(Mayor Undersee)

Sometimes, it's the things that I have seen coming for ages that take me the most by surprise when they happen. It's like the mines. Everyone knows that mining is hardly an accident free industry. Everyone knows the litany of things that can go wrong. Everyone knows, in theory, that the miners are tunneling under tons upon tons of rock that depend on a delicate structural balance to prevent them from coming crashing down. We all know, so it really should be expected when the inevitable occurs. But it isn't. It takes us all by surprise. It leaves us all shocked. Because, I think, we fall too deeply into the habit of thinking that this won't be the day that it does.

I've been waiting for so long to see the results of our Tributes' rebellion against the rules the Capitol has laid down that it takes me by surprise when the flurry of chaos comes.

There was no slow build up. There was no gradual increase in frequency of reports that led to something massive. It simply was. It started with District 11 and moved forward from there. It was like watching some sort of strange map that traced the path of the train that the Victors from District 12 were taking from District to District as each place they left behind was engulfed and consumed as they left it.

It was predictable even. The regular television broadcast of each stop on the Victory Tour would be followed by an officials' only broadcast of an update telling of unrest. The reports were not equal in their degrees of concern. Some Districts received only mentions of watching the population for signs of unrest. Others reported actual incidents that had been swiftly dealt with and had seemingly settled the others back down. Others displayed a situation where each incident seemed to lead to another incident and another no matter how much force the local Peacekeepers used in their responses.

And always, always the reports reminded those of us charged with authority within our own Districts that our lives would not be pleasant if the Capitol were forced to take more drastic action. There were reminders of 13 scattered throughout the reports. Executions and displays of Peacekeepers "controlling" unruly crowds were dwelt upon in detail, and the underlying questions were always left implied but never spoken.

"Do you see what happens? Do you see what you will make us do? Is this what you want for your people? Is this what you want for your children? Do you want to see blood in your streets? Do you want this destruction? For what? What could you possibly gain? What could be worth all of this?"

Or, maybe, those questions weren't implied in the broadcasts. Maybe they were just inside my own head. Maybe they were haunting me everywhere that I looked because I could think of little else as the Tour made its way on the path that would eventually lead it back to District 12. They would end up here, and where would we end up because of it?

I stopped my long hours at the Justice Building. There was no point. The memos had stopped. Whatever game they had been playing with them had come to an end. Whatever they were going to do had already been decided. I might as well wait for its revelation with my family close at hand.

Besides, a Madge home with or without me was a Madge ensconced in my home office watching and studying and drawing her own conclusions. It was best if I was there to try to exert some sort of influence. Her mother was sleeping more often than not. As much as I now understood that in a lot of ways our daughter had raised herself, she needed a parent right now. Knowing things (no matter how detailed the stories her grandmother may have filled her with) is never the same as seeing them for yourself. I lost the battle to keep her out of my office, but I wasn't going to let her watch those things alone.

"So they don't teach the Capitol history either?" She asks me one night after a report on District 3. I should be more used to the questions that she pipes with seemingly out of nowhere by now, but she always seems to catch me at my inarticulate best.

"What?" I question trying to draw some sort of a line between what we had been viewing and the odd observation that she seemed to have made from it.

"They don't teach real history to the people who grow up in the Capitol," she says nodding her head in agreement with herself. I get the impression that she's talking more to herself than she is to me. "Not the history from before anyway. They can't. If they did, they would understand that they are handling this all wrong."

I'm trying to figure out what she means by history from before. Before the Games? Before the last rebellion? Or before Panem? She didn't have that much time with her grandmother, and she was far too little to take in much in the way of massive history instruction, wasn't she? I'm starting to wonder if she has some source of information besides stories from her childhood, but part of me is afraid to ask. I don't know anything about before Panem except that coal mining started then, and everyone in the District knows that. Madge is still speaking, but I'm more convinced than ever that what I'm hearing isn't for me. She's letting all the thoughts that she's woven together in her head come out so that she can see if they still make the same level of sense to her when they are spoken. The way her head keeps nodding implies that she has decided that they do.

"They're so scared of history, of what might be used against them, that they've crippled themselves from learning from previous mistakes." She looks pleased, but I can't figure out what there is in her words to be pleased about. Her head tilts as she looks back at the once again beeping television. She studies it for a moment and the pleased look about her remains despite the violence that plays out in front of her. "And the sand keeps slipping through their fingers."

