Elena had no idea where the outburst had come from. She was just so sick of people telling her things were hopeless; she had practically raised herself since her parents were blown to bits in the mines three years ago, and she had managed to survive this long. She had every intention of trying to make it out of the arena alive. As soon as she was in the privacy of her own room on the train, however, the façade she had been trying to uphold broke apart. After her name was called at the reaping, she had gone into somewhat of a state of shock, and Alaric's statement had finally allowed things to hit home for her. Despite her determination to live, she knew Alaric was right, and that there was very little she was going to be able to do to prevent her death.

While she had been trying to remain strong in front of everyone, she simply couldn't keep the act up forever, and once she was alone, Elena broke down crying. Between sobs, she hardly noticed that Damon had come into the room. When she heard him clear his throat, she jumped up.

"What do you want?" she asked coldly, wiping away tears.

"I, uh, heard you crying," Damon said. "I wanted to see if you were okay."

"Obviously I'm not." Elena said. "You heard what Alaric said. We're going to die."

"You don't know that." Damon said. He hardly believed the words himself, and he was trying to reassure both Elena and himself at the same time.

"Well at least one of us is going to die." Elena said. Neither of them could deny that fact. Those were the rules of the Games: 24 go in, and only one comes out.

"Then we're just going to have to fight for as long as we can." Damon said. "You said so yourself."

"Yeah, well I was just hoping to piss Alaric off enough to sober up long enough to help us." Elena said.

"Like that could ever happen." Damon laughed. Everyone in District 12 knew how bad Alaric's problem was, and there was no amount of willpower in the world to get him to stop drinking. "Well, I'm gonna go get some sleep," Damon said. "I'll see you tomorrow." He gave Elena a reassuring pat on the shoulder and smiled before getting up to leave.

"Hey, Damon," Elena said, catching him as he walked out. "That was really brave, when you volunteered for your brother." Damon smiled again.

"Thanks," he said before heading to his own room. Elena couldn't help but laugh to herself as Damon left. All the girls back home must hate me right now, she thought. Certainly they were mourning the probable loss of one of District 12's most eligible bachelors. There was no doubting that Damon was attractive, and many of the girls in their class had developed a crush on him at some point or another. Elena had never seen the appeal, however. Sure, he was handsome, but she had never really seen anything more than that. The reaping, however, had shown her a completely different side of him, and made her think that there actually might be more to Damon than meets the eye.

Damon sighed as he sat down on his bed. Elena Gilbert… he thought. He liked her, he always had. She was one of the few girls in District 12 who wasn't fooled by his charm and good looks, and she was pretty. Not only that, but she was a survivor. There had been a few times when Damon had seen Elena sneak out under the fence along the border of District 12 to hunt, or sneaking back in with a game bag full of squirrels and wild birds. There was something about her that just pulled Damon towards her.

She actually might have a chance of winning, too. And she deserved to, after all she'd been through. He, on the other hand, hardly had a chance. Sure, he used to fight with Stefan when they were younger, but they had just been messing around, and it definitely wasn't a life or death situation. Other than that, he knew next to nothing about combat, or survival. At the very least, he could try and help Elena get back. That way, even if it couldn't be him, District 12 would have a victor, and there would be enough food for Stefan and his parents to survive. That was all that mattered to him.