Chapter 11

The Siege of District 11

Thresh

I started working even earlier than most of the kids because I was strong. All day I plowed, planted, tended crops, or harvested. The few days I wasn't in the field I tried to make up what I had missed in school – I never could quite catch up but it's not like the Capitol gave a damn as long as I did my part to get them their precious apples and cotton.

I must have been nine when I saw my first murder – I'd been working a year or so. Joe was getting up there in age, and could barely do any work anymore. He never met the quota for cotton – so those of us who hit it would stuff a little cotton in his bag when the overseers weren't looking. He should have been retired to his family by now, but he didn't have anyone – if he ever had any family, they were long dead. He was old and sick and only getting frailer as the days went on. One day he stumbled under his bag – thanks to help from the others it was full and packed with cotton, but still not heavy for anyone but him. We hurried to help him up – the overseers wouldn't be as gentle as we would be getting him up. But he refused to let us help him.

"Come on old man, get up, you're making a scene," one of the overseers said as he came over. There were two of them – both of them tall and imposing in my child's eyes. Joe either couldn't or wouldn't – probably wouldn't, judging by what happened next. The Peacekeeper, sweating in his heavy uniform, reached down to haul him up forcefully. Joe spit on his hand. The one who got spit on just made a face and wiped his hand – it was his partner who lost it. He immediately lashed out with his club – without thinking I called, "Don't hurt him!" and ran up to stop the Peacekeeper, only stopped by the men and women around me grabbing me and desperately holding me back.

"No Thresh!" one of the women whispered in my ear.

"This your grandpa kid?" the Peacekeeper who hit him asked, dangling his club menacingly in one hand.

"N… no …" I answered tearfully, scared to the point of shaking of the Peacekeepers.

"Come on Coop let's just get the old man on his feet and get on," the other one said, trying to intervene. The violent one didn't even dignify that with a response – he just turned around and hit Joe three more times. Each blow was a savage blow to the head. The first was to the face – shattering the few teeth that weren't already gone from being rotted by poverty and neglect and shattering Joe's nose, and both these injuries combined to send blood spattering across the patch of dirt where he'd fallen. The second was to the back of the head, making a horrific noise but doing no visible damage. The third was to the temple, and again it left no visible damage but made a horrific sound … that sound …

One of the men dared to kneel by him to look for a pulse, but the violent one raised his club at him, sending him scurrying back. "The rest of you, back to work," the one who had watched said sharply, putting a restraining hand on his partner's shoulder but doing nothing else to help us. I can't say which one of them I hate more – the violent one was probably a Career academy washout, taught bloodshed and never love. He was a psychopath, but in a way, the other one was worse. He knew better – but he did nothing. He watched as his partner gave a frail old man fatal blows and didn't stand up to him about getting him help. He joined in on pointing his gun at us to go on working, forcing us to step over Joe's body until the day was finally ended. Maybe not gladly, but he did.

As soon as they called an end to the day – that was before Babygirl was old enough to climb in the trees or run through the fields and sing her mockingjay song, and the Peacekeepers had to do it themselves, usually after letting us work an extra hour or so – I ran to the place where Joe's body had fallen. He was all stiff in death and the flies were already swarming around his bloodied mouth and open eyes – I swatted them away and tried uselessly to wake him. "Thresh honey … we should go," a woman said gently, with a hand on my shoulder, as some of the men hurried up to carry him away.

"But … but it's not fair … he don't got anyone to make sure he gets buried," I protested.

"The men will take care of it honey, you don't need to call any more attention to yourself," she said quickly and then I knew I should follow her.

Tears turned to anger and stayed that way as she pulled me away – I caught one last look over my shoulder of the men carrying him away. One of them had sacrificed his shirt to cover Joe's face. In the dirt below, I could still see the dried blood that had pooled there. And the flies feasted on it.

I came here not long after the evacuation of District 12. It didn't sit right with me, sitting in a hospital wing while over four thousand innocent people were blasted apart or burned to death or ran themselves to exhaustion trying to avoid the former two, and I'd be damned before I stayed behind the lines in safety ever again. Fury seemed to understand that – he gave me an assignment in 11 right away. My wounds weren't even quite healed yet – I could deal with a little pain. "You're going so soon?" Stephen asked me, pitifully, when I told him my orders. I felt bad for leaving him for a second – his side was still all torn up, and worse than that his little heart was already just broken by losing Coulson and Shale. I still think of him as little, even though he's almost as tall as Stark now and the procedure turned a scrawny kid into a muscle-bound soldier. He'll always be little to me – probably because in my mind's eye he's always standing next to Babygirl.

