(Mayor Undersee)

The people from the Capitol that are required to be present to make sure that the Reaping is recorded and broadcast do not linger this year. They are packed up and loaded on their train shortly after the Tribute Train makes its earlier than scheduled departure. I do not know whether the special new rules apply to all of the reaped Victors or only to those from 12, but there is nothing to be done about it (except to deal with the aftermath).

I am home incredibly early for a Reaping Day, but I have still been gone for long enough for my home to be overcome by chaos. The Doctor is with my wife and daughter when I arrive. He looks stern; Madge looks teary. My wife looks exhausted.

"Walk me out," the man tells me without preamble.

"What was it?" I ask complying with his request but really focused on getting back to the room that contains my family.

"She was having a seizure when Madge found her," he says while I stare at him trying to make sense of what he is saying. Seizures, in my experience, are something that happen to children with untreated high fevers (and something that we see upon occasion in the Games). My wife has headaches - crippling ones. She has never had a seizure. The District Doctor is looking at me with an expression that leads me to think that he is readying himself to deliver a lecture.

"I warned you that she would be getting worse," he reminds me. "This is part of the worse. She's deteriorating; it's only going to continue to go faster."

"What do we do?" I ask him.

"Do?"

"For the seizures," I say impatiently.

"You make sure that there is nothing in the way that can cause her further damage when she has one," he says opening the front door that we have arrived at without my noticing.

"Morphling?" I ask hopefully needing there to be something that I can actually do. I am filled to the brim with things which I can do nothing about. I need this to be not one of them.

"That won't help," he tells me. "She can still have it for the pain, of course, but it won't do anything for the seizures. I would imagine that they are going to get progressively more frequent. There's nothing that I can give her that will stop them. She'll be tired after each one. Let her sleep it off. Make sure she doesn't injure herself when they hit. That's all I can tell you."

"The Capitol has to have . . .," I begin, but he cuts me off before I can try to finish the sentence.

"They do," he agrees. "That won't help us. They have drugs that can help, but we would never get them here. Even if you could manage to obtain them, they have to be fussed around with to figure out the right balance for the dosage. They take time to build up in the bloodstream. It's a time consuming process, and your wife does not have time, Mayor Undersee."

I don't offer any sort of acknowledgement of his leaving. I scurry back up the stairs. My wife is sleeping. My daughter is holding on to her hand as if she will slip away from us if she lets go. It won't work. She's going to slip away from us no matter what we do.

I push Madge out of the house some time later. She needs to get out of this room and breathe. I'm willing to guilt her into going. That Primrose Everdeen may be sitting somewhere in need of comfort is the only thing that gets her to look up from her studying of her mother's sleeping face. That I want some time to talk to her mother alone is the only thing that ends her hovering by the door.

It makes me an awful person that I am hoping that the little girl is in tears when Madge finds her. It's the only thing that I can think of that will keep my child gone for any length of time at all. I don't want her sitting here the way that she was. She needs something to do. She needs someone to need her for something.

The fingers that I am holding in my own twitch at some point after Madge has left us. I look down to see that my wife's eyes are open.

"Love you," she tells me in a voice that sounds as if it is fighting its way through a haze of tiredness.

"I love you," I reply squeezing her hand.

"Confused lots," she says with her eyes drifting closed. "Sorry for that."

"It's not your fault," I try to reassure her. Her eyes suddenly snap open, and she struggles to sit up. I push her back down as gently as I can in spite of her resistance. "You need to rest."

"Promise me," she demands despite the weakness that her voice displays. "Promise me you won't let her see."

"I don't understand," I tell her still trying to get her to settle back down.

"Don't let her watch," she insists. "If it isn't gentle, don't let her watch me go."

I understand what she wants, and tears fill my eyes as I answer her.

"I won't," I promise. She smiles at me and ends her struggling. Her eyes close as she drifts back into sleep, but her fingers are still clutching my own.

I sit there for hours with our hands linked between us. I don't do much in the way of thinking. I am only soaking up what may be one of the final moments that I have with her.

"Dad?" I hear from the doorway, and I realize that I am sitting in the dark.

"Can she take the light right now?" She asks.

"I think so," I tell her, and the room is flooded with it. I blink for a moment and realize that Madge is not alone. Ari Everdeen is standing behind her in the doorway. I look at Madge for an explanation, but the woman answers for herself.

"I might be able to help," she says holding up a small packet. "It's not a sure thing, but it helps sometimes with the intensity. I thought since Madge said the Doctor didn't have any suggestions that you might be willing to try."

