A/N: This chapter was ready, and there was no reason to delay. The next update will take longer, but D12 POVs will return.

To say that Rory had mixed feelings about the sixty-second countdown would have been an understatement. On one hand, he needed every second that remained because nothing, nothing, could have prepared him for the reality of seeing the other competitors. On the other, he was terrified that his knocking knees would somehow cause him lose his balance, and the Doctor had not spared any gory detail when describing the consequences of not staying on the plate for the full minute.

He took a steadying breath and looked to both sides of him. His relief was palpable when he saw Amy several tributes over to his left, but any relief was short-lived once he fully appreciated the nature of the arena. Water separated not only the tributes from each other but also from the cornucopia. Rory knew himself to be a strong swimmer, but Amy was decidedly less so, although, thankfully, she had finally learned on their penultimate trip in the TARDIS. While he had been irritated at the time, he was now grateful for the fact that one of the Doctor's "repairs" had gone quite awry and had resulted in an extra week (or month) to kill while drifting in space. Still, he took some solace in the likelihood that he and Amy would likely be some of the fastest runners in the arena.

Rory quickly turned back to Amy; he saw her crouched and facing the nearest land strip, and he knew that he must do the same. He was absolutely certain that he would be able to get to the Cornucopia before she did; maybe he would be able to gather enough supplies for the two of them. He somehow registered that the countdown was now in the single digits, and took a final deep breath to steady himself.

And then there was no more time. Rory felt a surge of adrenaline at the announcement, and he launched himself into the water. Insofar as coherent thoughts were possible, he was pleased that he was swimming at an excellent pace, although it seemed to be far, far faster than any speed that he had swum before. Still, he wasn't about to complain, and he made a relatively smooth transition from water to land. To his great surprise, he appeared to be the first at the cornucopia; or, at least, he didn't see any other tribute yet. He knew that this solitude was unlikely to last, and he immediately turned his attention to the selection of supplies. Once he did so, however, his heart sank when he saw only weapons before him. Rory decided to focus on the extensive selection of swords, knives, and things with which to hit other things.

With weapons in hand, Rory quickly ran out and looked towards where he believed Amy would approach. She was just about to hit the land strip, which was far more progress that he had even dared to hope for. He quickly turned back to the cornucopia, and what he saw made him crouch immediately in order to avoid the knife that now whizzed past the top of the head. He was about to shout protestations at his would-be assailant when the bronzed-hair young man silenced him with a look that clearly indicated that he meant for Rory to get the heck out of dodge. Rory let the bizarre contradiction between Finnick's actions and this present expression slide, and he made haste towards Amy. He surmised that Finnick was trying to throw the gamemakers off as to who exactly might be part of his alliance, an alliance that was more far-reaching than any of them could have contemplated. He could see the strategic value of Finnick's actions, but that didn't mean that he was pleased about having knives chucked at at him. He supposed that at least he was still alive, and now he needed to get to Amy in order to give her the best chance to remain so.

Rory nearly ran into her just as she hit the central island. "GO!" he shouted at Amy, motioning with his full hands. Without question, she immediately turned heel and ran towards the jungle that appeared to circle this lake. Amy continued running without a single look back until she disappeared within the lush vegetation. She made a sharp right, apparently having decided to skirt the beach, and ran for a short distance until she skidded to a halt. Rory also stopped and immediately dropped everything that he was holding in order to accept the frantic embrace that he knew that she was about to bestow. Amy was breathing a number of sharp and shallow breaths, not from exertion, but from trying to contain all of the emotions that were no doubt running through her. She quickly ran her hands along Rory's face, and he knew that this gesture was equal amounts affection and looking to see whether he had suffered an injury at the cornucopia.

"I was so worried," she gasped as she squeezed his hand. "It looks like his missed-I don't even see a scratch. Thank goodness he missed."

"No need to tell me that," Rory remarked. "And you? You're okay?"

Amy nodded. "Do you think we should keep going?"

"Maybe? I'm not sure. I do think that I need to catch my breath." Rory looked up see Amy contemplating through the greenery.

"I think that we should stay here for a bit," Amy said, slowly. "I don't think that I'm ready to go deeper into that jungle yet."

