal back in District Eight- half a chocolate bar and half a cup of applesauce. Chrissie tasted what Cecelia deemed a representative sample of both items first.

When she went back home, Cecelia wondered if Chrissie immediately called up Woof and told him what she'd done, but she supposed that, ultimately, it didn't matter. She worked on settling what few things she had into her new home and went into town to meet up with her friends from school and the factory and see if maybe she was, indeed, still the same person she had been when she'd left.

From the way they treated her, Wren and Reitzel and Sienna, it seemed like maybe she was. Maybe she hadn't gone bad. Maybe she was the same old Cecelia.

She couldn't eat without Chrissie testing her food though.

Cecelia was the seventh in her district. This was more victors than any district other district without some sort of training program. She brought the total up to five at once, the most they'd ever managed. Chrissie hadn't exactly been a victor all that long, but it was long enough that Cecelia assumed she would be in it for the long run.

She could only hope to say the same for herself. Pal and Woof and Miranda were serving out decades-long tenures as victors and mentors. Silk and Jeymes had burned out fast. With Silk it had been ages ago, longer than the reach of even Boss Shalia's beloved gossip.

But Cecelia remembered what had happened to Jeymes Grim. After Peacekeepers shot him dead in the Capitol it was revealed that he had killed at least seven other people back home in Eight following his Games, including his parents and younger brother. Several local authorities were disciplined for covering this up, including Pal Fields, his mentor.

("You know," Boss Shalia had whispered to the girls over their lunches, "Woof killed his mother with his own hands too. And one hundred and two people, including my own grandfather, burned up in the place they had before Factory New 9 on account of Pal Fields. So never delude yourself for a moment that these victors of ours are good people!")

At the time, every aspect of this had seemed frightening and shocking, but now, on the other side of things, Cecelia's view of the events had altered somewhat. It was likely that no one in the Capitol had cared when Jeymes had killed back home, beyond coverage of the tragedy (just not the sort they imagined it to be) regarding his family, and no one here possessed the authority to bring Jeymes to the proper sort of justice without outside intervention. Pal Fields, a fretting, middle-aged man, and all of five feet five inches tall, was hardly likely to have been able to convince twenty-something Jeymes Grim, who had squeezed the life out of tributes and citizens alike with his bare hands, to do anything he didn't want to do.

(and what was Cecelia to do if she were ever in the position that Pal must have been when he mentored Jeymes? if you could see your tribute was a capable killer was it wrong to treat his lack of empathy as an advantage? wasn't a man (boy) like Jeymes Grim a gift, in the Games, to an outlying district? or because of all this were you meant to, rather, wish he would not make it home? -right away? -or when he kissed, then killed, the girl he came with and protected up through the record-breaking moment of the first time both Eights were in the Final Eight?)

All smiles before Caesar Flickerman, Jeymes turned out to be exactly what he'd said he'd be. It was there in his interview, after all. "I have never killed a person, but I'm intrigued by this opportunity. I am determined to kill as many fellow tributes as I can. I imagine it will prove a very interesting experience."

Jeymes Grim wanted to be a killer and he became one. Chrissie wanted to go to parties and when she had won, the Capitol obliged. Woof wove with his large hands (in the arena, but no longer afterward) and Pal sewed with his small ones (in the arena and perhaps every day after as best as Cecelia could tell). Eight was not known for deception in the self-presentation department. Cecelia did not plan on breaking the mold in this regard. "If you could have any profession you chose, what would it be?" Caesar had asked her.

"Housewife," she had said.

But, in Eight, at least, to be only a housewife was much rarer than an outsider might think. Everyone was needed for work. Most of the women (or men) who stayed home and focused on just taking care of their home and children had some kind of disability that disqualified them from effective factory work.

"Just a housewife, Cecelia?"

"It would be a pleasure to receive the opportunity to be only that."

Of course, after her Games, she could see there was no possible way to be only a housewife. But, Cecelia hoped, she could still be a housewife eventually. A housewife and a victor.

Wren and Reitzel and Sienna all wrestled with the same sort of hopes in this regard, interested in husbands and possibly children and hopefully not full days every day in the factory so they would have time to spend with those theoretical husbands and children.

There were things they couldn't talk about now, but they could still speak of imaginary children and potential husbands (though Cecelia had a hard time thinking of any possible husbands in the immediate peer group she had left behind with her reaping).

