Author's Note: First of all, thank you for the reviews and favs, to everyone! I really appreciate it and hope you continue with me further along :) Dear Guest who tried to send me a few messages through review, I'm sorry that I didn't reply to you right away - what I didn't know is that FF has a moderation for Guest reviews, and I didn't know why yours didn't show up until I saw that! Thank you too, and to your question: I actually had to look up Michigan U.P. because I don't live in the U.S. and I had no idea! You are almost right - I used a lot of fictional maps of Panem to decide where the Aviary lies, but I imagined it being right above the Michigan U.P., where the three great lakes meet (so it's actually in Canada already), a little above Salt Ste. Marie. On my map, Michigan U.P. belongs to District 8 still, and the lakes are the border to the Wilderness. I hope this answers your question somewhat :) Also I'm not offended at all that you picture Haymitch like in the movies! There's no restriction to imagination - and to be honest, at first I described him with blonde hair, then changed it to stay closer to the book concerning physical appearance. And now, let's see how the Aviary is getting ready for the assault on the Capitol...


In what only seems minutes later, Aurora gently shakes me awake. It must be the crack of dawn, because the world is a dull grey, the air chilly and moist with dew.

"It's time.", she says quietly, and I shiver in the cold as I straighten. Strained silence awaits us in the armory, where the four members of the assault squad are already getting dressed. Archie and Tesla help me to put on my armor and place my weapons into their designated places. The two blades are in crossed sheaths on my back, held by firm leather straps. Waltz, who is already fully dressed and armed, grabs the straps where they meet below my heart and pulls them for good measure. It makes me sway slightly, but I hold my ground. He nods, seemingly satisfied, and tells me to reach for the machete's handle. This is what it must feel like for Katniss when she draws her arrows from the quiver. I have no difficulty grabbing the handle and pulling the blade out and Waltz nods once more.

"Good. No need to tighten the straps or readjust them." My gun is simply hanging from a leather band that Archie drapes over my shoulder. He fixates its side at my belt so my shoulder won't be exerted by the weight and shows me how to reattach the weapon after I have simply pulled it from its cradle. I feel uneasy, being so heavily armed. In the Games, I carried a blade similar to the ones I have now, but I had never been trained to actually kill with it.

Silently, I wonder if soldiers feel like this before going into their first real battle. Torn between the horror of taking a life and the wish to defend the ones they love. Tesla places the armband around my wrist that will show me where the live trap-pods are and instructs me how to use it. I get two more devices. A communicator to put into my ear, so I can hear the others and talk to them. It's a strange little piece made from flexible, seethrough material. I can see the electronics inside of it, but of course I have no idea what I'm looking at. So I place it in my ear and it adjusts to the hole in the conch quickly, until I only feel a faint pressure. The second thing, I get from Archie and it looks like a simple silver bracelet with a slightly raised, round ornament on its surface. As soon as he puts it around my free wrist, there is a strange clicking noise that sounds like a lock.

"What's this for?", I ask, a bit frightened. Archie holds my hand in an iron grip.

"Now listen closely. This bracelet contains a lethal dose of morphling. If you are captured and you don't want to face torture or worse, you click this button" – he points at the ornament – "three times, always three seconds apart. It will release the drug into your system and give you a painless death in less than a minute. This is the last way out. The exit strategy if all else fails. Are we clear?" I nod, not really sure I feel comfortable walking around with a lethal dose of morphling on my arm, but it seems like a good way to go. If one has no way out.

"Three times, three seconds apart.", Archie emphasizes the words once more.

"I don't see a lock. What if I want to take it off? Not sure I want to wear it for the rest of my life…", I say jokingly.

"The only way to get rid of it is to hack off your hand.", Archie says and my eyes widen with horror. Waltz, who stands next to us with his own bracelet, punches him in the shoulder, which makes him grunt in pain. "… or to say the passphrase, of course!", he goes on, rubbing the sore spot and muttering curses under his breath.

"So what is it?", I ask Archie.

"We must have reasons for speech but we need none for silence." And surely enough, the bracelet clicks open and falls to the ground as soon as he said the words. I put it back on again and memorize the words.

