The next couple days are a blur. I go from training to meeting to propo. Gale's with me everywhere as part of the Mockingjay deal, but I mostly ignore him. After a while he stops accompanying me, and instead spends hours with Beetee down in Special Weaponry. I want to focus solely on the rescue mission, but leadership keeps whisking me off for one thing or another. Cressida needs me to do some voiceover work for some of the footage from 8, and I feel silly sitting in the studio reading into a microphone, watching my own lips on camera and trying to match my pace to my mouth.

Fulvia has been particularly sour since her studio propo failed. I mostly dismissive of her pouting, but in one meeting she has a genuine stroke of genius – We Remember, a series of propos targeting the individual districts, highlighting their fallen tributes. Rue. Mags. Remind everyone what we are fighting for. She blushes when we all respond encouragingly. She's acting… modest? Maybe this war is changing Fulvia, too.

I agree to go on a day trip to 12. We can start some of the We Remember pieces from 12, and Cressida wants to film the ruins to show Panem what the Capitol did here. They're sending Gale, too. He's become more popular among the rebels. After he blew up the train station, saved the refugees from 12, and then took a prominent role in the first propo, the Mockingjay's cousin is becoming a hero in his own right. We don't speak on the hovercraft, but once we land in 12, the anger that radiates between us seems to dissipate into thin air. Among the dead, our quarrel seems petty. Gale's eyes cloud over as he searches the ruins of our district.

Cressida has him recount the night of the firebombing. He tells the story, his voice soft and reverent to the horror. He tells of the blaring sirens telling people to shelter in their homes. Then the power went out and the district fell into darkness. When the fires started, people didn't know how to respond. They hid in closets until their houses came crashing on top of them. If they could run, they did. If they couldn't, they burned. We lost our very young and our very old. We lost those who stayed behind to help others and those that couldn't leave their loved ones. He tells of women covering their children with their bodies. Infants crying on deaf ears. Gale tells about how he ran past a man who was carrying a small girl, maybe three or four-years old. A steel bar had crashed down and pinned him to the ground. He begged Gale to take his daughter, and Gale scooped her from his arms and left the man to die. He carried the girl for miles into the woods, until his arms trembled as much as she did. He looks out over the town, at the broken bodies and buildings.

"This was my home," he exhales, looking out over what was once our meadow, a field of beauty. Now it's ashen and piled with unrecognizable bones. I look out and in a small patch of dirt, next to the mostly skeletal remains of someone I'm sure I knew, is a blood red flower bursting from the earth.

"It's a poppy, Katniss," my dad says. I lean to pick the flower and he grabs me by the hips and swings me playfully in the air. "We don't pick poppies," he whispers, tickling my belly. I curl in his arms, laughing.

"Why not?" I ask.

"Because poppies mean something. They mean sleep. They mean peace. They mean death. We don't pick poppies," he tells me. He places my feet on the ground and kneels in front of the flower. His voice is soft and low, and in the trees the mockingjays silence their song in favor of his. "In battlefields fields the poppies grow."

"In battlefields the poppies grow," I sing softly to myself.

"What?" Cressida asks, turning her head to me.

"In battlefields the poppies grow
Between the graves lined row on row,
On row, on row, on row, on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,"

I breathe. Cressida is quiet, and I feel the cameras move to me.

"Scarce heard amidst the guns below.
Scare heard amidst the guns below."

I didn't understand then, the picture my father was painting. A bird singing out in the sky, their song buried by gunfire. The people in the dirt, their bodies buried by war. My voice grows stronger, and I hear the mockingjays in the trees go still.

"We are the dead.
We are the dead.
Short days ago we lived, felt dawn.
We lived, saw sunset glow.
Loved and were loved,
And now we lie
And now we lie
And now we lie
In sprawling fields."

These people were alive. The people at my feet were alive. Days ago, they were alive. They knew breath and light and dark. I look at the wreckage. The devastation. This is why we fight. This is why we push back.

"Take up our quarrel with the foe.
To you from failing hands we throw,
We throw the torch; be yours to hold it high."

I look at the fallen. We made a promise to them. No more. Not another child shall be reaped. Not another district shall be burned to the ground. We will carry the torch handed to us by those we lost and left behind.

"If you break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In empty fields."

The last line sticks in my throat. It's ominous. The dead will not rest until the all of us are free.

I look over and see Pollux crying. I take his hand and squeeze it tight. His mouth pinches, as if to speak, but he remains silent. I look at the slack of his jaw and I can't believe I didn't realize it sooner. He's an Avox. I wonder why a macabre song about the yearnings of the dead moves him. I wonder who he lost. Everyone has a story, Katniss.