I start to ask her what she's talking about. What does she even know about sand? It's not something that she's ever seen anywhere off of a television screen. I don't get the chance. She's slipped out of the room while I'm trying to choose my words, and an appropriate moment doesn't appear over the next couple of days.

She walks her mother into my office on the night of the interview with Caesar Flickerman. My wife has never stepped foot in my office before. She doesn't make a habit of watching Capitol broadcasts. She hasn't been out of her room in two weeks. Everything about the situation should seem wrong; it should all seem out of balance with what our lives are. It doesn't. The three of us sitting together, watching, and telling each other what we are thinking seems nothing but right. I don't have any illusions that it will be often repeated. I can see that my wife is losing her battle. This is a special occasion. She's making a memory for Madge to hold on to when she can't have her anymore. She's trying hard to focus on what she's seeing. She's doing her best to keep her thoughts straight and give Madge responses that make sense. It's hurting her to do it. It's exhausting her to try to keep up. She's pale and her voice is strained. She's in pain, but she's ignoring it. She hasn't taken any medication. She's trying to give Madge time that is just her without any artificial substances standing between them. Madge knows. He sees it in the careful way she arranges a pillow behind her mother's back. They share a look over his wife's shoulder, and they both know that the other understands what this moment is. There isn't any reason to say the words out loud.

We watch as a family as the boy proposes to the girl. We watch as she accepts in front of a screaming, cheering audience that somehow have themselves convinced that the moment is all about them instead of the couple on the stage. Sadly, they aren't wrong. It is a show for them. It's a show for everyone who won't let go of those children even though they already survived their time in the arena. A moment that should have been allowed to be about the two of them, a moment that should have been private can't be because the living don't ever really get to leave the arena.

The President makes an appearance, and my eyes jerk from the screen to my daughter who has let lose a stream of invective against the man hugging her friend that would be quite enough to create a charge of treason, and her mother has a hand pressed to her side as if to hold her ribs still will she laughs quietly at the spectacle. She sees my face, and her laughter stops. She raises a hand to my jaw and makes sure that I'm looking her in the eye.

"Let her," she admonishes. "Let her say it while she can."

(Hazelle)

I run an appraising eye over my younger three before we leave the house. We'll do. I would avoid subjecting my children to the cameras again if I could, but it isn't an option. At least the food will be good. Normally (if such an extravagant celebration could ever be considered normal for District 12) we would never have been making an appearance at the Mayor's home. We are, however, still considered family to one of the District Victors. That means that we are invited to the dinner welcoming them home the night before the Harvest Festival. If you can call it an invitation. Invitation implies that you have the option to turn it down.

We will be going. That's why we are dressed in our best (Reaping Day clothing) and preparing to trek through the snow so that we can be videoed looking happy that my children's "cousin" has returned. I'm choosing not to think about the cameras and all the ways that it feels as though we've just gotten rid of them. I'm thinking about the food. I'm thinking about how, for once, I won't be the one preparing it. I'm thinking how the children will go to bed tonight full (Rory likely with a stomach ache that I won't begrudge him because I know how very unlikely it is for that to happen again in the future that I can foresee).

I'm thinking that I'll have to carry Posy. The snow will brush off the boy's pants, and they will dry quickly enough. Posy's dress is different, and she's little enough that having her walk through the snow wouldn't be best in any case. Gale won't be able to do it. He isn't home yet from the mines. He'll clean up and join us later. I would prefer that we all go together, but we were asked to be sure that we were on time. Gale didn't object. I won't be surprised if he manages to come up with some way to skip the event altogether. He isn't in the best of moods. He hasn't been since the broadcast of the proposal. It's another change. After all the changes that have been thrown at him lately, he's responding by digging his heels in harder with each one. He went straight to bed after the broadcast aired, and he hasn't spoken to me since (except to tell me that we shouldn't wait for him to get home from the mines before leaving for the dinner because that would make us all late).

I've given him space. I've tried to let him sort out things on his own. If he is foolish enough to skip out tonight when he knows the cameras will be rolling and someone might notice that part of Katniss's "family" didn't bother to attend, he and I will be hashing out some things whether he is ready or not for it to happen.