"Is it the same for everyone?"

"No.", he says, "They are all different. I'm especially fond of Aurora's." I look at him questioningly.

"All generalizations are wrong, including this one." Mischief glints in his eyes and I know that he is of much better use plotting from the Aviary than coming with us to the fight.

"Good luck, crazy boy.", says Archie with a pat on my shoulder. It would probably be insulting if it came from anyone else, but this is Archie. He may be crazier than me yet. The living proof that genius and madness go hand in hand.

"Get away from him, you lunatic.", Tesla interrupts and pushes Archie out of the way. Then he eyes me from head to toe and I think I see a hint of remorse in his dark, intelligent eyes.

"The miss has a soft heart. Otherwise she wouldn't tolerate that basketcase." He doesn't sound serious, though. When he pulls me into a tight hug, I'm taken by surprise.

"I really hope you find your girl. I'll be here, watching your moves, making sure you all come home." Tesla seldom speaks much, but when he does, it carries an air of finality that doesn't leave people unmoved.

"Thank you.", is all I can say. My preparations are finished so I can watch Aurora get ready. As our commander and leader, she is the last one to be dressed and armed. And by far the most impressive one. I only saw her in her armor once, and back then my mind was clouded and hazy from the torture. Hawkie puts her into the firm white jacket that has a distinguishable, thin layer of the same protective plating I wear on my chest embedded into its fabric.

I can't help but notice how little and less thick it seems than mine. The sleeves are loose and masterfully embroidered with silver thread. Birds in flight, fragile branches, lifelike flowers, all shimmering in the light of the armory. The cape Hawkie drapes over her head is much simpler, although the edges are inlaid with white fur. When she is finished, it falls fluently over Aurora's left side, leaving the right one open from the shoulder down. I feel like I'm watching a strange, almost terrifying transformation. Not because I'm afraid of her, but because it is so hard to imagine her as a skilled warrior. I've seen her kill a man with a single stroke of her sword, but ever since then, she was nothing but gentle.

Finnick once said to me that the deadliest enemy is one you would never imagine attacking you. I think he might have been on to something. Aurora turns her back to me and Hawkie moves to put up her hair. I watch as she gathers the long, almost white strands that always remind me of a type of grass I saw in Katniss' plant book. Grass usually doesn't bloom, but this one was different, producing feathery white flowers I loved to paint. Hawkie places two exquisite silver wings in her hair to hold it in place. I'm not really an expert on hair decoration, although I remember Katniss wearing a lot of it whenever we had to look presentable in front of the cameras. I notice that this is the only piece of jewellery I have ever seen Aurora wear. Something about it seems vaguely familiar, like meeting an old friend but not quite remembering his name. Aurora attaches the same three items that I got on herself, only she doesn't need to be instructed in their use. Then, Hawkie hands her the sword.

Once, I asked Waltz about Aurora's sword. He explained that it was made by an old man with almond-shaped eyes and copper skin, who came from a long lineage of swordsmiths, dated back even before Panem ever existed. The single-edge blade is long, slender and curved, sharp enough to cut through flesh and bone as if it was butter. The sword and the sheath, which is a piece of art on its own, are both one of a kind, no machine-made weapons but forged by real hands, in a process that took months. Aurora also carries a handgun that she casually puts into a holster at her left side. I wonder if this is just for convenience or if she actually shoots with her left hand. The last thing she is handed looks like a very unusual glove. The backside is almost completely covered with a net of wires and small metal constructions. I have no idea what they do, but I guess I'll find out soon enough. After Aurora pulls it over her hand, she turns to us, her eyes wandering over each face. There is something strange in her gaze, something similar to regret, but not quite it. As if she'd want to tell us she's sorry everything has come to this.

"This is the last chance if any of you wants to change their mind. To turn around and walk away from this." Her voice is strict, but there is no hint of reproach in it. She really wouldn't hold it against us if we would just walk away. But of course, nobody does. Coach and Waltz just stand still like great statues from black marble. Misa fiddles with her bags of medical supplies silently. Hawkie rolls her shoulders, making the impressive barrel of her sniper rifle tremble. It's almost as long as she is tall. A long moment passes and Aurora nods.

