Disclaimer: Unfortunately, my name isn't Suzanne Collins and I do not own anything.

I guess we both fell asleep on the couch because the next thing I knew, the sun was slowing starting to set. I had fallen asleep with my head tipped back and my arms flopped to the side. Lethe was nowhere to be found but the blanket I had wrapped around her shoulders was now laid across my lap.

"Lethe!" I called, throwing the blanket aside and running my hands through my hair.

"In here!" she called back from the direction of my bedroom.

She was sitting on the end of my bed, cross legged with a black video tape in her lap. She looked up when I came in and tried to smile. Her eyes and the tip of her nose were red from her crying and under her eyes were slightly swollen.

"What's that?" I asked, sitting beside her and indicating the tape.

"If I tell you, will you promise to watch it with me?"

I was going to argue how that was a raw deal but then I took in her tear stained face, I gave in. "I promise I'll watch it. Now, what is it?"

"My Hunger Games."

She smiled sadly and indicated a small cupboard I rarely opened on my wardrobe. "President Snow gives all Victors tapes of all the Hunger Games. I figured you probably didn't know he had this cupboard stalked with all 74 videos."

"I knew I had 73 videos so Snow must have got someone to come in here to make sure my tapes were up to date. I knew they were there but I seldom open that cupboard so I can try to forget I have the tapes."

"Why didn't you just get rid of them?"

I shrugged. "I guess because I thought Snow would just replace them."

Lethe sighed. "You don't have to watch it."

"I promised you, didn't I? I'll watch your games with you."

We watched it from the moment she was reaped to the moment she was pulled from the arena by a hovercraft. She sat clutching my hands the entire time and she didn't even flinch once. It was easier for me to watch her games than mine but I didn't doubt that I would probably have nightmares tonight.

Watching the reaping, I figured out why people in the Capitol didn't recognize Lethe as Saffra. When Lethe had been 17, she had been shorter, definitely more well-muscled than she was now because at that time she would have been a Career, her hair had been shorter and both her skin color and hair color had been different. I was used to her golden blonde hair but during her reaping, it was almost white blonde— it had been bleached by the sun. Her skin had also been tanned, unlike the creamy colored skin she had now. She wasn't unattractive— fact was, she was really sexy in wild in a kind of way— but I was just used to seeing the Lethe I knew now.

"The sun in District 4 had bleached my hair," explained Lethe. "Now, being away from there, my hair eventually returned to its natural shade. Same with my skin."

"I can see how you caught the eyes Snow, Vamos and Seneca."

"Catching their eyes was what saved me and what damned me."

In the Tribute Parade, her stylists had made her wear a dress in white and different shades of blue and green to represent the ocean that bunched and ruffled in different places that were supposed to be waves. On her pile of blonde curls was a headdress made out of shells and starfish. Her district partner was a thick boy who looked 18. He was dressed in a suit to mimic her dress but he didn't have to wear the headdress.

For the interviews with Caesar Flickerman, she acted sexy but dangerous. Her stylists put her in a short tiered dress and every tier was a slightly lighter shade of blue. They had bunched her hair into an elegant bun with wisps of bangs framing her heavily made up face.

And then the games started. Her arena had been small; it only had a thin forest that covered half of the arena while a miniature lake and small rocky mountains covered the rest of the arena. The Cornucopia occupied the only open space and it was piled mostly with weapons. There had been only a handful of backpacks and absolutely no comfort items like sleeping bags.

Lethe didn't look at me when she started to talk; her eyes glued to the bloodbath replaying before our eyes. "You know, my friends and I had the hugest crushes on you after you won your games."

"It seemed everyone did," I replied, watching the past Lethe dragging a knife across a boy's throat.

"I was only 11 when you won. It was just a stupid little girl crush but as you got older, pretty soon you were the only thing occupying my friends minds."

"What about your mind?"

"We had a choice if we would become Careers. I chose to become a Career while my friends opted out and went to normal school," she explained. "My mind was too busy with training."

The bloodbath was almost finished. The Careers, which included Lethe, were picking off the few remaining Tributes. "I never trained to be a Career and even when they offered to include me before the games after seeing me in training, I said no."

I saw Lethe shake her head from my peripheral vision. "Being a Career…it's almost indescribable. They break down everything you think you know and then build you back up the way they want you to be. It's like they rewired you and now you think like they do."

"Whose they?"

"The instructors. I remember them being absolutely brutal; training until we passed out from exhaustion. The exhaustion they forced on us made it easy for them to indoctrinate us."

The bloodbath was now over and the Career pack had backed up to let the hovercrafts recover the dead bodies. That year, the Career pack had both Tributes from District 1, 2 and 4. "You're not like that now though. What changed?"

"Winning changed me," she answered. "After winning, you aren't blinded by the bloodlust you were taught to feel. Of course, I didn't officially win but I technically did since I was the only one to come out of there."

"Sometimes, I think I would have been better off dying in the arena."