"I gotta go Stephen – the bombers are already moving into 11, and we've got to hold that farmland or this thing will starve," I said, not bothering to try to lie to him.

"Just be careful okay," he said, and it was funny to see him worrying over me for once. I picked him up in a big hug – even with the serum, I could do that easily – and promised him I would, if I could.

The first place they sent me was to the hospitals like everyone else – I helped haul medical supplies and rearrange cots single-handedly, to provide a little entertainment on the side. It's the kids and the old folks that made that work impossible for me to do – I was supposed to just be strong and calm and comforting to little girls, tiny boys, and frail old grandparents who were starving or who were injured because they couldn't flee the bomb sites fast enough, and I couldn't do it. The sight of them made me so angry I couldn't hide it, couldn't focus on what I was supposed to do. Fury seemed to understand that too – it wasn't long before I got a gun in my hand, the first of any of the Avengers on the frontlines. I was the most expendable one – I'm not a golden innocent thrust into war like Stephen, I'm not charming like Tony, I'm not a heroic volunteer like Katniss (I didn't even protect my own cousin – what use am I in the role of hero?), no one saved me like they did Clint, I'm not some crazy Frankenstein experiment they don't understand like Spruce, I'm not as likeable as Peeta, and I got beat out for the handsome stoic role by Gale. And why not, with him helping save half his people and being willing to pose and play dress-up and say whatever they need him to say for the cameras in a way I never really was. I knew that, and I didn't care. It was freeing, to be just another soldier on the front lines, marked only by a few gold bands on my flack jacket.

Even when they gave me a promotion to officer, it didn't feel like it came down because I happened to have been rescued from the Arena – I knew I earned it.

The defenses weren't ready when the Capitol invaded. Even without air support, their tanks and ground troops ran roughshod over what pitiful defense had been mounted by District 11 and they were holding almost a third by the time the rebels had their defenses ready to seriously contest them. Poor early showing by 11 aside though, the Capitol was spread thin and sorely outnumbered. We took it back slowly – one orchard, one field at a time, sometimes losing a hard-won field and having to win it all over again. There was a whole sequence of the waves of essential noncombatants that would come after the fighting men. The first wave were the firefighters and bomb squad checking for latent mines and medics treating the wounded from both sides and coordinating removal of the bodies (usually to a mass grave). The second wave gathered abandoned guns and especially tanks, which men and women from Districts 6 and 3 happily reworked and refurbished to arm more of District 11. They were really good at it too – if something was totally unsalvageable, they used it for scrap to rebuild the others. The final wave were the bravest of the farmers and workers, doing their best to salvage damaged crops and get those areas up and running for food production as soon as possible. And so … we took back the district, one field at a time, each field bought with blood, too much blood.

The Capitol had better equipment – every Peacekeeper had the latest and best gun, some of ours were from the stockpile District 13 had been keeping since they started planning the rebellion seventy-five years ago, and refurbished rejects recovered after previous battles. But there were ten of us for every one of them – the Capitol had to keep troops in their own backyard and the other strategically important districts after all. Plus, we have Haymitch – I never saw him for myself since he was assigned to a different battlefield, but I've seen the propos. I know it's edited to make our side look good but even taking that into account, he's doing great with that hammer. He's finally figured out how to call down the lightning reliably – which he uses to take down the big weapons that do the most damage, and then one throw cuts huge swaths in the Peacekeepers. With support from rebels to take on the Peacekeepers, it never takes him long to get them to surrender.

Now and then Stark helps us, when he's not working on the wires to keep communications up or working on things we need in his lab. They have nothing to shoot him down with – he flies over in stealth mode and takes out their heavy artillery and their tanks, and then they're really screwed.

The first time he helped us it was a total surprise – I just suddenly got an order to hold fire on a certain area of what used to be a rice field, and then saw a huge explosion take out the mortar gun they had been using to launch gigantic grenades into our midst. We cheered, and I knew who it was and smiled in spite of myself. I like Stark more than I probably should considering he's a reckless idiot. At least he's a useful reckless idiot.