She left when their lunch break ended to try and eat with Chrissie. Her old friends didn't understand, but they didn't criticize. They would probably speak more kindly about Chrissie now that they were one step closer to her and aware that she had been the one who wrangled the gifts to Cecelia in the arena and continued to help her afterward (they were still a bit embarrassed about her unapologetic attraction to women though- Cecelia couldn't blame them, her upbringing here had inclined her to feel the same).

"I bought celery from Mr. Green," Chrissie showed her. "He grows it behind his shed. Smell how fresh it is."

"It…looks…pretty."

"You could try wearing this color," Chrissie suggested, holding a stalk up against Cecelia's cheek to compare it with her complexion. "You'd look really pretty too."

"…You're such a happy person, Chrissie," Cecelia sighed. Maybe it was because Chrissie just laughed at things like what Boss Shalia said. Somehow Chrissie didn't appear to care what anyone thought of her.

"I think you'll be happy again someday, Cece. You shouldn't try and rush it. Get a bit further from your Games and hopefully manage to get what you want and you can be happy too. No one's happy all the time anyway." She took a rather large and ungraceful bite from the celery stalk in her hand.

It crunched in a way Cecelia found sort of…unpleasant, but the water that flipped away from the vegetable onto her cheek was enough of a distraction to get her past it. It was just a vegetable. The snap wasn't too bad.

"Now you?" Chrissie pointed the bitten off end toward her.

On her fifteenth night home in her brand new empty house (why was she counting? she wasn't sure), there was a knock on Cecelia's door. She shuddered at the sound. Since when had that become her natural reaction to being visited? For all Chrissie said she was no bother, Cecelia always came to Chrissie, not vice versa. They had already met for tonight's dinner (canned soup and strawberries).

As much as she didn't want to answer the door, as much as she merely wanted to be left alone- and she was a victor now, she deserved some time alone in her own home if that were what she wanted- another part of Cecelia, a docile part that the Capitol had no interest in killing off, thought, "But what awful manners to leave someone waiting."

Whoever was knocking would know she was there anyway, and probably awake. There were several lights on.

"Woof." She was sort of embarrassed she had hesitated so long when she saw him. It wasn't right to disrespect one's elders. …And, also, who could be in the Village at this hour but Peacekeepers and fellow victors?

"Hey, I'm sorry to bug you, but I don't know, the other victors and I, we're getting together at Pal's place and you're more than welcome to join us. …Even if you don't want to tonight, we do it every Friday outside of Games season…"

Did he forget to mention the focus of this gathering (because it seemed that Woof's mind did wander sometimes, and his words with it…) or had Cecelia missed something? "It's a get together to…?" she prompted.

"It's a," the correct term evaded him for a time and he wrinkled his nose, but before the moment dragged on too long, he remembered, "It's our sewing circle."

A sewing circle. Like her mother had used to go to with her friends before working longer and longer hours in the factory took the joy out of sewing for her. Before she had wasted away and died. But victors had no need to work in District Eight, the same as any district, so there was no factory work to be bored with. "I'll come," she decided, "Let me grab my sewing basket."

Most of her things had been unpacked and put away, seeing as she possessed so little and had no remaining family members to even discuss moving in with (her mother and her sister she remembered, her father and her brother were too far removed for her to even see their faces in her memory). She had begun the process of picking out the first few items of her own choice for the house from Capitol catalogues (and Chrissie proved both a help and a near-constant joker as she took part in the process), but nearly nothing had arrived yet, only a set of plates and some dishtowels out in disarray, so her sewing basket was easy to find, left sitting out prominently on the kitchen table.

She was exhausted again- sooner or later, Chrissie thought, her hunger would catch up with her and she would eat a full meal- and sure that her hair was a complete mess from lying on the couch, but compared to what the entire nation had seen her looking like on live television during the Games, what did that matter? She doubted her fellow victors would care. Aside from Chrissie, they weren't particularly glamorous.

Woof remained waiting for her on the doorstep when she rushed back. Cecelia wondered why she had thought he might go ahead. The distance is nothing at all, so what need would there be for him to rush. …But if he left, did he not trust her to follow?

They walked to Pal's home in silence. Since the end of her Games, most of her time with Woof had been spent with relatively few words between either of them. Woof was a quiet man. Cecelia had found there was little she wanted to say. They were rarely alone as a duo anyway. Chrissie did more than enough talking for the three of them.

The light emanating from Pal's house didn't strike her as inviting as she might have hoped it would be, but the door was unlocked and Woof let her right in ahead of him.