"Then catching our breath sounds like a good idea," Rory agreed. He looked briefly over to the cornucopia, which was still in plain view. He shuddered and turned back to Amy, who simply gave him a look of understanding as she began worrying her token, which she had pulled out from underneath her suit. They were soon distracted, however, by the soft sounds of something falling near them.

"A parachute? Already?" whispered Amy. Her surprise gave way to a frown. "That's really odd. Why would he do that?"

Rory couldn't help but share Amy's concern. Did the Doctor think that they were already beyond what they could handle and needed all the help that they could get? He knew that elaborating on his concerns would be counterproductive. "No idea, but we might as well see what we've got."

Amy nimbly opened and unwrapped the parcel and removed the contents. "Two bottles of water. A bag. A really oddly shaped vial. And what looks to be a filter of some sort?" They both considered the gifts, but Amy was the one to speak first. "This must mean that water is going to be hard to find." Given the jungle that surrounded them, Rory was skeptical of this theory, and Amy apparently had little patience upon seeing his pursed lips. "Oh, you hush. He's not stupid, and he's not going to be frivolous with whatever sponsor money we have." She held up the filter. "Apart from the fact that it's salt water, the lake is probably relatively safe since we swam through it and it didn't kill us"

"Yes, the salt water thing is a very minor detail."

"Anyway," Amy continued, now jabbing at the filter with her other hand. "This must be a desalination filter. So maybe we should only trust the lake water?"

After some consideration, Rory shrugged his shoulders. "Probably. We should wait until dark, though, to be safe."

Amy nodded. "We don't want to be seen, and we don't want to tip off anyone about the lack of water. So these guys need to last us for as long as possible." She abandoned the filter in favor of the vial, which she then twirled in her hand. "No idea what this is, though. Any thoughts?"

Rory did have an idea, and, judging from her motions, he suspected that Amy did too. It would be foolish to tip off the Gamemakers now with too much secondhand insight into the Arena, so he elected to sigh with great frustration for the benefit of any audience. "None at all. Wouldn't be surprised if he clicked on the wrong button by mistake. Let's pack this all into that bag. I really think that we should get going."

Amy nodded and gathered the supplies. She elected to carry a long knife in her right hand while Rory decided to wield one of the swords. Thus armed, they began to walk, sticking to the perimeter of the jungle.

As the Doctor watched their continuing progress an hour later, he couldn't help but be pleased with his friends and how they were controlling the narrative in order to distract from his actions. The perception filters also seemed to be working: even though Amy and Rory had so far elected to stay close to the border between the jungle and the beach, they had nonetheless been able to evade the other parties of tributes and were safe. Or, at least, safe to the extent possible in the arena.

The Doctor aimed the sonic at the other screens in his viewing room in order to check out the other tributes. This was the real reason that he hadn't wanted to ally with any other Districts: in theory, he would have been permitted access to the feeds of only those tributes who were allied with his own. Absent an alliance, he would be limited to the two feeds of his own tributes, and the other screens would remain blank. In practice, any alliance would actually limit the information available to him as he had, naturally, made sure to modify the electronics in order to accommodate his needs. He therefore had access not only to all of the other tributes' feeds, but he had also managed to secure a feed that gave him a view of the control room. The audio for the latter was touch-and-go, but it was sufficient for his needs.

Not to mention that Amy and Rory had surmised correctly that the sonic was indeed a most loyal and generous patron to their sponsor accounts.

With a flick of the screwdriver, he decided to activate the feeds for the District Twelve tributes. He took a closer look at the screen once he saw that there was an ever-so-slightly yellow cast that seemed to match the tint of Amy and Rory's feed. From his earlier viewings at the very beginning of the games today, he had noted that different sectors appeared to have very slightly different colored environments. Whether this was true in the arena, or perhaps it was merely an artifact of the feeds in order to aid the gamemakers' visual tracking of the tributes, he wasn't sure. What he did know was that Amy and Rory were coming dangerously close to an unpredictable confrontation with the District Four and Twelve tributes. He thought that Twelve would be friendly enough-at the very least, not immediately lethal-but the male tribute from Four had unexpectedly attacked Rory at the cornucopia. As Rory had, the Doctor also theorized that Four simply wanted to throw off the officials and the viewers as to the extent of alliances among the tributes, and he supposed that death was considered an acceptable price in order to disguise the league of victors. He returned his gaze to the District Six feeds-apparently Amy and Rory had become aware of the proximate tributes and had taken cover behind some nearby trees. Clearly they also were unwilling to reveal themselves.

