You must all hate me... I hate myself for not updating. But as soon as I saw that review I got my laptop out and typed up my progress. This may be horrible. Personally, the grammar is entirely awful and I'll fixit up okay? I have been studying my butt of for school, homework is piling up, I can' finish a book to save my life, lacrosse just started and soccer is going on. so I'm sorry to all of my loved readers. You all probably think I'm the worst author FF ever! Well I'll post more often I swear! Right no I'm going to pass out so I have to just post this and say good-night! I threw in a surprise since it's been this log. love each one of you!

Disclaimer: I do not own the HG! :(


Rye POV

Blaze is the first one to ask the long-awaited question… "You're Johanna Mason's son?"

Flint looks uncomfortable as if he keeps this secret of his tucked far away. "I don't generally walk around telling every person that I am her daughter. However, I did decide to keep her last name because don't get me wrong I love my father but I think after everything my mother has gone through she deserves to keep the name passed down, generation to generation." I had remembered Mom telling us that being a victor wasn't all that it seemed to be.

"Isn't there more family that could pass the name down for her?" Mom looks pained and Dad rocks back and forth. Something must have struck a chord, a bad one at that. But before Blaze can speak up my mother does.

"She had lost it all. She had no one left to love. She told me that in the arena she wasn't afraid to go into the jabber jay section because no one's screams could break her. I was petrified of hearing Prim or even G-" Dad jumped in at that very moment.

"I couldn't even go in to comfort her from all the recordings. We didn't know if they were real by torture or even altered." Mom had noticed her slip and tried to sneak him a secret 'thank you.' But, of course my hawk eyes had caught everything. It seemed that everything I wasn't supposed to know was slowly revealing itself to me more and more.

"How did Haymitch know that you were Johanna's son then?" Blaze jumps back into the conversation throwing everyone in a new direction. Flint seems at ease with the surrounding environment, as if my family is like morphine numbing the pain.

"Ahhh. Haymitch care to elaborate on the situation. It is your story to tell." Flint flashes a devilish grin at the sobered up grumpy man in the corner who had just began to fade out of the picture.

Haymitch grunted at the icebreaker the young man had suddenly fired at him. "You may be a Mason but you know how to manipulate like an Odair." The connection was strange because the pictures I had seen of Finnick did resemble Flint. "Well I was touring the country. Katniss you were pregnant with little Blaze over there and I had been sent out to survey the districts. Of course when I heard that JoJo was still in Seven I just had to pop in. It's a rebel bond ya' know?" Haymitch was trying to talk as coherently as he could but now and then all you could hear was a low mumble. But my stubborn mother would have nothing to do with that.

"HAYMITCH ABERNATHY! Will you please speak up! We may not all have repaired hearing like I do but I'm sure they would like to hear the story!" She never had been the one not to speak her mind.

"Fine Girl. So I got off the train and high-tailed it to my friend's home to find she was doing better than ever. Jo never was the one for relationships but the rebellion had given her some type of confidence and she must have believed that the world was truly a different place. The same scenario you too had. When I opened the door little did I find but little Flint running around the house like a bullet. Jo showed me around a bit and introduced me to her lovely family and we have been close ever since then."

Flint wiggled his eyebrows a bit and threw in an extra comment. "Oh Hay! Aren't you forgetting something?"

Haymitch grumbled a bit and exhaled loudly. "What now kid? You want me to tell them that I took you to the Capitol each year and bought you an ice cream cone and whispered the stories of your families past into your ear each night you stayed with me there? Well now they know!" The entire family busted out laughing.

"HayHay how come you never took me and JayJay out to the Capitol to buy us ice-cream?" I busted out giggling as Haymitch glared at me almost as if he was piercing my soul.

"Maybe if your parents weren't so uptight about every darned thing in life I would have! It was always 'No Haymitch this and don't Haymitch that.'" Now it was my turn to glare at Mom and Dad.

Dad threw his hands up defensively as if he was innocent. "Hey Hey your mother is the one who wanted to wrap you up in down padding and lock you in your rooms. The Games might be over but the Rock rebellion is still going on you have to be careful." Katniss Everdeen would not be known by her soft side so she whipped her pillow at Dad and they ran off chasing each other like children around the house. Haymitch took the opportunity to sneak out of the overly rambunctious house. Before Mom and Dad retreated upstairs to start getting ready for bed Mom popped her head out from behind the door frame.