"Hi Cecelia," said Miranda Loomley, from her place on a cushion on the floor. Her long, light hair was tied into two braids that reached to her waist. The end were looped back into her hair ties instead of hanging loose. Darker hair than Woof's or Miranda's was more common in Eight, but from her lightly lined face and conservative dress, she looked to Cecelia like more of an ordinary mother of a girl about her age than some kind of minor celebrity/local outcast. She was seated at a low table along with Chrissie and Pal Fields. There was an empty space, one reserved for Woof, Cecelia thought. There wasn't any place put aside for her.

"Good evening," Chrissie added her own piece, "Nice to see you again so soon."

Cecelia didn't move to come inside any further until Woof closed the door and had to shuffle aside so as not to bump into her, not immediately realizing how she had lingered, fixed in the first place she came to stand. "Go on," he encouraged.

"It's nice to, um, really meet you," she addressed Pal and Miranda. She had seen them onstage for the reapings her entire life and they had both been present at her homecoming party, but if they had talked to her then, she had been too dazed and distracted to remember what they said. They were both possessed of relatively retiring personalities. Pal was a bit older than Woof. Miranda was younger.

"It's our pleasure, really," Miranda assures her, sparing her the need to force herself to say more. From her reaction at the reaping, Cecelia had received the impression that Miranda knew Navin- the boy. But she didn't mentor him; Woof did. Cecelia didn't know how their process worked beyond Pal never mentoring the girl (they said that he never interacted with young girls more than he was forced to since Silk; that he had some kind of complex). So they could be happy for Cecelia, for the time being at least, they were probably distancing the boy from their thoughts.

"We're making a quilt together these days, so I suppose we're currently not just a sewing circle, but a quilting bee," Pal explained. He was very small, even aside from being sort of stooped, in the way many people of his generation seemed to be in Eight. The rebellion struck them hard and they struck back, but- With limited means of local food production there was starvation, or at least malnutrition and stunted growth. Woof was born after the Games began. Pal was born before. He was exactly sixty this year, but, already, there weren't many of his generation left in Eight. Pal's peers were his fellow victors, though, not mentoring much, he probably didn't see much of them either.

"Here," Chrissie scooted over, "Have a seat, have a seat." She pulled over the cushion Cecelia had thought was reserved for Woof.

"Thank you," Cecelia accepted hesitantly. She kept on eye on Woof to see how he would react to this, but he was as calm as ever, seeing no trouble with this spot being filled, merely looking around the room and finding himself another pillow to sit on. Cecelia looked down at the cushion beneath her and noted that the embroidery, if not the entire item, had been done by hand. It was a traditional sort of embroidery in Eight that had some kind of meaning, perhaps, but no one had ever taught her what it was. Pal wore a lot of hand-embroidered clothes. Perhaps he knew.

"The theme of this quilt is looms," Pal announced, for her edification, Cecelia supposed. He was busy embroidering some pieces with tiny patterns in colored thread. The way they were being sewn into a larger pattern across the quilt evoked the feel of many mechanical looms working away in the factory. Pal wore spectacles to help him see the work, but his hands were as steady as any of the other victors'.

Everyone settled back into their routine, working away with the additional presence of Cecelia like it was nothing new. Chrissie picked out a particular row of squares for Cecelia to work on and, just like that, it was like she had been there always.

She wondered if Jeymes had actually sat and sewed quietly with the others like this. But Pal was his mentor and she didn't really know Pal and didn't want to poke at any open wounds, so she would wait and ask Chrissie in private.

After about two hours of working on the quilt, the group fractured as Woof and Miranda headed into Pal's kitchen to find something sweet to nibble on while finishing off their tea, while Chrissie began picking up her supplies to take home. Pal and Cecelia picked slowly at their last bits work for the evening.

"You'll come back next week, won't you?" Pal asked.

"It…was kind of fun," Cecelia answered.

"If you don't feel like it, well, there isn't any pressure. You don't even have to tell me."

"No," Cecelia voiced a more definitive agreement, "Mr. Fields, I'd be happy to come again."

"Pal's okay. I can call you 'Cecelia,' right?" He seemed eager.

"…Well, of course."

Woof had brought her, but Chrissie walked her home.

Eventually, Cecelia either lost track of her days spent in the Village or she just stopped counting. She wasn't exactly sure which.