"Cut!" Cressida yells, and I remember this isn't a moment shared between two people who have experienced loss. It's a moment shared by thousands.

"Where did that come from?" Plutarch glows, thrilled.

"My dad used to sing it to me when I was a little girl," I murmur. "It's an old war song, from before the Dark Days."

"I couldn't script this stuff better. You're golden, kid. Golden!" Plutarch cheers, putting his hands on my cheeks. It snaps me back to reality and I step out from his grip. He doesn't seem to notice or care.

We walk to Victor's Village as Plutarch talks Cressida's ear off about the song – how to produce it, how to cut it, how to shape it. She nods indulgently, although I know behind closed doors she will craft it however she sees fit.

We stop in front of my house. I didn't go in last time. I hesitate in front of the door before I cross over the threshold. I let out a shaky breath as I walk from room to room. Everything looks the same, but stale. There is no life here. No one would mistake this house for a home. I collect some things for my family. Herbs, medicines. A portrait of my parents' wedding. My father's hunting jacket. I linger in the kitchen for a while alone, and Gale steps inside. He's quiet.

"You okay?" I ask.

"I knew this would be hard, but… It's like my throat is full of ash. Like I'm breathing them in." His eyes swell with tears and he looks away from me. I drop the pretenses for a moment. I cross the room and wrap my arms around his neck. This was our home. This is our loss. We stand there for a long time, until Plutarch comes in and tells us we are heading to the hovercraft. I watch Gale through my periphery. He sits himself up straight, adjusting his uniform. His momentary lapse to humanity is over. The soldier is back. The farther we get from 12, the farther I push myself away from Gale in my seat.

When I get back to 13, I drop everything off at my compartment. I prop up my parents' wedding picture next to my mother's bed. I run my thumb over my dad's chest, and I feel an ache take residence in mine. Would he be proud of me, if he were alive now? Or would he be disappointed? I know some of the criticism I've earned is not unwarranted. I'm stubborn, and defiant, and my emotions are erratic. I should have better control, but I don't. I never used to run off at the mouth. If anything, I was stoic. Despondent. Uncooperative. But now I'm outright rebellious. I am doing the best I can. Sometimes I wonder if I should still have the hospital bracelet that labels me as mentally disoriented.

What I want to do is spend my days in the bottom of a closet, counting pieces of chalk and letting my mind go blank until I can't feel anything. Until I stop thinking about him, about the steadiness he brought to everything. I want to shut this world out. Instead I force myself to go to training, I force myself to go to meetings. I force myself to breathe and eat, when every step of normalcy feels like a betrayal to the grief in my chest. I am on the brink of unravelling, and the only reason I'm holding any of it together is that I know if I'm going to rescue Peeta, I need as much mental acuity as I can muster.

I have to go on the rescue mission. I don't trust Coin to save him.

I shake my hands and try to regain some control, but when I open the door to the hallway, Gale is standing outside.

"Katniss–" he starts, but I raise my hand.

"I can't right now." I go to close the door again and he catches it with his hand.

"Look, I –"

"We're not okay!" I sputter. "What happened in Twelve does not mean we are better. We share a loss, but we are not better." He starts to protest, but I cut him off. "I love you, Gale. I will always love you, but not the way you want me to. And not like this," I say, gesturing to his uniform and straight posture and communicuff. "I'm a puppet because I have to be. What's your excuse?" I utter, and walk past him. That was almost too cruel, and regret twinges in my stomach. I stop at Finnick's door and look back at him. "When you can be my friend, when you can be Gale, come find me. But I have no interest in Soldier Hawthorne."

"Catnip, if we could just…"

"Please don't call me that anymore," I say quietly, my voice defeated. I hear him walk away and enter Finnick's room. I close the door behind me and lean back, close my eyes, and breathe.

"You alright?" Finnick asks. He's sitting cross-legged on his bed.

"Yeah, I'm okay," I say, and sit next to him. I try to push Gale from my mind but I feel myself slowly deteriorating without his friendship. I focus on Finnick. We're discussing strategy. We learned today the victors are being held in the basement of the Tribute Center. Finnick and I are at a distinct advantage. We know the floor plans, we know the area. The blueprints Beetee hacked out of the Capitol mainframe are woefully out of date. We start etching out a map of the building, adding everything we can remember. Heating ducts, emergency stairwells, closets. I'm mentally exhausted, and I stretch my body and lean back against the wall.

"You remember a utility stairwell there?" I ask, pointing to the far corner of the training room. He nods. "It just doesn't make sense because all the other stairwells were on the north wall." We stare at it, and quickly realize this is not an emergency exit. I sit up. "That's where they are."