We don't even have to make it in the front door to be able to smell the food that is waiting for us inside. It hits us as we come up to the yard. Rory's stomach gives an audible growl in response. He's twelve. My children eat well for the District in which we live. (I can't speak for the other Districts.) That doesn't mean that there aren't still times when they are hungry. Filling up a near teenage boy that is going through a growth spurt doesn't come easily. He ducks his head in embarrassment, and I reach over to squeeze his shoulder. He looks up at me and gives a sheepish grin. I smile back at him.

Vick is looking up at the house as if he's nervous about going up to the door. "I've never gone in the front before," he whispers. We stand in a small group looking at the bustling house as if it has become something intimidating instead of just a building. Posy is the one who breaks the moment. She knows we are going to eat dinner, and her only experience with eating at someone else's house is going over to visit Prim.

"Will there be cookies?" She asks as she wriggles tired of being carried. I shift her to a better position against my hip and nod my head toward the door to get the boys moving. There are a few frowns sent in the direction of the snow that we are knocking off of our shoes, but no one says anything. We are brushed off, someone comes after the boys' hair with a comb, and we are ushered into a room and showed the place at a table where we are to sit when it is time.

Posy is fascinated by the flowers that decorate the tables. That keeps her busy and means that I don't have to sit on her to keep her from running around. Rory and Vick are talking to Prim who is excited to be seeing her sister soon. Ari and I exchange nods of greeting, but she doesn't seem to be interested in any sort of conversation. The two of us rarely are.

The Mayor's daughter enters with someone clearly from the Capitol in tow. The woman is talking a mile a minute in a semi-whisper that I can't make out from across the room. She seems to be talking just to hear herself talk because she doesn't notice that Madge Undersee is surveying the room while she listens. Her eyes rest for a moment on Posy who is balanced standing on a chair while she leans across the table to examine the flowers more closely. A smile flits across her face, and she turns to say something to the chattering woman who has paused (I can only guess to breathe). She must have been paying enough attention despite her surveying of the room to say something appropriate because the woman looks pleased and launches into another round of words. The girl turns her head again and catches Vick's eye. They share a smile, and Vick mouths something to her that I can't see. Madge slowly shakes her head, and I see Vick roll his eyes. Madge gives him a last grin and turns to give her full attention (or at least what looks like it) to the still speaking woman.

I look back at Posy and the pink dress that she is wearing. It isn't new. It has a bow across the back made from a thick ribbon. There is an overskirt that rustles when she moves. Posy loves it. It isn't practical to have such a nice dress for a child that is still growing, but she needed one for tonight (and this one was offered). I pull her down before she climbs completely on top of the table. More officials enter and find their places, and the formal entrances of the main guests begin.

The food is good, and it feels as though it is never ending. Katniss looks better than she did in the broadcasts of the Victory Tour. She had been looking progressively worse as it went along. I don't have much experience with makeup, but you can cover circles under someone's eyes all you like - worry still shows. Something changed after the proposal. She looked different after she had accepted the President's congratulations. All of the clips of her at the Capitol party that are playing on the television that has been placed in the far corner of the room where we are dining looked lighter - as if her shoulders had lifted and she wasn't having to work so hard to stand up anymore. I don't know what shifted. I don't know what changed.

I just know that as she hugs her sister, exchanges greetings with various officials, and leans toward the baker's boy while she eats there is something about her that feels much different than anything I have seen from her lately. It strikes me that she looks like she did back before the Games - a child who is still weighted down with too much responsibility, but one who knows what it is that she has to do. She's found some sort of a purpose.

My wayward son slips in late and seems to be making sure that the cameras catch him sitting next to his siblings. He slips out again once the reporters seem to have grown tired of broad room shots and have returned to a sole focus on the Victors. I didn't see him eat a bite. I don't think he and Katniss made eye contact the entire time.

Gale made an appearance (albeit a short one), Rory did give himself a stomach ache, Vick may have eaten half his weight from the dessert trays, and Posy's head was filled with pretty things for her to talk about. The cameras didn't follow us home. I could hope that this was our last appearance as "cousins." I could hope that we were finally leaving the chaos of being closely involved with the Capitol behind us, but something told me that I would be wrong.