I don't get to formulate a response.

"Ari?" My wife questions as she stirs and lets go of my hand. She blinks against the light before looking at the two people standing in the doorway. She pushes herself toward sitting, and the other woman rushes over to help her. The automatic response, I think, of someone who spends her life working with the ill and injured. "I thought you had gone." I recognize the tone. She has woken up confused. She has forgotten when she is again.

"Stop hovering in the background, Maysi," she orders Madge. My heart clenches at the practiced manner in which our daughter wipes away the pain of being unrecognized by her mother and begins to cater to her delusion. She moves over to the bed as well.

"I thought you both left me," my wife is saying in a tone of near wonder. "You went away, and there were so many things I never got to tell you." She looks up at me and smiles so happily it nearly takes my breath away. "Girl talk," she tells me. "You go away. I have to tell them all about the baby."

Madge doesn't look at me, but Ari Everdeen does. She nods her head to let me know that it is fine, and I make my way out the door. I can't agree with her. This isn't fine. Nothing is fine.

(Hazelle)

Posy doesn't like the Tribute Parade. I had mentally prepared myself to find ways to distract her from prattling over whatever pretty outfit Katniss would be placed in this time (I didn't think Gale was in a mental state to deal with his sister's well-intentioned but unfortunate fixations), but it wasn't necessary. She took one look at the picture the Tributes from 12 presented in their costumes and buried her head in my side.

"No," she whispers. "I don't like it."

She doesn't seem to require any more comfort than the rubbing of her back. So, I leave her where she is and stare at the television. It's hard to look away. They outshine all of the others, but I find that I've almost come to expect that from their stylists. The way they have recreated the embers of a fire on their clothing is beautiful. Then, I understand what it is that Posy saw.

If you look at the two of them (if you can pry your eyes from the magic of what they are wearing), you see something that feels what I can only describe as unnatural. They don't look like teenagers. They don't look like two children who are being sent to their deaths. They don't look human. They are something not quite real and all too real all at the same time. They are words like wrath and judgment personified. That's the best description I can find in my head that has gone somewhat fuzzy from the hypnotic quality of the fire mixed with the feeling of impending danger that the two of them are creating. I pull Posy a little closer.

She doesn't talk about it later - none of us do. She merely asks me to assure her that it is over before she lifts her head, and she puts herself to bed. It's the first time that she has ever done that.

The days before the interviews are uneventful except for the appearance of Madge and Prim on my doorstep asking if they may "borrow" Posy. She comes back hours later joyfully prancing into the house with her hair a complicated combination of braids, meadow flowers, and ribbons that I am unsure I will ever be able to convince her to take down. Vick, who had been looking a little disappointed that he hadn't been included in the outing, starts looking relieved that he escaped when Posy proudly shows him the color that has been applied to her toenails.

"Sorry," Madge mouths at me over the children's' heads while inclining her own in the direction of Prim who is actually smiling at the scene. I make a gesture that indicates that I don't mind. I know what she was doing. She gives me a small smile that doesn't reach her eyes and slips out the door while the others are distracted by Rory teasing Vick about how cute he would look with some ribbons in his hair.

The interviews are strange. I've never seen anything like it, but I suppose that is to be expected. These are not the usual children being offered up as sacrifices. These are adults who have all survived the Games. They were promised something if they played the Games and won, and the Capitol has backed down from its promise. It doesn't seem so odd to me that they (most of them) are not quietly playing along.

Katniss's interview dress is sickening, but the transformation is impossible to look away from. I have a bad feeling that her stylist will not be allowed to get away with it, but I don't have enough worry to go around to cover him as well.

It isn't Katniss that is the memorable one from the interviews - even with the burning of the dress. It is Peeta Mellark who everyone will be talking about in the days to come.

Posy, somehow, misses his announcement (or she just doesn't catch the meaning). Rory is shaking his head at the television looking confused. Gale's gotten up to go I don't know where (the fence is still on) when he is stopped by the sound of Vick's laughter. It is such a strange thing to be hearing that we all freeze before turning to look at him. It's like he can't stop himself. He is actually hunched over with his arms wrapped around his middle as he gasps for air in between the bursts of laughter.

The television turns off with a pop behind us, and that seems to break my child out of whatever fit he is having.

"Best liar ever" is the only explanation that he offers, and he refuses to say anything more.

I find later that we missed the Victors joining hands; we were all too focused on Vick.

It seems like no time at all before I am cuddling Posy to my chest in the square as the countdown begins in the arena that seems filled with water as the Third Quarter Quell begins.