I own no one but my own people

A/N I actually had no plans for a follow up from the original first chapter, it honestly was supposed to just be a one shot but I really didn't expect such a positive response to it on AO3 so I choose to make this a four parter. I hope y'all enjoy it

The fire was burning everything. It burned all around him, and no matter what Henry did he couldn't seem to escape it.

But the flames surrounding him weren't what was terrifying him. It was the blonde woman with the broken back whose spine and ribs were crushed and twisted violently that frightened him, it was the large boy with thick dark blood pouring out of a hole in his chest holding an ax that made him want to curl up in a ball and sob, it was the woman with a sword in her heart who died because he distracted her who made him want to scream.

There were other faces too. Faces of the parents of the dead teenagers he had seen on his victory tour staring at him through the flames.

"I'm sorry!" Henry cried as the three of them surrounded him, the flames melting their flesh, exposing charred bone and muscle underneath. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it! I didn't want this!"

The corpses didn't listen to his please and moved in closer, not caring about the flames burning them.

"I'm sorry!" Henry screamed through his desperate sobs as they all came closer, smothering him, surrounding him, killing him... "I'm sorry, please! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'M SORRY!"

The fourteen year old gasped as he flew up in his bed, ice cold sweat soaking him right through the bone. It took a long minute before the images in his mind, the flames and the corpses and the stoic faces of their parents faded from his mind and his bedroom came back into focus.

After Henry arrived back home he had been given the choice; continue living in his old home with his family or get a new home in Victor's Village all to himself. He tried spending one night away from his family but it was far too quiet for his liking (plus he wasn't exactly a master chef or housekeeper) so before the sun had even risen he moved back in with his family and into his old bedroom, content with the knowledge that when Robin died and the capital kicked them all out of his home, Henry, Roland and his mother would still have a place to stay without having to move to the poorer part of the district.

That was a week ago.

A week since he arrived home after more interviews, more primping, more making up stories on the spot to excited capital dwellers who were eager to hear a tale from 'The Arthur of Panem'.

A week since the District Four mentor Killian Jones, the previous years winner who even after losing his hand somehow managed to win by fashioning a hook to his stump, nearly killed Henry in a blind rage not even twenty four hours after he escaped the Games with his life for what happened to Emma, who, Henry later found out, had been dating Killian since they were in middle school. It was only the other party goers wanting to hear the end of the story Henry was telling that made them want to pull the one handed man screaming and sobbing about his lost love off of him.

A week since President Snow privately 'encouraged' Henry to perhaps come up with some stories about the 'giving and generous capital rather than fairytales that tended to give people false hope about their lives.'

Henry took a deep breath, running his hands through his hair before he got out of bed, pulling on a T-shirt and a pair of sleeper pants over his briefs and headed downstairs.

He had nightmares ever since they pulled him from the flooded forest, the smoke rising from the lower branches and ground where the water couldn't hit that well but none were as graphic or terrifying as the one he had just had and he needed something to erase the violent disturbing thoughts that wrecked him with pain and terror and guilt.

His mentor John Little, a large muscular victor who won his games two years before Robin using only a quarter staff and who was a close friend to Henry's step dad (who Robin asked personally to mentor him since the rules made it impossible for immediate family to mentor tributes), pulled Henry aside after the Games and offered to sneak him a tonic made special in the capital to snuff out nightmares; something the capital forbid victor's to use (the capital never wanted those memories or nightmares to go away. Even if you won; they still managed to find a way to exert their power over you) but Henry refused.

As it was in the Games, he didn't trust any medicine or drug made from the people who were cheering for his death just days prior.

He did trust District Seven finest Cherry Wood Whiskey though.

Henry made his way down the stairs as quiet as he could, knowing which creaky step to skip over, and tip-toed silent as a mouse into the dark kitchen. The teenager went immediately to the fridge, reaching up top and furrowing his brow when he didn't feel the sturdy glass bottle where it was always kept.

"Looking for this?"

The kitchen light came on, nearly blinding Henry who whipped around and saw Robin sitting at the table with the bottle in front of him and a full glass of the reddish-brown liquor.

"Robin," Henry stammered nervously. "I… I didn't, I just- you-... I… I- I didn't-... please don't tell my mom!"

He surprised Henry not with a glare but with a soft understanding smile. "You're not in trouble, Henry, I just want to talk."

Still not trusting that he wasn't about to be grounded or shouted at Henry took a cautious seat at the table opposite the blue eyed man.

"I was wondering when you would make your way down here," said Robin. "You lasted far longer than I did."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that for every day after the games I was drunk," Robin explained. "I would tell myself only one glass to steady my hand and help with the nightmares…" Robin shared a joyless smile with Henry, the kind that could turn to sobs in a heartbeat. "Nine times out of ten I would end up half a bottle deep and passed out at my table."

Henry furrowed his brow, eyeing the bottle in front of the blue eyed man. He never saw him drunk, not once not ever. He only saw him take an occasional nip not even three times a year, usually when the games were approaching and he had to get ready to parade in front of the cameras again.

"I've never even hardly seen you drink much less get blacked out drunk," Henry said.

"That's because I stopped after my first year as a mentor. I got drunk during the games, incredibly drunk, couldn't even stand up. I passed out the second night and then the next thing I know John was shaking me awake and telling me that my tribute died." Robin looked down at the table, scratching a bit of wood with his fingernail. "She was popular enough not to be completely written off but not so popular that sponsors would give her gifts without prodding from her drunk useless mentor, a gift like a first aid kit to help with a fast acting infection from a dirty blade that cut her in the cornucopia." He finally looked up, lost blue eyes staring into astonished hazel. "She was thirteen years old."

