A/N: Okay guys here's chapter 4! It's double the length of the others at 2000 words, because I couldn't stop writing! If I get a couple of reviews I might upload more later! SO REVIEW! (:


We arrive promptly at the train station and as Katniss and I step out of the car we are bombarded by an ocean of cameras and reporters.

I self-consciously wipe the remaining tears from my face and attempt to compose my features. I know that it is no use though, that I have almost certainly already been branded as a weakling.

This thought threatens to send another wave of salty tears spilling over but I choke them back, resolving to cry into a pillow on the train tonight; where no one can see or hear me.

Effie joins us on the platform before the train ordering us to show 'Big, big, big smiles!' naturally we don't and this leaves her annoyed.

Finally after what feels like a lifetime, she turns her back to the cameras and addresses us. 'Right then, come long you two! Onto the train we go!' she squeals with an unnaturally wide smile plastered across her face.

We obey and step through the sliding door and inside the carriage. The wall slides back into place behind us and the outside world is gone.

I half forget the circumstances of my arrival on this train as I am left in awe of everything that surrounds me. Everything is new. Brand new, and shiny. The seats which are placed uniformly along the left hand side of the train are covered with a thick, plush, royal blue fabric. I have never felt such softness before. Someone, a capitol attendant I think, tells me it is velvet as I caress it with my rough baker's fingers. The tables that line the right hand wall are scattered with pretty and intricate decorations, but upon inspection I see that the beautiful décor is actually food.

I try to push my sadness deep down inside of me as I realise the opportunity I have to gorge myself before the games begin, maybe put on a few pounds that I can stand to lose when the games start.

I turn to Effie seeking permission to disrupt the display, and Katniss must feel exactly the same. I can see she has the same pleading look in her deep seam grey eyes. 'Well don't just stand there,' Effie chimes 'enjoy the fantastic food! I cant imagine you get many nice things coming from 12.' I decide to ignore the second half of her sentence and grab a plate, piling it high with delicacies.

Once I am satisfied I have enough on my plate I follow Katniss to take a seat next to the wide train window. Effie tells us she will go and find Haymitch and we sit and await her return as we eat.

About 5 minutes later, a drunken Haymitch stumbles into the carriage. He knocks a great deal of food off the table top and onto the floor which makes me and Katniss cringe. What an extraordinary waste of food.

He looks up at us, 'Congratulations,' he says in an obviously sarcastic tone. He reeks of alcohol as is usual for Haymitch from what I have heard. After winning the games he became withdrawn and angry, turning to drink for a way out.

Then he vomits all over the carpet. Oh no.

Haymitch is naturally not the best on his feet anyway, being drunk, but now even more so than usual he is thrown off balance by the slippery contents of his stomach all over the floor.

I hear Effie come in behind me 'I can't seem to fi- Oh!' She takes in the scene and flees the carriage.

I sigh inwardly because I know what I am going to do next.

'Come on Haymitch' I say in a weary tone which appears in my voice, 'let's get you back to your room huh?'

'Can you give me a hand?' I ask Katniss softly. The first words I have exchanged with her. My girl in the red plaid dress.

'Sure,' she agrees but doesn't seem overly convinced. I take the weight of Haymitch on my right shoulder, wedging it under his arm. Katniss leads us into his room. We dump him in the bathtub and turn on the shower. He doesn't even notice as far as I can tell.

I can see in her expression that she is dreading what comes next, so I tell her 'It's okay, I'll take it from here.'

Relief floods her face and she agrees. She offers to send one of the capitol attendants to help me but I refuse. I can't be in such close proximity with someone who, in a week or so, will most likely be betting on children set to kill me in a sick fight to the death.

Katniss leaves me with Haymitch. I strip him down to his underclothes and once I have scrubbed the stench of his stomach contents from his body, he is practically unconscious. I shut off the shower, pat him dry with a towel and haul him onto his bed. I decide not to pull the covers over him because it is stuffy in the train.

I then head to my own room where I find some bed clothes laid out on top of a chest of drawers. I put them on, folding my reaping clothes neatly in their place and crawl in between the intricately embroidered bed sheets knowing that I will not sleep tonight.

I do not sleep as I had predicted. I spend the night thrashing from side to side, crying into my pillow as I had promised myself I would, missing my own bed at home, and feeling ill. I regret eating all that food yesterday. My poor diet rejects it and I have my head in the toilet bowl at least 3 times during in the night.