He got the other mortar gun and the tanks for us too – then the Peacekeepers surrendered the muddy field. They'd heard we treated our prisoners better than the Capitol treated theirs, and they chose surrender over death (had they retreated, they would have risked being sent right back here). I took the field, helping to collect guns (good, working Capitol guns – yes!) from the prisoners alongside my men when I saw Stark in now very badly battered armor, standing over the hole where one of the mortar guns used to be with his visor up. I can only assume he's looking at what's left of the two guys who were manning it – explaining why he's so solemn. He's killed tons of guys before, but always when they were in hovercrafts and he didn't have to look at them. Well, we all killed at the Capitol – but that was so chaotic I don't think any of us have any idea how many guys we killed or wounded. We couldn't even really see their bodies hit the ground. I know at least one guy there died because I shot him in the eye, but other than that, I have no idea. And anyway I'm sure Tony's eager to forget what happened in the Capitol. "I thought I would enjoy it. Being the big man with a gun, getting to be the one doing the killing. I did at first … that didn't last," I said as I looked with him. Honestly, I was always glad when they surrendered a field – it spared a lot of guys on both sides. Nothing hit me hard, not like it had hit some of the others, but I got no pleasure in the sight of all the Peacekeepers piled in a grave.

"What worries me is I don't feel bad either," he answered. I shrugged.

"I don't think everyone feels it while it's happening," I said, thinking of Duke Barton killing all those tributes, cold as ice, and then just completely melting down. "And anyway … you being worried about not feeling bad probably means you're going to feel it real hard when it's over." And probably crawl up in a bottle like your old man – like you already do sometimes, I thought, but of course I didn't say it. "Besides, Stark – you can't feel anything through all the booze and pills," I teased, finding a lighter way to broach that. "Speaking of … I've got some alcohol rations in my pack, if you want to trade shots and stories," I said, luring him away from the gruesome sight.

"What do you do at base?" I asked as I took a swig.

"I work on aircraft and weapons," he answered. "If I'm not here or in one of the districts repairing the communication lines, I'm building. I stay busy." So he doesn't have time to think about Shale or all the guys he's already killed. "I uh … I'm already thinking about what we're going to do when we get this district retaken. They're not going to give it up – they'll do anything they can to intimidate people out of the fields."
"What can they do without hovercrafts?"
"They won't be without hovercrafts forever – our intelligence says they've almost got their fleet ready." He's probably not supposed to tell me that, but I appreciate the tidbit of information about what I'm up against. "They'll bomb during the day but fly over the borders at night – they won't want to risk a sharp-eyed sniper spotting the outline in sunlight." Their invisibility mode scrambles radar too – even if we had enough monitors, which we don't.
"What's your plan?" I asked, knowing he was absolutely right.

"You can't hide the heat signature – we want to give your snipers heat-vision goggles but there won't be enough. I think Dad's camera balls can help – I want to modify them to be heat seekers. I want to make them so they can be turned away by signals from our side, but will attach to the engines of enemy crafts. I'm not sure if it will be more practical to use them to blow them up or load them with a powerful light that would only turn on when it attaches, to help your snipers out. Either way the problem is making and powering enough of the things – I'm also working on making enough industrial-sized arc reactors to power force fields over the fields – that would keep your people safe, but it's a hard task to do all over the entire district."

"Right," I said, already getting nervous. I had been thinking the battle would be over when we got to the borders, but now I knew that would just be the beginning. We'd be watching the borders for … months? Years? Until the rebels finally pushed into the Capitol?

"What's the issue with the arc reactors?"

"Don't see this as me admitting any faults with my baby but – it requires a lot of rare materials we don't have access to en masse, and the fabrication process is complicated. Fury's got people getting them to me and the workers at District 13 as fast as possible but … we have to prioritize. I figure we'll try to put the larger force fields up randomly, to try to discourage the bombings – they'll have no way of knowing which fields are protected. We've also got to protect the tracks – growing food does no good if we can't get it out." The rebels already pick up a lot of the food with hovercrafts because of tracks that were destroyed already by the Capitol, and I know the worse it gets the more hovercrafts they have to take away from other operations.

"Anything you can give us to help will be appreciated," I said, not showing him any of the concern building up in me. This battle was bad enough – the thought of it going on for years and years …

"Have you got a girlfriend here?" Tony asked, because of course he did.