She learned from Chrissie that Jeymes had, indeed, been part of the victors' sewing circle, though only sporadically, when he'd felt like it. She kept her visits regular. She enjoyed the company (it was an easy way to be around the others aside from Chrissie without seeming too needy) and the rhythm to her generally formless days.

She couldn't quite transition to just "Pal," the way "Woof," "Miranda," and "Chrissie" came easily, but Pal seemed to have the same problem (and being called "Miss Weaver" felt very strange indeed) despite his expressed desire to call her "Cecelia." They compromised with "Mr. Pal" and "Miss Cecelia." (only Chrissie called her "Cece")

Reitzel found out she was pregnant after the second Parcel Day and was engaged before the third. Cecelia wondered at the strength of such a marriage arrangement, but was happy to be part of her friend's modest wedding preparations and the ongoing discussions of pregnancy and children. Anything that took her mind off the Games was a welcome intrusion.

Chrissie went away to the Capitol for several days for a planned appearance (or something- Cecelia wasn't entirely sure, but aside from her worries about her victor, Chrissie seemed happy enough about it), assuring her that, "It'll only be four days, Cece, and I know that you'll be fine. You're very brave! I know it! Brave enough to even eat alone maybe- who knows? But if you can't, won't you trust Pal and Woof to eat with you? They're getting kind of old and they only eat stuff that's easy on the stomach anyway."

And at first Cecelia had thought she could manage it maybe and make Chrissie proud even, but after one bite of bland toast she ran to Woof's house afraid she might die (even though it didn't make any sense, nothing she told herself stuck, she couldn't be the one to convince herself this was wrong).

She pounded frantically on the door and Pal let her in while Woof came hurrying out of the kitchen, throwing off an apron.

After half an hour of sitting together on the couch it was clear the toast wasn't going to kill her.

But what about the bite after that?

What if she could never eat again without Chrissie's assistance?

How could she be a proper mother, a proper housewife that way?

"You know, Cecelia," Woof patted her hand, "You seemed like maybe you wouldn't need this since you've been getting better, so I didn't rush to give it to you, but… We bought you a present." He turned his blue eyes to Pal, who hopped up on cue.

"I'll go get it out."

Cecelia didn't have to wait for long. "Ta-dah!" Pal smiled at her with a package about the size of a shoebox in his hands. He passed it over to Woof, who began to explain what it was. A kind of chemistry kit. A special type. She could use it to test her food. The kit traveled the last leg of its journey from wherever it had been to the Capitol to Woof in District Eight and now into her hands. Cecelia held it reverently, tears welling up in her eyes. "Thank you… Oh, thank you. You shouldn't have had to do this for me."

"Anything we can do to improve your life is a pleasure, Cecelia," Woof replied.

"One way or other, all of us have been there," Pal agreed.

"When I met him, he didn't think he could love anyone or they would end up dead," Woof playfully poked Pal's arm. "And look at him now!"

Pal gave a small chuckle, but wouldn't respond in kind. Not all of their traumas had been so livably defanged. His own pains were the only ones he could laugh at now.

Although she supposed she could have, Cecelia didn't eat on her own while Chrissie was away. She went to Woof or Pal's (because it turned out when Woof wasn't at his own home, he was at his mentor's) and ate with them, cautiously using her kit to test each ingredient that went into the meals.

It went over a bit awkwardly in front of Wren. Though her friend didn't comment unkindly, Cecelia could read the discomfort in her eyes.

It was better to eat with other victors.

When Chrissie returned, the only opinion she expressed toward the test kit was teasing about how Cecelia didn't need to use up her precious chemical strips on anything Chrissie was going to eat. "I like to live on the edge," she teased.

They ignored the gossip program footage of Chrissie in a club with her hands up Phebe Burke(from Five)'s blouse. Instead, Chrissie showed Cecelia a page of pictures clumsily fit onto a single page to pass around of Reinhold Meyer(from Seven)'s ten-year-old grandson. "Cute kid, huh? Ever since Izzy was born, Reinhold gives these out to any of us who'll take them every year. Now he's roped Kham doing it for him."

Izzy…Meyer? Actually, Cecelia thought Reinhold only had a daughter, so Izzy probably had a different last name. Well, Izzy was very cute. She studied each picture carefully and attempted to decipher the scratching writing with which Seven's second victor had noted Izzy's age, that his favorite subject in school was literature, and that his current dream was to go to the zoo in the Capitol and see his favorite animal, the liger.

Reinhold's daughter had gotten through all her reaping years unscathed, but the oldest victor in Seven had lost both his sons to the Games. What would happen to Izzy?

