A/N: I thought Katniss was going to be in this chapter, but according to my notes that's Chapter 9. Sorry. There's also quite a bit of strong language in this chapter, so when Ezra's about to make a phone call, you can skip past it, if you want. You have been warned. This is mainly a filler, but I guess it's the very, very, very beginning of romance (?).

carriedaway88-I love your pen name, first off. (Does your first name happen to be Carrie, because that would be SO cool.) I was afraid I wasn't going to make Haymitch or any of the other locals realistic, so I'm glad you thought he was the same. Having lived in Appalachia (West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, etc.; where District 12 is) for my entire life, I guess I know the lingo well.

xSiriusly Insanex-Thanks! There ARE a lot of backstories, aren't there? Sorry about that, I've been watching way too much James Bond and Bourne. But thanks again! Also, Seven Nation Army is the best song ever, thanks!

Wehaveaproblem-Thanks! I guess this is a pretty intricate story (I watch too many Bourne movies). There's more Haymitch later on, being difficult (lol) and I'm sorry I told you Katniss is in this chapter! According to my notes she's in chapter 9, but I think I might change some stuff, and she *might* be in the next chapter.


"I am on the fence about nearly everything I've seen,

And I have felt the fire be put out by too much gasoline.

And we're all strangers passing through a place and time, an afternoon.

Life is but a vision in a window that we're peeking through.

A helpless conversation with a man who says he cares a lot,

It's a passive confrontation about who might throw a punch or not.

We are all transgressors, we're all sinners, we're all astronauts.

So if you're beating death then raise your hand but shut up if you're not."

-Difference Maker, Needtobreathe


Chapter 7

Ezra Gardner

Gale's kid brother leaves for work as we leave the Hob. Thank God. The guy's on my last nerve. Maybe if he knew the severity of what I'd seen before the war, and as a Peacekeeper, he'd understand. Maybe if he knew my work, he'd understand. But since the son of a bitch doesn't-he'd only be maybe fourteen when the war started-, I figure it won't be long until he loses a few teeth.

We mill around the Hob a while longer, so we don't appear as suspicious. Evangeline buys a random knickknack from someone's pile of trash. It's a gold pin with pearls. It looks like the kind of thing I'd buy Sabille and she'd throw away. But things are different in District 2. We could afford to be wasteful there.

I peer around at some of the other stalls, not quite certain what I was supposed to be looking for, or in some cases, at. It looks like a regular market, except smaller, and you can't buy firearms in a typical public market. There are guns, rusty bits of machinery, knives, food, clothes, books, and services. There are service adverts hanging on the walls, and some of the more popular ones had people to represent them. Plumbing, cleaning, cooking, seamstress, catering, carpentering, paving, prostitution, tutoring, hunting, lumber. An unshaven man sits on a wooden stool, cleaning his fingernails with a knife blade, a rifle propped against the wall behind him. Nearby was a woman, maybe thirty, whose skin seemed to sag slightly. She wore a shirt that looked like a button could pop and turn the Hob into a striptease. When I walk by, she bats her eyelashes at me, but her eyes look haunted. One of the whores, undoubtedly looking for a quick way to make money for drugs. I walk past her to look at a bulletin. I catch sight of the heading and rip it down.


Cleaning-Cooking-Laundry-Seamstress

Hazelle Hawthorne

At Hob Wednesdays, 7 AM to 2 PM.


Below that was a phone number. I fold it and cram it into my pocket. If there's one thing that family doesn't need, it's definitely a mother who only works to throw the money into addiction, a bag full of holes.

Gale claps a hand on my shoulder, and I nearly jump. "You ready to go?" he asks. I nod and tap Evangeline on the shoulder. She's studying something on the other side of the aisle. We head outside, and the cold air hits my face, momentarily taking my breath away.

"There'll be snow tonight," Evangeline says. Gale's walking far ahead of us, out of earshot.

"What makes you say that?" I ask.

"It's always like this in 6 before a storm," Evangeline explains. "And if it storms in this temperature, it'll snow."