"When do I have time to get a girlfriend, dumbo?" I asked back teasingly.

"Gotta make time for the things that keep you sane, Thresh," Tony said as he drained the last of the rations I'd shared with him. I know what that is for him – alcohol and girls. What is it for me? I don't know. Maybe I've never been sane. As soon as I have the thought I know – the only thing that kept me sane was anger. Plenty of time for that now.

Everything changed when we had pushed them over the massive fences at our borders – our district was ours again, but the battle wasn't over yet. We hadn't held the border very long when they started regaining some of their hovercraft capability – and just as Tony predicted, they fly in at night and go in as far as they can and wait until day when there will be maximum casualties and drop bombs. I know what they're hoping to do – to make everyone so scared to work the fields they'll starve us out. (Their own people have massive food reserves – they won't be happy but they'll survive.)

During the day, we have to defend the walls at all costs – the Capitol sends their ground troops against us, hoping every day for that one moment our defenses flag and they can storm the walls and begin the battle in the fields anew. The gates have long since been blasted away so those are the main points of contention – we pile up every possible bit of debris we can to physically block their way and fire mortars, grenades, rifles and everything we can into the oncoming troops, losing many of our men in the process. Sharpshooters, mostly soldiers trained in District 13 or by General Fury who are sharper-eyed than average but not good enough to be snipers, stand on the wall in hastily made blinds shooting at anyone trying to climb the wall and picking off people trying to make it through the entrance – they're in the most dangerous position, and we've lost more sharpshooters than anyone else. That's why we don't put the snipers on the walls – they're too valuable to lose.

We put snipers in elevated (but still lower than the wall) platforms all along the borders to spot at night – Tony and his dad started building those floaters to help us spot them (apparently it's more practical for them to signal us then for them to explode like a mine) but we have neither enough snipers, anti-aircraft stations, or enough of the heat-seeking signal generators and all too many of the hovercrafts get past us and drop bombs on fields of innocent workers. Yet the workers stay in the fields – I've never heard of anyone fleeing until the sirens were going off. We will not give in, we will not go back to sending our children to the Arena, to sacrificing our aged to the fields – no matter what. If one of our snipers does see the signal, he sounds an alarm before taking a shot, and all of the anti-aircraft guns in the area keep an eye out, but usually they're not sharp-eyed enough to make it in the dead of night. They're brave souls – the other side puts up their own snipers to try to take ours out. I know Katniss and Clint would be useful here – but Clint's still a wreck and Katniss, the beautiful, brave volunteer, the Mockingjay, is too valuable to risk here.

I was excited to take the promotion to officer at first – until I realized how much of that meant ordering men to their deaths. I give my orders, and then join them in the trenches – my eyes aren't sharp enough to be on the wall, so I'm one of the many at the gates – and hope I won't get bad news. Most days, I do despite my best hopes. Every time they pull me out to go make pretty videos at base or District 13, I have to swallow my anger – I know I'm coming back to a few dozen dead men I'll never see again.

The one I leave in charge when I'm gone is my second in command, one of my sharpshooters, one of the few to come from District 11. His name is Sam, and he used to be a runner for an underground clinic. He won't ever tell me much about it, other than the fact he's glad he can finally do something besides try to clean up the Capitol's messes, which makes me wonder exactly what kind of clinic he's talking about but I never ask. I don't want to know. Every day I half expect him to be gone – but he's one of a handful of the soldiers I've had since the beginning. I know his parents are dead, that his parents were murdered preachers just like Stephen's, but unlike Stephen he doesn't put much stock in what they taught. He's even kind of bitter about it. "All it did was make folks happier to live under the Capitol's boot," he told me one time. "Thinking things would be better in the next life even if this one was nothing but pain." I don't know how true that is – after all Stephen fights back and even as a little kid he was planning to try to break them out of the Arena, fool's hope though that was. But he probably knows better than me so I don't question him too much.

At some point I guess they decided Gale is the second most expendable one – they send him here to be a sniper for a few weeks at a time before pulling him back to base. Apparently he's helping Beatee and the Starks build weapons and traps to use in the war, applying his experience as a hunter to the nasty business of war. I don't see him very often even though he guards the same section of wall I do – when dusk starts, and he and the other snipers go on duty, the fighting beyond the wall usually dies down and the soldiers retreat to our makeshift barracks. Even if the fighting doesn't die down, there are night reserves to carry on the battle, and we only get called out in an emergency. No one can go for twenty-four hours after all.