"That's where they are," Finnick echoes, staring at the map. We set the drawing aside. We need to stew on this before the meeting in the morning. My mind races. "The new propo is supposed to air tonight," Finnick says, and turns on the television. Sure enough, my face is on the screen. This propo is cut to focus on the "we know who they and we know what they do" line. They toggle between shots of the action in 8 and glimpses of 12 in ruins. Landscapes, nothing with dialog, but it's enough. When the screen goes black, my stomach feels queasy. Finnick is just about to shut the television off when the screen flashes again, only this time, the anthem of Panem blares. My throat nearly closes.

Caesar Flickerman is seated in a familiar room with Peeta across from him. I look at Peeta and my skin feels hot. Very hot. My hands pool with sweat. Peeta's physical transformation rocks me to the core. The healthy, clear-eyed boy I saw just days ago has vanished. In his wake is a shell of a man. He's lost fifteen pounds, easily, and he was already lean from the Quell. They have him dressed in fine linens, but it's like using silk as a bandage - it doesn't hide that underneath the suit is a badly damaged person. He sits off center, leaning slightly, and I know that look. His rib is shattered again. I remember him trying to breathe, the hiss of air through his teeth. His face is gaunt and covered with make-up. It's like a funeral, like they've dressed up a corpse.

My mind reels. This is impossible. He couldn't look like this after just days. And then I realize… I just assumed the last propo was live. It was probably filmed the day of his capture. It was weeks ago. This isn't days of pain and suffering, it's weeks on end. I can't see straight.

Caesar and Peeta share a few empty exchanges. Peeta has a nervous twitch and he struggles to stay focused on even the most minute details. Whatever resolve Peeta had to hold up to Caesar's suggestive questions in his last interview has shattered. He seems disoriented. I'm not even sure he understands he's being filmed.

"Have you heard Katniss has been taking part in propaganda for the rebel cause? Have you seen them?" he asks.

Peeta shakes his head in quick little jerks. "They're just using her," he mutters. It's negative, yes, but not entirely untrue.

"It's okay," Finnick whispers to me. "We have the pardon. It doesn't matter what he says."

It does matter, that's the problem. The rebels care about what Peeta thinks. The pardon is useless if we don't win the war.

"Is there anything you'd like to tell Katniss?" Caesar asks, gesturing to the cameras.

Peeta lifts his eyes directly into the camera, right into my eyes. "Katniss, do you trust these people? Do you really know what's going on? Think for yourself. Think…" It's all he can really say before he drops his eyes to his hands.

"Well, I think that's very good advice, Peeta. What do we know about the rebel leaders? Hardly anything at all. It seems to me they might be using the people in the districts to serve their own agenda, just like they are using Katniss Everdeen," Caesar adds, and Peeta nods. Caesar makes a few more flagrant accusations, and a Capitol seal flashes before the screen goes black.

"We didn't see it," Finnick says quickly.

"What?" I ask.

"They'll be here any minute to check on you, you know that. They know we're working on plans tonight," he says. I stare at the schedule on my arm. 19:00 Strategy with Solider Odair. In no time there is a hasty knock on the door. Plutarch and Fulvia have arrived with fake smiles and a fake air of ease. Finnick walks them through our sketches so far, and there is no mention of Peeta, the propo, or Snow. Seemingly satisfied, they leave.

I go back to my room and try to sleep, but the dark is filled with Peeta's screams – his skin bruised, his hair shorn off, his muscles decaying, his bones snapped violently. My mother and sister have been pulling the same overnight shift in the hospital ward. I scream through the nights, and I suspect part of their decision is that they can sleep during the day when I'm in training. Prim takes most of her classes in the evening, and 13 seems more than willing to accommodate her. They recognized her brilliance immediately. People like Prim will save lives.

I wander down the hall and knock quietly on Finnick's door. I'm not surprised he's awake. He holds out his arms and I walk into them. He drops a length of rope to the floor, tied in some intricate knot he'd been fiddling with to distract himself.

"Do you think Annie's alive?" he asks quietly, his voice breaking.

"Yeah, I do," I whisper. He just breathes. Finnick and I are like two half-people. We don't fit together, our other halves are somewhere else, but there's a beauty in our symmetry.

We spend the night walking around the hallways. We're told to go back to our rooms by a number of guards, and we agree to and then just turn down another hall. We wander until the district begins to wake. Cooks head to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. The third shift workers trudge to their compartments. Deliveries from Machinery to Agriculture and Infrastructure to Administration zip in and out of elevators with dollies of material.

It's like a hive, where everything is alive but us.

Inside, we're both dead.

A/N: The song Katniss sings is adapted from the poem Flanders Fields by John McCrae. All credit for those beautiful words are with him.