I lie in the unfamiliar bed, restless and refusing sleep until I see the faintest streak of orange on the horizon. I can finally get out of my stuffy room. I shower quickly and dress in yesterday's clothes while admiring the sunrise as my favourite shade of amber spreads across the sky.

I head down the corridor to the room we came to first yesterday. I see the food first as I enter the room and rush straight over, vowing to pace myself this time. I put only 3 small woven bread rolls on my plate and turn to the table behind me. I am surprised to see Haymitch, who is picking at an apple with a knife, sat before me.

'Sit down boy,' he commands and I do. Not because he told me to, but because I was about to anyway. I wonder what the time is. It can't be earlier than 6am.

He looks me in the face for a while, then when he finally speaks again, 'Thanks.' Is all he says. I assume he means from last night and I only nod in return.

After watching me eat the first roll awkwardly, he calls over a capitol attendant and asks for something called 'hot chocolate'. Within a minute a hot cup of sweet smelling brown liquid is set in front of me.

'Tear the rolls up and dip them in there.' He recommends, 'Might as well make the most of the food while you can.'

I tear a strip off of one of my remaining rolls and do as he said. I am rewarded; the hot liquid spews onto my tongue as I bite into the roll. It is an intense but sweet flavour that I love. After getting through my 2 remaining rolls quickly, I take the whole basket from the buffet table.

As I begin tearing them into strips, my mind is cat back to when I burned the bread at the bakery. Why I burned the bread at the bakery.

I was only 12 but I had known Katniss since I was 5, known of her really. On the first day of school, my father pointed her out to me as the girl whose mother he had wanted to marry. the girl whose mother ran off with a coal miner, - a man whose singing voice was so beautiful, that even the birds stopped to listen to it.

I watched her all day. Every moment she was in my line of vision. I remember the assembly where she was asked to sing the valley song by our teacher. She stood up tall on a stool in her red plaid dress, with 2 long braids falling down her back, and sang. I knew right then that I was a goner. As she finished the song, just before she was applauded, there was a moment of silence. A moment that I realised all the birds were listening to her sing too.

I never got up the courage to talk to the girl in the plaid dress. I would try. Walk up to stand right behind her, but only stay for a second and then carry on walking. When she was almost 12 her father died in a mine accident. I remember her sprinting through the corridors of our school to collect her little sister as the sirens sounded.

Her father was killed and I knew she wasn't doing well.

One horrid day, I heard my mother screaming at someone to 'Get out of those bins!' she shouted profanities in their direction and I thought no more of it. Until I saw her through the back window of the bakery. She was doubled over, kneeling in a muddy puddle, rain coming town in torrents and she just knelt there. I could see she had been holding something but she had dropped it in the dirt. Whatever it was, it was ruined. I could hear her sobs; see how they racked her body, how she clutched at her chest as if her heart might jump out and run away.

I couldn't stand to leave her there. I was about to take her 2 good loaves I had just baked, about to walk right up to her and put my arms around her and tell her everything was alright. But my mother startled me. I dropped them in the fire. She hit me; leaving a brooding purple bruise above my left eye. I still scooped them out of the fire, pretended to throw them to the pigs. But instead I sent them flying in her direction.

They landed no more than a metre away. I looked her right in her seam grey, hollow eyes just for a moment, and then I vanished back inside. I saw her look so bewildered by the kindness of a stranger. Then, she wrapped the hot loaves into her jacket and staggered away.

Then Haymitch snaps me back to reality by asking 'So boy, what's your angle?'

'Angle?' I ask confused 'What angle?'

'Your angle for the parade, the interview, the games,' Haymitch replies. 'What do you want it to be?'

'I-I'm not sure.' I answer. 'I've still not completely taken in where I'm going, let alone how I want to play it!' I am aware that I am almost yelling at Haymitch now so I lower my tone and ask: 'What angle do you think would be best for me?'

Haymitch grunts in annoyance, probably hoping to skip having to decide on an angle himself, and looks me up and down. 'Maybe… Genuine? Or friendly? But that doesn't go down too well unless you're an obvious contender' he tells me bluntly 'and I know you've got some muscle on you but you ain't no career.'

'Oh,' I sigh. Then I have an idea. A mad, crazy, stupid idea. My stomach churns but I say it anyway.

'What about in love?' I ask quietly and shyly, dreading Haymitch's reply.

'In love with who?' he counters, and I know I will have to tell him.

Tell him that if I want to ride this train again, I will have to see the love of my life die.