But now and then after I get off duty I climb into his tower and talk with him a while – I ask about the ones still at base. Neither of us are big talkers anyway, but he's happy to tell me – Clint is still nuts, Stephen still won't see him but is otherwise doing okay, he doesn't see much of Tony because he's usually out, and Katniss is unhappy they won't let her get any closer to the action than hospitals in District 10. "What about Peeta?" I asked, which only made him laugh.

"He's perfectly happy baking for the forces," he said dismissively.

"Aw man – they shoulda sent him here," I said. I could use something besides field rations – I think we all could. He seemed taken aback by that response. "Eat some more of the field rations out here – you'll understand."

It doesn't take long for Gale to be of great use – the second night he shoots down a hovercraft when he spots the signal. He used a specialized bow to do it – must be more familiar than a gun to him. Sirens blaze even though it's down, because everyone needs to stay in and look out for the crashing hovercraft, and the firefighters will have to respond to the crash immediately. One less bombed field.

Gale very quickly has the best record of any sniper – he's taken down so many they stop going over our section of the wall, and after that he goes to a different section of the wall every time he's sent to the field so he can be of the most use.

The build-up is slow. I notice at first the battles are going on longer and longer into the night, and that there seem to be more of them – but who could tell the difference when the wall of Peacekeepers on the other side is always so thick?

But then I notice there are reinforcements moving in, and I know it's more than just my perception. Intelligence comes in that they're amassing one last attack – one last desperate attempt to breach the wall and retake the district. They're concentrating their forces here, hoping to break just one point – most of the rebel units are leaving a fifth behind to guard their stretch and sent the rest here to meet them. If we can hold them off through this last stretch of the siege, they will most likely have to retreat and 11 will be ours for good. I know my stakes.

I wasn't expecting to see Clint here – but he seems surprisingly steady for everything I've heard from Gale and the fact they weren't even using him for propos until just now. "Good job, man," I congratulate him with a big bear hug when I see him first – after the battle ended for the day here in 11, we were all thrilled to watch the recap of the victory in 10 on the tiny screen in our barracks. "How many did you take down? Six? Seven?"
"Four," he says with a "modest" shrug but he shoots me the cocky grin he's famous for – must be a good sign. I see Peeta and check to make sure he's all healed up – because of course they managed to find some of that fancy burn cream to spare on him – before I bear hug him.

"I didn't know you were such a beast man – that thing had to weigh at least eight hundred pounds and it had to be white hot …"
"I had several people helping me," he says quietly – and his modesty seems genuine.

"Still … I'm glad y'all are on our side," I say, and that makes them both smile – Peeta sheepishly and Clint cockily. Then a shell hits the wall, and there's not time to talk anymore, at least not about anything casual.

"Clint – go with Stanton here, he'll take you to some quarters where you can try to get some rest before the night shift. Peeta – can you shoot?"
"I can," he says, and all traces of the smile he had on just a few seconds ago are gone.

"Then come with me," I say gravely.

I almost sleep through the alarm when Clint takes down a hovercraft that night – the time between his pressing the alarm and shooting it down himself is so short that the hellish wailing of the sirens barely has any time to drag me from a deep sleep before the firefighters get to the scene and they're shut off. I'm glad he's on our side.

The next day I finally get to see Haymitch in action – his unit has arrived to back us up. It's still a little cold – we wake up to a tiny layer of frost on the ground and hundreds of Peacekeepers just beyond our border. Shells fall with the frequency I've gotten used to since the final assault began – which is somewhat more than what it was before. I barely notice the smell of smoke and sulfur – it's so commonplace out here that I've gotten used to it. It's a beautiful clear blue sky – belying the men who will lay down their lives today.

I lead my men to the wall – the sharpshooters take their place in the shooting boxes, more dangerous than ever, and the rest of us take our places at the large gunmounts and barricades.