"Flint, you are welcome to stay with us for the night or more. Just have Rye show you the guest bedroom. Good night children!" Flint eyed to the stairs asking me silently if we should go but I replied with my comment to Blaze.

"Blaze why don't you just go to sleep? You do have work tomorrow remember?" Blaze only rolled his eyes.

"Rye, you're the one who can't wake up early in the morning. And don't worry me and my pretty little butt will be making ourselves up stairs right now." Then he leaned down and whispered in my ear so only I could hear, "You best tell me everything tomorrow." I shot him a thanks-a-million smile and watched him retreat not to his room but the art studio.

Flints eyes twinkled as he took in every little decoration we had in the house. "What is the theme of your home?" That question had taken me off-guard.

"What do you mean theme of my home?"

"Like what makes you want to decorate it this way? Mine is green and wood because it's what home to me is all about, despite family."

I had never thought of home being defined by the objects you put inside of it. "Well our home is a bit of everything so I would say family. A family is just like a big mess but of the ones you truly love." That gave me an idea. Originally I had just wanted to talk to him about finding me but now I knew where. "Come with me, I want to show you something."

He seemed thrilled with the idea of me taking him somewhere. "Outside?" He asked me right as I snatched two coats and our boots. I had pocketed my nifty flashlight that I had left on the kitchen counter from yesterday.

"Would you expect anything less from the Mockingjay's daughter?"

"I guess not. Let's go!" I didn't mean to intrude by snaking my hand into his but I didn't want his to get lost in the pitch black of district 12. I really wasn't expecting his reaction though. Instead of pulling back or feeling the clamminess set in of lack of comfort he squeezed mine and held on even tighter. This was a plus because Flint was definitely attractive and something about him made my stomach churn. When we arrive in my sweet sanctuary he questions me. "Where are we?"

"This is the meadow where I learned to walk, where I come when I'm scared or sad, it's where I can just be Rye not the new Mockingjay or the Future of the Mellarks." Flint seems to know exactly what I'm talking about. The way his body language shows relief as if he is too feeling calmer just knowing if someone in the situation is healed here he can be too. "Why did you find me? I know you couldn't have just tried to hold me against my promise two years ago that's just foolish."

He breathes slower now as if he is taking in a star, inhaling all the gases and rays, soaking in a celestial wonder. "Rye Mellark, do you ever follow instinct?" I swallow because I used to.

"I did."

"Well what happened?"

"I stopped because I was looking only for trouble."

"Fine then you don't understand but when you're my age and you aren't being tied down by your parents just try it out."

He did realize he was hardly older than me then by at most two years. "So I was your impulse?" The question came out before I could justify what I really wanted to say.

Flint's eyes seem to be his tell because he says yes with the way they blink rapidly. His spikey hair seems softer in the shadows of the night and the man or boy I barely know seems like an old friend. I throw my head back and attempt to identify the stars by region that we have learned about in school. "Something about you makes me feel like I have known you for a million years." Flint sighs as if someone was sitting on his chest. Was he reading my mind?

"I know I feel the same. Not to freak you out but the aura around you gives me comfort and calms my normally antsy antics. Why didn't you tell me that you knew my family in that bookstore?"

"I knew that you were on some other mission. Whether it was meant to be or not I knew it was time to tell you yet. Something about your visit told me sooner or later I would come looking for you."

"I'm really glad you did." I close my eyes because to be honest the scenery looks the same; black.

"Tomorrow I want you to tell me about why you were in 2."

My eyes pop open in shock. "Not now?"

"No, tonight isn't for that. But it seems that you have a lot of memories shoved away from something that occurred two years ago."

The only thing I pick up on is 'not tonight,' "Why not tonight?"

He grins at me. "Because tonight is for this…" He trails off leaning in slowly. I know that he is going to kiss me. And for once I want a guy to kiss me. So I lean in to closing my eyes to let the magic set in. His peach lips are perfect and soft and a spark catches in my stomach. We both end the kiss not too short but immensely sweet.

His first words shock me. "I'm sorry."

But I smile ear to ear and rely "I'm not" and peck him on his cheek. This was nothing like the kiss Bow gave me on the train. Somehow this was realer and genuine not rushed and spontaneous.

"But I barely know you and I just stole a kiss from you."

"It sure didn't feel like stealing…"


How was that for a quick chapter?