Watching Rory and Amy had distracted him from the other activated feeds, and he started when he heard a crack and commotion coming from the other monitors. When he turned to these screens, he saw an all-too-achingly familiar sight before him, with the felled boy and the distraught girl. He turned to his own feeds: Rory and Amy had seen what had happened: both were upset, and it seemed that Rory was restraining Amy. He knew that the two had been friendly with the teenagers-even apart from what was strictly required for their present mission-and it didn't surprise him that they were reacting quite badly at the scene before them. He turned back to the Twelve feeds, and his hearts sank. It was obvious that the boy was not breathing and, while he saw that Four was apparently going to try to resuscitate him, he had no idea whether it was even possible for him to succeed at this point.

All of a sudden, still another audio feed came to life, and the Doctor turned to the monitor that showed the control room. Now he was able to see that one of the gamemakers was reaching for a lever that would sound the cannon that signaled the death of a tribute. The Doctor immediately realized what was about to happen, and he began to frantically program the screwdriver in a race against the gamemaker, whose hand had luckily been hovering just centimeters above the lever for some seconds-presumably to build up the drama and false hope. But that hand was now dropping steadily towards the blood red switch as he waited for the precise moment to make the boy's death official. The sonic began to hum, and the Doctor pointed it towards the screen just as the gamemaker began to apply the pressure that would move the lever forward, the fatal action that would irrevocably signal that the star-crossed lovers were no more.

The blasted lever was stuck. No matter that he put his entire weight behind the thing-it would not budge in the slighted. He yelled over to his fellow gamemakers, but even the added force of his three largest colleagues in the control room did nothing.

"Forget it!" he exclaimed with exasperation. "We'll just reprogram the girl's cannon and use that instead."

And he began typing furiously at his keyboard, indifferent to the race against time that was playing out in the arena. The boy was clearly dead. The President would be pleased, and these extra few seconds would be inconsequential. It was just a matter of a few more lines of coding.

The Doctor's hand continued to hold steady.

Amy had buried her head in Rory's chest, unwilling to watch. She was at least grateful that her reaction would not be broadcast because there was absolutely no reason for someone in her position to be grieving over the death of a fellow competitor.

Because there should have been no reason; no reason except that the tableau that played out before them was also one that was as familiar to Amy as it had been to the Doctor. For all of Rory's constant worry over Amy's safety and the ridiculous arguments that they always, always had as to the caution she exerted (or, rather, failed to exert), it seemed to be always her who grieved over the body of her lost love. But this scene, this scene that was happening right now, was so, so very resonant, and brought back the horrible memories of that time when Rory had entrusted her completely with his life, had trusted that she would bring him back because he thought that she would never give up. And, if she were truthful (or, rather, being cruel) to herself, she never failed to feel guilty that she had given up, because she had believed him to be lost forever once again. But Rory had come back anyway, because that is what he did.

So, once Amy had heard the sound and realized what had happened just tens of yards away, she had gasped and struggled against Rory, who was trying desperately to muffle her sharp cries of agitation, and he refused to let go even when her teeth clamped down on his hands.

"Amy! he hissed. "We have got to stay right here. It's not time for us to intervene…not yet." He clasped her more closely to him after he must have seen a particularly wild look cross her face. "Look, Finnick is doing CPR. His technique looks perfect. I promise that I'll run over if it looks like I can help, but we can't give up our cover yet. I promise."

Amy nodded at Rory's vow-she could never, ever doubt his word. She knew that she needed to provide some sort of rationale for her behavior. "It's just that…that if it can't be one of us, I want it to be one of them." Rory nodded, and he patted her on the back. She then tried to collect herself, but she continued to keep her eyes averted as she extracted herself and tried to muffle her hiccups. She saw out of the corner of her eye that Rory was keeping his eyes trained on the scene, and she was grateful for his diligence. Amy then turned away to face the opposite direction from Rory; as upset as she was, she was still unsure as to how well the perception filters would work and didn't want to give any unfriendly victors the opportunity to take advantage of their distraction. She gripped her knife and scanned around her as best as she could through her tears.