And then, unexpectedly, there's a huge crack of thunder and the sudden smell of rain – I look up to the sky and see that clouds have suddenly gathered, I know what that means and I can't help but grin. I know from the propos I have seen that he's probably calling out to the hammer, butchering its name in ways that will make Gale grit his teeth – maybe calling it Meower or Milton or Mildew or Million – but I can't hear it over the raging battle. He's close, judging by the lightning, but not close enough for his voice to carry past the artillery and gunfire and frantic shouting between us. I can hear the frantic calls into radios from the other side all the way over here – begging for their snipers to take him out. We're screwed if any of them succeed – but I don't know what if anything can get through the armor that came with the hammer and the helmet Beatee made to go with it. I'd rather not put that to the test though – I hope we've got our own snipers covering him.

As soon as I have the thought, I see an explosion on a sniper tower across the wall – it had to come from an explosive arrow. I wonder if it was Clint who got it, or one of the others.

The battle rages on and on for the rest of the day and into the night – Haymitch and his lightning and his hammer tear through the heavy artillery while our snipers take down theirs, and wave after wave of them are taken down by the defenses at the wall – we have the favorable position. But their reinforcements seem endless – I find myself wishing Stark was here, but I know he's doing important work keeping the communications up. If we can win hearts and minds in the Career districts, half our battle will be won for us. Besides – we've got Haymitch.

And, at midnight, we learn we've got someone else powerful on our side.

I've stayed on, because I couldn't imagine sleeping, but we've sent some of the men to the barracks to sleep and called forward some reserve men who hadn't already been called in to replace the wounded to relieve the most exhausted. The night is dark – the enemy shines blinding spotlights into us while we rely on far less powerful mass-produced floodlights from District 13 and the shoddy lights we used to use when we had to extend harvest hours into the night to see just a hundred feet beyond the wall, trying not to be blinded in the spotlights that surely illuminate us like easy targets. We've been taking heavier casualties since darkness fell – our opponents are fresher due to having greater numbers of reserves and those damn lights give them an advantage. I don't know if we can hold it – and even if we do, how many men are we losing? The flashes of lightning and light rain stopped a couple of hours ago – I can only hope that's because Haymitch is too exhausted to go on, not because one of their snipers got lucky.

And then, over the constant roar of artillery – I hear a roaring. A wild, angry sound – too deep to come from anything human-sized. I've never heard it before, but I know instantly what it is – the only thing it can be.

I can only watch and keep giving orders as Spruce rampages through the terrified forces on the opposite side of the wall, turning over the gunmounts spared by Haymitch's lightning and sending tanks flying. It's horrifying to watch – I'm glad he's on our side. I order my men to keep firing, but something tugs at my chest and stomach. It only occurs to me several minutes later that, for the first time, guilt is creeping in – shooting at men while some of them are already running and others are awaiting an attack from the other side is a little different from shooting at people actively trying to spill into the walls and take back the hard-won fields. But they will be again if we don't fire – we can't afford to stop.

I try to focus on what I'm doing but I keep looking up at Spruce – he looks like he's hurt, from the way he's favoring one leg and one arm. Lightning brightens the sky so much it almost looks like daylight, alleviating my worry over Haymitch, and explosive arrows cover Spruce's back as he stumbles back towards the gate my unit guards – his rampage was brief but brutal, leaving a long, wide trail of twisted metal and broken bodies in his wake. So lit by lightning, I see he's covered in blood – both human red and bright green I assume is his – and I see why he favors one side. There's quite a bit of shrapnel lodged in one side – as he walks he tears it out piece by piece, but it clearly still hurts like hell. Understandably – a human taking the same damage would be dead by now. We briefly clear a gap for him to stumble over the barricade and behind the lines, but he doesn't get far past us before falling to his knees. He whimpers and howls in pain – it's still a deep and wild sound, but also strangely innocent and pitiful. I think he's just a little boy after all.

For the first time ever, Sam abandons his post. I see him just as he hops down from his platform, and start to call out, but he's running towards Spruce so I think nothing of it and just turn back to the battle.

One last push by our side – Haymitch's lightning strikes more fiercely than ever, explosive arrows land amongst the foot soldiers as the snipers join the battle on the wall for the first time ever, hovercrafts fire at each other overhead.

Somehow I am aware of Sam struggling to get close to the Hulk – none of the medics are close enough to do so and its too dangerous for them here, and we have no way to move them. Just like a child, Hulk cries out in pain and jerks away – and I understand Sam's hesitation. "Hulk! Sam is trying to help! You sit still and let him help you right now!" a familiar voice orders and in spite of the horror above and in front of me, my lips curve up in a smile. Peeta's braver than he knows – most of the big, tough men who've killed dozens of Peacekeepers in my command wouldn't have the spine to approach the Hulk, let alone give him orders. "Hurts!" I hear a deep, wild voice protests. I didn't think he could speak.