If Cecelia had children, what would happen to them?

There was no precedent to compare things with in her own district. There were no victor children in District Eight. There had never been any.

There was a bit of a frenzy of curiosity from the Capitol after Jeymes' death regarding whether or not he might have managed to leave behind any illegitimate offspring- his many dalliances back home were as casually public as the ones in the Capitol (men and women both in each location, though the relationships involving men didn't go over so well in his home district)- but every lead chased down by some frivolous woman called Qualla in a special for her gossip program ended up a disappointment.

Either Jeymes was cautious or no woman was willing to go through with bearing his child. If there was anything to said for testimony the "experts" in the Capitol that Jeymes' sort of personality had a genetic component, Cecelia could hardly be surprised.

It gave Cecelia pause now. If she had children, would they have that capacity to be as cold and cruel as she had been?

But maybe even Jeymes would never have killed if he had never been forced to the arena...

Even Jeymes Grim had not volunteered.

Just, how could Cecelia make sure they were never put into that position? Victors' children from Three and Four and Seven- they had all gone to the slaughter as the Games commentators cheered with glee and there were others available in the wings in other districts if whoever rigged that sort of thing decided they wanted them.

Three children. That was the amount that seemed right. Three of her own- for the three she had killed?

Three children and none of them into the Games.

However she could manage to do that.

…Assuming there would ever be anyone worth having those children with. The Capitol wouldn't find anything all that strange about having them single and unwed, but Cecelia couldn't imagine going through all that all alone.

Usually Cecelia had been the quietest one at meetings of the sewing circle, but once she finally had something on her mind she wanted to discuss with the other victors, the Friday sewing circle gathering seemed like the best place to bring it up.

At first she thought of addressing the question to her mentor, "Chr-" but then that seemed like oddly singling her out (and Chrissie was young enough to easily have children still if she chose to). "Did any of you ever want kids?"

Woof shook his head, "I love kids, but with how things turned out I never thought about having my own…"

"Um, ah, about the same for me," Pal replied, though he kept his face turned straight down toward the embroidery stretched between his fingers as he continued on making one of his well-practiced patterns of blue forget-me-nots. Some sort of embarrassed flushing was visible at the tips of his ears through his thinning, part gray hair. "Y-you're all- well, except Woof- you're like my kids to me."

"My two dads," laughed Chrissie.

"Actually," Miranda spoke up, calm and serious, "I tried to."

"What?" Chrissie whipped her head around to face her own mentor, "I didn't know that!"

"You were just a little girl then, Chrissie. Any child of mine would've been near to your age." Miranda carried on with her work of adding patches to the far end of the haphazard quilt even as she spoke of such heavy things.

"Why didn't you then? Gosh, you even seem like the mom-ish type, Miranda." The way Chrissie gaped and fussed, Cecelia thought they could all practically forget she was the one who had brought up the subject in the first place.

"Unless I went to the Capitol for treatment, it turned out I couldn't carry a child to term. …Of course, I had to find this out this out the hard way. Vince and I tried three times on our own first."

"I found her bleeding out on the green," Pal added in his quietest voice, "I was so scared she was going to die."

"You should've gotten the treatment," Chrissie blustered on, "I'm sure you would've been able to afford it- and they wouldn't have told you it would work if the odds weren't on your side."

"But then Vince died," Miranda concluded her story, "And I couldn't imagine having a child without him."

Cecelia felt her brow knit into a heavy frown. "That's so sad, Miranda..."

"It was a long time ago now," Miranda blew the sad thoughts back out to sea with her sigh. "And then, for me, there was no one else like Vince."

Cecelia looked at Chrissie (mainly to look away from Miranda). "I prefer women and spoiling other people's children to men and having my own."

"…I'd like to," Cecelia explained what she thought the others must have already learned from her interview, "Be married and have children someday."

Chrissie stuck her needle into her pincushion and hugged Cecelia tight. "You're going to be a great mom someday! I know you will! …And I'll be a magnificent Aunt Chrissie!" She let Cecelia go and pointed around the quilt at the other three victors: "Uncle Woof, Aunt Miranda, Uncle Pal!"

One the one hand, Cecelia worried that if she got their hopes up, she would only end up letting them down.

On the other hand, where would she find four people more determined to support her in her struggle to find this happiness?

Chrissie forced time into the Victory Tour schedule for Cecelia to test all her meals before eating, saying she wasn't going to let her miss out on eating so much wonderful food.