Immeasurable gratitude and relief flooded her senses when she heard Rory expel a breath and he murmured that everything was okay. She made a pretense of sweeping their environs again before allowing herself to look at the grouping of people. The heartfelt relief that she could see from Katniss' demeanor, even from this distance, was an emotion that was seared onto her soul and she was again overwhelmed by all of the times that Rory had been, almost impossibly, restored to her. The only thing that she dared to do in this arena was to squeeze Rory's hand with all of her strength, and she knew that he understood everything.

"They're fine. We should go," Rory stated. "There's too much activity going on, and I want to avoid the other tributes for as long as we can. Plus, I think Finnick has it out for me, and I think that those tridents might be harder to duck."

Amy nodded. They gathered their belongings, and they quietly continued on their way.

Amy and Rory had taken the occasional break during their hike, and their final resting point for the evening was determined by a second parachute received just as dusk was falling. Apart from whatever was contained in the delivery, they both suspected that the Doctor meant for them to stay where the parachute found them.

"Shall we stay here for the evening?" Amy suggested softly, and Rory nodded in reply. She had reached for the parachute first and unwrapped it to find several sandwiches. She frowned. "He can't keep sending us food all the time. We're going to need to find it for ourselves at some point. And what if we need other things, like medicine?"

"I guess we'll deal with that when the time comes. Right now, he seems to think that we need sandwiches." Rory held up the netting that had encased the food parcel within their package. "But I'm guessing that we're meant to use this to fish. Makes sense that there could be food in that lake."

Amy wrinkled her nose. She wasn't a big fan of seafood, but this was hardly the time or the place to pull a diva-attitude. "I suppose. Although I can't say that I've ever fished before. You?" She, of course, knew the answer to that question.

"No," replied Rory. "But how hard can it be, really? Shall we dine?"

Neither was particularly hungry. Despite the exertion, the heat and the humidity put a damper on their appetites, but neither was interested in having food stick around that could signal their presence to either other tributes or to whatever unknown animals or monsters stalked the jungle. Really, Amy wished that the Doctor had sent more water, or even more empty bottles. Despite their best efforts to ration fluids, they were nearly out of water and soon would need to expose themselves in order to make their way to the lake. Still, they were probably fine for a few more hours, especially if they were to hold their ground here.

Amy and Rory sat in guarded silence through the anthem and the presentation of the fallen. Apparently all of the tributes from their meeting were still alive, which she supposed was a good thing. And, of course, the district twelve tributes were both still alive, which was a relief. Amy nudged Rory. "Hey, do you want to take a nap and let me take first watch?" She was still fairly wound up from the emotional roller coaster of this afternoon, and thanks to his job, Rory was pretty good at taking naps whenever the opportunity and need presented themselves.

"Not really tired, but thanks for the offer," Rory replied as he stretched his arms. "Let's the both of us stay awake until one of us really needs to sleep. It's just this feeling that I have..."

Amy nodded. They still didn't talk, but they really didn't need to as they leaned against each other in a silent watch. Eventually, the unusual stillness was broken by a bright flash. Amy looked up and saw what appeared to be a lightning strike directly across the lake from their current position. She quickly looked around her for anything that she and Rory could use for shelter-maybe those parachutes could be improvised into coverings-but her actions were interrupted by a sharp poke in her ribs by her husband.

"Hey!" she exclaimed with some irritation. Rory only shook his head slightly and pointed across the lake.

"Look at that," he instructed.

After some minutes, Amy finally spoke up again. "There doesn't seem to be lightning anywhere else in the arena." Rory nodded, but his continued focus on the lightning storm confirmed to Amy that her voiced observation about the localized storm was not the important one. She reached for his hand.

"It's such a pretty blue. So...unusual...compared to what we've seen in District Six, don't you think?" she asked innocently while squeezing Rory's hand.

"Yeah, unusual," he replied while reciprocating Amy's grip. And thus Amy knew that Rory was well aware of her lie, because that blue-hued electrical energy was, ironically, now unforgettable to them. They sat, alternately mesmerized the light display and tensed for any possible attack. Time passed, and then the flashes stopped. They were still slightly tranced from the lightning display when their attention became diverted by the sound of heavy rainstorms just to the right of where the lightning had been.

"That's odd," muttered Rory. "Why didn't the rain happen with the lightning?"