I look ahead at Gale. "I really am sorry about yesterday," I say, not looking at her.

"It was nothing new."

I wonder what she means by that, like it was sort of predictable that I would blow up, or that she'd gotten yelled at like that plenty before. I glance sideways at her, but she's looking up at the swirling, rumbling clouds. "I told you there'd be a storm. It looks like it'll start in an hour or so, at that rate." She raises her voice. "Gale, it looks like a blizzard's going to blow in. We'll get lost trying to find their house, and if Mallory's there, it'll be impossible to have an advantage from the outside."

Reluctantly Gale changes our direction and begins to traipse in the direction of his family's house. I raise an eyebrow at Evangeline, but she only shrugs. Gale's awfully hell-bent on getting this over with. He's unlocking the door to the house when the first flakes begin to fall. Evangeline gives me a pointed look and we head inside.

The house is cold. I can see my breath. No one's home. I go back outside and find where someone-probably Rory or Vick-had split wood. I grab as much of the stuff I can carry and take it back inside. Evangeline opens the door for me. I put the wood in the hearth and find a box of matches and old newspapers in a drawer, and soon stoke a fire. Gale watches, interested. "I didn't know you had a fireplace, Ezra."

"Yeah, well your brother's not the only one who knows how to light a fire," I retort, bad-tempered. Gale visibly winces.

"Sorry about him. He's kind of arrogant. I think he got it from me."

"Kind of?" I echo disdainfully. "And I don't think you can pass on arrogance, considering you're his brother, not his dad." What are we talking about? Self-importance isn't even hereditary.

"Yeah, well, when he saw how you were acting, he must've gotten jealous."

"Jealous, my ass," I say, and I see Evangeline smile. I make it my goal to make her smile more, if it's the only thing I accomplish in three months trapped in District 12. "Where's the phone?" I ask. "I want to call Sabille."

Instantly Gale seems to harden and his expression becomes one of seriousness. "In the kitchen. I'm gonna go out and split wood. I'll be back in an hour."

"An hour? To split wood? There's plenty out there," Evangeline points out.

"I need to keep occupied," Gale says simply, shutting the door behind him. I open the door to the kitchen and shut it, so Evangeline won't overhear as much of what I suspect to be a very heated argument. I dial the operator's number.

"Operator," she says.

"I need to place a call to my unfaithful wife," I say, and the operator almost laughs. I can hear it. She sucks in air and almost chuckles, but she ends it with a strangled cough. Must be a smoker. Lack of oxygen can do that to smokers. Or anyone, really.

"What district?"

"2."

"What's her name?"

"Sabille Gardner."

Now it's ringing on the other end. I tap my foot nervously. When it switches over to the answering machine, just as I was about to hang up, it picks up. "Sabille Garder."

"Sabille? It's me. Ezra." Which is dumb, because after four years of marriage, she can probably recognize my voice over the phone.

There's no answer on her end, but she hadn't hung up. Maybe she'd just left the phone off the hook and walked away.

"I just wanted to know how the kids are."

"Kent and Estella are doing fine." She barks back the response.

"Sabille?"

"What?" I can almost feel the anger radiating off of her through the receiver. It rolls in waves.

"Are you leaving me?"

"Yes, okay! Yes, Ezra, I'm leaving you! And d'you know why? It's because you're a self-righteous, arrogant jacka-"

I hang up and slouch against the wall. Then, wearily I sigh and pick the phone back up.

"Operator? I would like to call my adulteress back. Do you still have her number?"

She picks up this time on the second ring. "Ezra, you son of a bit-"

"How often will I get to see them?" I interrupt.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Kent and Estella."

"Why the fuck should I let them see you?" There's a hysterical note to her voice.

"They're my kids too, dammit!"

"Then why don't you act like it?"

"Put Kent on."

No answer.

"Let me talk to my son."

"Why should I?! He barely even knows you're his father! You're never here!"

"Put my son on the fucking line!"

The phone on the other end is jostled around, and static fills my ear. "He's not here."

"Why not?"

"He's at my mom's with Estella. He's only three. What did you think?"