An unexplainable lump grew in Henry's throat that made it impossible for him to swallow and when he tried speaking around it his voice was a pathetic teary whisper. "You never told me that story before."

"I never told anyone that story. Not even your mother knows it, only John and you. The rest of the Panem thinks the sponsors just didn't want to waste good medical supplies on a girl who was probably going to die anyway."

Now he was truly at a loss. Henry knew his step father told his mother everything. They were soulmates, they were meant to be, they were happy and in love and content… why then would Robin hide things from her?

Seeing the confusion in Henry's eyes, Robin reached across the table and grabbed hold of Henry's hand. "I love your mother. She's everything to me. But there's some things…" Henry could feel Robins hand begin to tremble. "There's some things that she won't ever be able to understand. As open and as loving and giving as she is, as un-judgmental as she truly in her heart of hearts is, she will never understand what goes through our minds, or the 42 other victors mind. She, or Roland hopefully, won't ever understand the nightmares or the self hatred or the anger or the… the guilt."

Tears flooded Henry's eyes. The guilt was the worst part so far. That he lived while 23 others died, him being responsible for three of those, was the worst feeling in the world and one Henry knew, no matter how much of that rust colored liquor he drank, he would never be able to get over it.

"I just..." Henry had to stop for fear of that impossibly hard lump suffocating him and take a deep breath, not even bothering to wipe the tears from his eyes because he knew they were going to return. "It's not fair."

"What isn't?"

"That I lived and they didn't. They didn't wanna be there any more than I did and they didn't have to die… I didn't mean to kill anyone but they still died." He had to cover his mouth with his hand to muffle the sobs less he wake his mother or Roland up, lowering his voice to a shaky whisper that Robin could barely hear, like if he spoke it louder then all of Panem would hear his confession and punish him. "I'm a murderer."

Robin shook his head. He wouldn't let Henry believe that, he couldn't let him believe that, it was wrong and it wasn't fair to Henry, to Robin, to any of the victors that came before them or the ones who would come after. He moved his chair from across the elegantly decorated table to right by his side so he could rest a hand in his shoulder and look into his eyes, making sure Henry heard every single word.

"Listen to me… You are NOT a murderer, Henry. You didn't choose any of what happened, no more than I did."

"I killed Leroy," the teenager said, learning the name of the boy who tried to kill him with his ax only after the fact in the post game interviews. "I killed Mal, I killed Emma…"

"You protected yourself, that's all you did. You have nothing to feel guilty about."

Robin almost wanted to laugh. How many times has he told himself that same thing when he saw the faces of those whose lives he took in his own Games in his nightmares? How many times did he tell himself to rid himself of the guilt they still consumed him?

How many times has he told himself that whenever he picked up his bow and he was taken back to his jungle style arena and waiting until his victims saw him before he released his arrow, telling himself that it was self defense because he had been spotted.

It was a lie. Robin knew it was, no matter how many times he tried to tell himself that story, but for Henry it wasn't. He hadn't meant to kill any of them, and he was not about to let guilt unfairly consume him.

"You did that you had to do to survive," Robin reminded him. "There's no shame in that, Henry, and that girl choose to sacrifice herself for you. She could have let you get hit by that tree, she could have let you burned, she could have shoved her sword in your back but she choose to save you. Emma died a hero and is being hailed 'the savior of Panem'."

Robin bit back his opinion that the Capital would be using Emma's heroism as a way to prove that even in death you were able to make a mark in Panem, something the victor was sure she wouldn't have wanted.

"I just… I don't understand why she didn't just let me die," Henry told Robin, casting his eyes to the clean tiled floor, terrified he would see in Robin's eyes the same shame and hatred he felt for himself. "She could have won, she could be with her family, she… she could be alive."

Robin lifted Henry's chin so that he was looking the small boy in his eyes. "And you wouldn't be. Everytime you think about their faces, everytime you think about their families, everytime you think about ending it because of that guilt, don't look at me like that, you WILL go through it if you haven't already," Robin said in an answer to his step sons panicked eyes. "Just remember that, Henry. They may be gone but if any of them survived, you would be dead instead. And death is worse than everything you're feeling right now."

Robin offered Henry a humorless smile, the pain that he fought against showing his family now as clear in his eyes as if he was screaming it, revealing it only now because he now had someone who understood that coldness and pain inside him. "Or so I'm told."

The older victor stood up and clapped Henry on the shoulder once more, sliding the full glass towards the teenage boy.

"I won't tell you how to cope," he told him, his voice almost frighteningly calm. "But remember that you belong to the capital now and they don't… they don't like their victors to be shown as incapacitated, Henry."

Robin reaches around and rubbed the back where Henry knew there were violent criss-cross scars on his back that he never thought to ask about, always assuming it happened in the Games but now… He had a feeling it wasn't just the death of his tribute that helped Robin curb his drinking.

With a final slap on the shoulder Robin turned and went back upstairs to bed leaving the young boy staring at the glass in front of him and feeling like he swallowed a bucket load of sand and had gone without water for forty years.

Henry was thirsty. Thirstier than he ever thought he could be and he knew all the water in the world wouldn't be able to quench it, nor would all the late night talks with his step dad or the self-help motivational speeches help him either.

The only thing that would be able to help him as a matter of fact was that reddish-brown sitting in that tumbler glass that would rightfully punish him with a sharp pain that would make his eyes water and burn his throat on the way down.

So, taking a deep breath, 'Panem's Favorite Arthur', a fourteen year old boy who was still too young to grow a single hair on his chin yet, grabbed hold of the glass placed in front of him and lifted it to the Capital cameras he knew were watching him and his family.

"To Panem," Henry muttered out loud before he took a deep breath, brought the whiskey to his lips, and drank it down…

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