Chrissie adjusted the costumes herself if Cecelia was embarrassed by how revealing they were and seemed to compensate for the modest amount of skin bared by her victor by revealing more and more of her own.

In the end, in the Capitol, Cecelia went home ahead of her mentor.

"I've gotta take a break from watching over you all day, Cece," Chrissie just laughed, reapplying her lipstick, "I've got a little playing to catch up on here, so you go on first and mind the fort for me."

It seemed like Chrissie was gone for a long time, though it wasn't as if Cecelia couldn't see her on the gossip programs nearly every day on the arm of some Capitolite or at some party, sometimes half-naked, sometimes with her eyes blurry with drugs.

But she didn't like to see Chrissie like that, even if Chrissie didn't care if she saw.

It was easier to keep her wandering mind away from whatever was on television if she spent her time with friends. Though Wren and Sienna and Reitzel were all still welcoming, more and more "friends" seemed equivalent to "victors."

Miranda needed more "personal time," she called it, but Pal's door was never locked and he didn't seem to mind her coming unannounced. She began to know his schedule. How in the afternoon Woof would always be there for tea.

"Chrissie called," Pal informed her, "She said she'd be back the day after tomorrow."

"It seemed so long…" A funny snipping sound caught Cecelia's ear. She paused. "I guess it wasn't two whole weeks. I'm just used to being around her."

The sound hadn't stopped. It wasn't even enough to be mechanized. It was loud enough for her to be hearing it, yet there wasn't anyone cutting material in the house.

She looked this way and then and finally out the window.

There was a young man clipping the hedges in Pal's yard. He was tall. He was…he turned and then she could see more than half his face. He was very much Cecelia's idea of handsome. She turned away from the window, looking down in her tea. She could feel how red her face was and didn't want the man to see.

"Mr. Pal," she inquired, "Who is your gardener?"

Rather than examining her face, Pal straightened up to peer out the window. "That's David Ravi Songket," he pronounced each name carefully, working his occasionally heavily accent into shape just as he did his posture.

"Pal mentored his brother," Woof added, joining us with the freshly heated biscuits. He patted Pal's shoulder. For all that Pal had also mentored Woof, the age difference between the two of them was not that great. They were close, exasperated, perhaps, by having been alone together for many years, without other victors, without families.

"…his brother volunteered in his place…" Pal said in what Cecelia had come to think of as his sad voice. Sometimes it grew so soft she could barely understand what he had said. "…And he died… And now David cuts my grass."

"He's a very nice young man, Cecelia," Woof took over, a bit removed from, and thus better able to speak about the situation. "…We should invite him in to share our tea with us. …Assuming that you wouldn't mind-"

"Please ask him," Cecelia decided. Who knew what would come next? But, this, at least, was an easy choice to make.

Woof went out. The other two victors could see him through the glass as he approached his target. David turned toward Woof and smiled.

"I felt alive," Cecelia confided in Pal as they watched the conversation in the garden, a pantomime as far as they were concerned, stripped of sound. "When I laid eyes on him, my heart sped up. It's never gone so fast and not meant fear. It makes me feel right again- feel human."

"Hold onto that feeling," Pal spoke up, as if, to him, these words were of an import as to be carved in stone, "It will keep you strong."

"I take it we have your approval in advance then." Cecelia thought it best not to laugh.

"My blessing even," Pal clarified. "…though it might be easier to acquire than Chrissie's, I'm warning you."

David Ravi Songket wiped his boots on the front mat and followed Woof into the kitchen. "Oh, is that honey? I love that," he gaped at the spread on the table, simple for the pockets of victors, but far outside the grasp of any ordinary citizens of Eight (the honey would have to have been imported). "And…oh!"

"What, 'oh?'" Woof joked.

"Sh-shalo!" David exclaimed, standing up straighter and exhibiting a greater degree of formalized politeness than for the older victors, "It's a lovely afternoon here in Victors' Village and I'm honored to have this chance to meet you, Miss Weaver!"

"Just have a seat, David," Woof dragged him along.

"I'm happy to meet you too," Cecelia answered him, caramel eyes to ebony ones as David settled in directly across from her, "And you don't call Woof or Pal "Mr. Cambray" or "Mr. Fields," do you? So you can call certainly call me-"

"Miss Cecelia," David fit her name into his usual manner of addressing the victors without even considering the simplest way.

The young woman in question blushed again. For now "Miss Cecelia" would do.