"I thought that if they mean enough to you that you won't let them see me that they'd be with you. That's what I thought."

"I'm with Herod," she says abruptly.

"Well, fuck you." I slam the phone on the receiver. It almost breaks. I instantly want to swipe it back up and call her, apologize and tell her how much I love her and the kids. But that won't. I know it won't. I know Sabille. I sit down at the table and put my hand on my forehead. It's been a stressful week.

Evangeline comes in maybe fifteen minutes later, while I'm still fuming. She'd definitely heard my half of that. She goes to the coffee maker and starts making the stuff. A few minutes later she pours herself one and sits down across from me.

"I had a husband," she says quietly. I almost curse at her, but since I'd already done that in the past twenty-four hours, I restrain myself.

"He died in the war. My daughter, too. I was pregnant then, and I miscarried. He wasn't a good husband. He hit me. But I loved him."

I don't say anything, because there's not a lot you can really say in response to that. She keeps going. "There was a bombing, right above his factory. We tried to get out of the city. They said there were hovercrafts coming to take us to 13. Everyone was standing on top of a building, and a bomb went off below. Killed everyone. The rebel hovercraft never even came. They were being lured in. My daughter and I made it to the train station. We got on a train the rebels took over, and we were halfway to 13 when we were bombed."

"It was hard," I agree, "on all of us. I was with the Capitol, because I worked for them then. They blew up the Nut, which was where the Capitol's defense was stationed. I was there, inside. Not many of us made it out, and a lot of the ones that did got shot. I did, twice. In the shoulder, and then in my abdomen. I lost a kidney. It was Gale's plan that killed us."

"Then why are you friends with him?"

"I worked for the Capitol because they paid well, that's all. And I work for Paylor because she pays me well, that's all. There's nothing personal about it. I'm a mercenary, I guess."

"I don't think that's true," she says. "You were a Peacekeeper, you work for the Agency because you love it. You don't fit in with normal life. I know, because after the bombs, that's why I joined."

Hadn't that been why Maria left me?

She brings her cup to her lips and tips it. Coffee is what I want, but I've already had so much today that I doubt I'll be able to sleep a wink tonight.

"When do Gale's siblings get home?"

"I don't know," I answer. "Soon."

"It's noon."

"Well, sooner than they would've fifteen minutes ago."

"True." She wears the pin she'd bought at the Hob. "How does his mother keep all this up? She's an alcoholic. She probably doesn't even have a job, and I doubt Rory's miner salary can pay the taxes on a house like this."

I show her the paper I'd gotten from the Hob and flatten it out on the table. She reads it and looks at me, skeptic.

"Why does it even matter?" I ask.

"I don't know, but I live by myself in the cheapest part of 6, and I can barely pay for my apartment, even with the money we make."

I find that slightly surprising, because Sabille doesn't work at all and with the money I make, we can afford plenty of luxuries. Maybe they're paid less in 6, or the cost of living's higher there. None of those possibilities make much sense, so I don't voice either of them. Instead I say, "This is the first time I've been in 12. I was stationed in 5 as a Peacekeeper, and then they brought me back to 2."

"I've been here once before," she says. "For business, but it was a lot smaller then."

"Three months is too long to be away from home," I sigh. "My wife will be about to have a baby by then."

"Congratulations," she says.

"I guess. She's my ex-wife now, I guess." Which is probably the worst thing to say in a conversation.

"Do you think Mallory's guilty?" she bursts out suddenly, as if the question had been bothering her.

I hesitate. "Yes," I say finally. "He's our main suspect."

"But it doesn't sound like he's part of any organization. I mean, if a guy as dangerous as him would know that we're after him. He'd have a group around him, for protection."

"The chances are still high," I point out. "He could be trying not to draw attention to himself."

She shrugs but doesn't seem convinced.

Gale comes in several minutes later, sweaty, with another load of wood in his arms. I go upstairs to think on the case some more. But the more I try, the more I find myself thinking of Evangeline Moffat, with her asshole dead husband and how clearly she thinks.