"We're in an arena. Everything is artificial, so it's not impossible that they'd be decoupled," reasoned Amy. "But what's the point of doing that? I mean, why not make everything as miserable as you can all at once?"

"That's what I would think," replied Rory. "Why parcel it out?" His grip on Amy's hand suddenly tightened. "Hold up! Do you still have that vial from our first parachute?" Amy retrieved the vessel from the bag, and Rory began to stroke the curved sides.

"You have an idea," Amy commented. "Out with it."

Rory held the vial straight in front of her face. "Look at the shape. Look at what we're surrounded by out there."

Now was the time for Amy to divulge her suspicion. "It's an hourglass!" she whispered excitedly and for the benefit of the audience.

"Yup. It opens on both sides and it's notched so we know how high to fill it. Cover me while I get some sand." Once he returned, he cracked open the vial, partially filled it with the white granules, resealed it, then flipped the whole thing over. "If we're right, and I think we are, it's going to be somewhat off because we got a late start. It'll be close enough though to let us know what we're on the right track. And we can just empty and start again."

The wait began anew. Sure enough, the top half of the glass was significantly emptied when the rain stopped and a fog began to envelop the next area of the arena.

"Okay, that did seem to last an hour," began Amy.

"And they're sequential. One has to stop for the next one to start," finished Rory.

"You thinking what I"m thinking?"

"Undoubtedly."

Amy looked ahead of her again and ignored the sounds of the pounding storm. "Which would mean that we were at six o'clock. Appropriate enough."

"And which means that we need to figure out what in the world we're doing before whatever's in store for us happens."

The two fell quiet as they pondered their next moves, watching the sand drain. Amy desperately hoped that there was more exciting goings-on elsewhere in the arena and that her and Rory's revelations were being overlooked. They still needed a plan, though.

"How about this," began Amy. "Let's start moving over to the next sector while this runs so we can make sure that we're right about things only lasting an hour. We'll stick around just long enough to see what's up, and then I think that we should cut across to the far side of the arena since that should be safe for awhile."

"Okay," agreed Rory. "But let's be careful and not accidentally walk into the next active area. I think that it would be helpful to get a few additional data points, but I don't actually want to be a data point."

"Agreed." They gathered their belongings, and Rory offered to carry the backpack and the hourglass. Free of these burdens, Amy decided to set the pace and walk ahead of him.

"It looks like we have only a few minutes left of this hour," remarked Rory. "As soon as we see what the next thing is, we should run as fast in order to get as far as possible, just in case there's anyone nearby who can see us."

"Yeah, makes sense. Let me know when the hour is up."

As it turned out, it was wholly unnecessary for Rory to alert Amy because not only was the dissipation of the fog completely unmistakeable, but animal-like sounds started to come from the jungle ahead. She stopped suddenly, and Rory ran into her.

"Listen!" she hissed. "It's not just weather. That sounds like some sort of beast. Do you suppose that it's like those mutts from last year?" Even in the dim moonlight that permeated the greenery, Amy could see the color drain from Rory's face as he concentrated on the noises.

"That's…that's not good. I say that we've got enough data points. Now let's get out of here." He shoved the hourglass into the bag, and the two of them began sprinting across the beach to the nearest sand strip. Their attention was caught by a significant commotion in the animal area. Amy and Rory both turned and saw three people battling what they now saw to be monkeys. They stopped completely once they saw arrows flying through the air, knowing who exactly those people must include. Amy's breath caught when she saw that the boy was once again in mortal danger, having now left himself completely open to an attack by a creature that absolutely no one else seemed in a position to kill.

Amy's legs began to run seemingly of their own volition, and she did not heed Rory's screams to stay back, and she ignored his pounding footsteps as he chased after her. Because this second chance had to mean something. This couldn't be a coincidence, this second time in less than a day that she was in a position to save the boy. She hurled herself at Peeta and, somehow, the momentum was sufficient to knock the two of them several feet over and seemingly well clear of the path of the attacking animal.

Oddly, the animal sounds seemed to have ceased completely-how had all of that time had passed? Amy supposed that that meant that she had succeeded and that Peeta was safe. She closed her eyes. That was a good feeling, she thought. A really good feeling. And so that was the feeling she elected to cling to in her last moments of consciousness, because it was so much better than the searing pain and so much better than the very, very warm sensation of her blood seeping through the torn jumpsuit.