"I know it does – but Sam is just trying to help you," I can just make out Peeta saying, more gently but still shouting to be heard over the chaos.

The battle goes on and on, with casualties on both sides mounting at a horrific rate until the gates are blocked with a mountain of bodies, and the wall is reinforced on both sides with the dead fallen at the base. And then, just as the sun starts to peek over the horizon, I hear the most welcome news I have ever heard come over the radio. "Enemy forces retreating – intelligence indicates this is a genuine retreat."

In just a few moments, we can see the retreat. The radio tells us to keep firing – I order my men to do so but I'm not too fussed when about half of them stop.

We watch as they retreat for good this time – but we don't take any time to gloat in victory, not yet.

The medics who weren't cleared for combat move in to help the combat medics, while bomb squad, and everyone else starts digging and sorting through guns and ammo. The radio tells me to make an accounting of my men, if possible – I know most of them are gone, but I'll try.

I find Sam, helping the medics tie on tourniquets and slap on bandages before they're loaded onto a backboard to be taken to a field hospital. "I didn't know you were a medic, Sam," I say.

"I'm not. I used to help the doctors at the clinic sometimes – so I saw some things," he says. "Mostly I helped people that were sick or had been beat half to death or girls the Peacekeepers got in trouble though – only a few times we had injuries like this," he says.

"You helped deliver babies?" I ask, surprised.

"Sometimes," he answers darkly, and I move on before I find the strength to be angry.

"What happened to Spruce?" I ask before I go.

"He changed back after a while – he seemed to heal okay in his monster form, but I had to pull out the shrapnel before the wounds would close. I had him taken to the medic tent to get pumped with antibiotics and to make sure he had the shot that prevents lockjaw."

"Thanks for looking out for him," I say, and then continue with my orders.

There's only two other survivors among my sharpshooters, four among of my infantry, and the only good news is that all of my six snipers made it. It's a grim report to make.

Once it's done, I join the crew at the mass grave for the Peacekeepers, just outside the wall. There's no more shovels, so I start to gather bodies. I carry them gently to the pit and lay them down, side by side and head to head, in the bottom of the pit. They're enemies, but still human in the end.

The sun comes up – it's a beautiful clear day. The first day of freedom in District 11.

Author's Note

I'm really sorry guys – I thought I would be finished with this story by now. But last semester killed me. I ended up meeting every requirement I was supposed to in order to get off academic probation … and they still kicked me out. I'm now getting a master's in biology instead of a doctorate in genetics. I'm hoping to get a job directly with that since the job market for master's is actually pretty okay and I'm not sure a doctorate would be worth it, even though I originally had my heart set on it. What does this mean for this story? It's going to be slow going but I promise I am not abandoning it. The good news is because I write out of order, now that I've finally finished this chapter, I have the next few chapters already done to proofread and post at once so you'll have a bit more to read. I don't know when I will be finished though – obviously I have to make good grades in my last class to make the best possible impression when applying for jobs so I'm going to spend a lot of time studying, and then find a job, and then possibly move to wherever that job is. Hopefully I can be done before Mockingjay Part 2 comes out in November.

In the comics for some reason they decided that Sam had to have a past as a drug runner and a pimp. Because black characters can have no other backstory, I guess. *please note that I disagree with that and this is said in sarcasm* So I managed to incorporate that here while maintaining him being a nobler character like in the MCU, even though there is an edge in darkness in what he did – making deals with Peacekeepers, arranging dates between girls and Peacekeepers (to prevent them being taken advantage of), and of course the "cleaning up after the Peacekeepers" by treating girls who'd been raped by Peacekeepers, with all that implied. Originally I had Gale there when he said that and it was a huge thing, but I wanted to go one whole chapter without having Gale being a jerk and it dragged down the ending of the chapter. I was a bit sorry to lose that though because I think it would have been a good character moment for not just Gale but also Thresh, Katniss and Clint – because Katniss would have been on Sam's side, since Katniss has always struck me as a really pragmatic character and Clint, of course, has the experience with his older brother.