"I thought as much.", she says, a nearly imperceptible edge of disappointment in her words.

And so I leave the Aviary after months of recovery and with a sense of homesickness already before we climb the hovercraft ramp. The great shutter opens, the engines come alive, and as the iron bird rises above the meadow I feel a wave of pure panic crashing down on me. Very similar to the moment in the arena when Katniss turned away from me, Beetee's coil in her hand, the moment I knew that something terrible was going to happen and I would be powerless to stop it. All I can do to distract myself is listening to Aurora's voice as she debriefs us for the hundredth time, but nothing will drown out the nerve-wrecking fear that I might never see this place again. The flight takes hours and we scatter around the hovercraft, all anxious, all restless.

I watch the great lakes ripple by, then the smoking, ugly rooftops of District 8 with its grey high factory towers sticking into the air like giant cigars. When the wide farmlands of District 10 come into view, I feel someone sitting down next to me and I instantly know it's Aurora. She holds a bundle of paper sheets in her hand, clipped together with a pin. Her face is tinted with sadness.

"I wanted to give you these on the day I would officially discharge you from psychiatric care. When I would deem you cured.", she begins. I catch the glimpse of the Capitol's seal on the front page before she speaks again. "You still need treatment and therapy to some extent. But… there is a chance that I won't be able to serve as your doctor much longer." I open my mouth to object, but she interrupts me. "Let's make a deal. If… I don't return, or I'm… incapacitated, you give these to your new doctor. If I return, you give them back to me."

She hands me the paper and I read the title, printed in black capital letters: Treatment Protocol for War Prisoner, and below, handwritten, my name: Peeta Mellark. At the bottom, a slanted, fragile signature seems to laugh back at me gleefully: Authorized by President Coriolanus Snow.

My first impulse is to fling the sheets away, but that would be denial to the hardships I endured, so I flip through them. There are simple typed protocols of the things the Capitol has done to me, descriptions of my behaviour, feelings, relationships. Full-body scans, drawings they had me do, pictures of me as I progress through their hijacking plan, pictures of Katniss or whole pages about Katniss, just about everything, a painstaking dissection of myself. At the back I find a dozen crumpled and torn pages. I remember stealing them with great effort, together with a small pen, to scribble down things I needed to remember. Or just thoughts. It was some sort of self-therapy when it started to dawn on me what they intended to do. I look at my pitiful handwriting, sometimes so scrambled it is unintelligible, and remember how I hid the thin sheets in a hole in the wall. How I soaked them with my tears. How I almost tore them apart in my rage. How I desperately clung to them at night. These sheets know all my pain, steeped with my sorrow, forged in what I have endured. One day, I might be able to show them to Katniss.

"I recovered all of this during your rescue mission. Are you mad at me for not giving it to you sooner?", Aurora's voice drags me from my deep thoughts. I shake my head.

"I probably wouldn't have been able to handle it before. I'm not even sure I am now.", I say and fold the sheets into shape, stuffing them into the small belt pouch that holds my first aid kit. We don't speak any more until the snow-capped mountains rush past us. Their white cover looks like a kind of pastry I liked to bake, a muffin from dark dough powdered with icing sugar. "We are almost there.", Aurora informs me. A tense expression has crept onto her face and I know this is it.

The candy-like Capitol comes into view minutes later, only now it's not so candy-like anymore. Smoke rises from countless buildings, tall towers and low-rise houses alike, signs of destruction jumping into the viewers face everywhere. All the rioting colors and lights seem to have dulled, although sometimes they flicker and illuminate places in an eerie manner, like some sick hallucination. The streets we fly above are mostly empty, except for some advancing rebel troops that are scattered around this ghost-town. I know that large parts of the city have been evacuated to the inner circle, closer to Snow's mansion. We fly past rebel frontlines into no-man's land, where the hovercraft sets us down in an abandoned street.

My feet touch solid ground and the finality of it all hits me like a hammer. I will either reach Snow's mansion, meaning the war will end, or I'll die somewhere in these streets. Either way, this is where we come to a conclusion.