Lethe chuckled darkly. "I think that every day."

I watched the Careers picking over the spoils in the Cornucopia. "So since you were a Career, were you happy to be reaped?"

"Of course. We were taught to want that. But…do you want to know something?"

"What?"

"When my name was called and I climbed onto the stage, all I could think about was the fact that Finnick Odair was sitting right there and he would be my mentor," she said. "But after I was escorted onto the train and saw two completely different people there, I knew that you had probably only been there on stage because you had to."

"Yeah, even though I wasn't mentoring that year, Snow wanted me to make an appearance. You know, let everyone see the Famous Finnick Odair."

We watched the rest of her games in silence. It was only when there were eight Tributes left that Lethe spoke up again.

"This is the part I mainly wanted to watch."

Since there only eight Tributes left, the loved ones of the Tributes would be interviewed.

"Gully was interviewed?" I guessed.

"Yeah, along with my mom, dad and my other close friend, Conch."

The screen split into two halves— one showing the one of the eight Tributes while the other half showed the loved ones of that Tributes talking about them.

On one half, there was Lethe trying to hunt food with a bow and arrows in the sparse forest while on the other half, her mother talked about how strong of a person Lethe was. Her dad said Lethe was being under estimated by the other Tributes due to her size while Conch told a story about how Lethe had beat up a guy in her class who had threatened Conch.

"That's Gully," said Lethe, deep sadness evident in her voice.

Gully had had clue grey eyes and dark brown hair that hung in loose ringlets. She had been fairly pretty as she laughed about the time Lethe had tried to teach her how to swim and she Gully had almost drowned. I reached over and flicked off the TV with the remote once the interviews of Lethe's loved ones were over.

"What are you doing?" asked Lethe, turning to me for the first time since we sat down to watch her games.

"We both know how it ends. We don't need to keep watching it."

"I needed to see Gully," she explained.

"But you don't need to remember everything else that comes with it," I said, reaching forward and stroking her cheek. She leaned forward into my touch.

"I'm willing to deal with that as long as I got to see Gully."

"You don't need to be brave," I murmured. "Cry if you need to."

She smiled sadly. "I don't need to cry."

"What do you need?"

"You," she whispered. "Make me forget Finnick. Make me forget my name."

I smirked. "Your wish is my command.

I stood up and swept her up into my arms and carried her bridal style into my bedroom. She locked her arms around my neck and kissed me like I've never been kissed before. It was filled with her sadness and despair but also with happiness, passion, excitement and love.

"Wow," I said in shock, laying her on the bed once she broke the kiss.

She smirked and patted the spot beside her. "Come here, you."

The next morning, I found two letters with loopy black handwriting slipped under my front door. One was addressed to me while the other had Lethe's name printed on it.

While Lethe was in the shower, I cut open my envelope and scanned the letter from Snow.

Mr. Odair,

Your presence would be greatly appreciated at a ball to be hosted tonight by myself. A car shall be at your apartment at 9:00 pm sharp to pick up you and Ms. Everton. Keep in mind that the ball is formal and has a black and white theme. Here's wishing for a joyful evening.

Sincerely,

President Coriolanus Snow

I tossed the letter on my island and watched it slip over the edge and flutter onto the floor. Even though the letter had the sense that Snow was giving me the option to decline his invitation, I knew that he was really saying I had to accept or else.

"What are you stewing about?" asked Lethe five minutes later as she came into the kitchen. She was dressed in her clothes from yesterday and her damp hair was braided over her shoulder.

I pointed to her letter still sitting on the island. She furrowed her eyebrows as she scooped up the letter and I watched as she eyes moved across the page.

"Well that's not so bad," she said, turning over the paper to see if there was more.

"Is yours the same as mine?"

Lethe turned her letter back over and read her letter out loud.

Ms. Everton,

Your presence would be greatly appreciated at a ball to be hosted tonight by myself. A car shall be at Mr. Odair's apartment at 9:00 pm sharp to pick up you and Mr. Odair. Keep in mind that the ball is formal and has a black and white theme. Here's wishing for a joyful evening.

Sincerely,

President Coriolanus Snow

"I guess you're right," I said, shrugging. "It can be worse than going to a ball."

"Too bad we can't say no," sighed Lethe. "I not up to going to a ball. I mean, it was only yesterday."

I noticed she was close to tears again. After we finished making love last night, she had confessed that that had been exactly what she needed. She hadn't thought of anything except me and what I had been making her feel. Now, her cracks were starting to show again.

"I have something for you," I said. "Wait here."

I dashed into my bathroom, pulled open my mirror cabinet and pushed all my bottles on the top shelf to the side. Unless you were looking for it, you wouldn't be able to find the little secret compartment I had at the back of the cabinet. I pulled out a little baggy of pills I kept hidden and dug in the baggy until I found the little white pill I had been searching for. I stuffed the baggy back into the secret compartment and made my way back to the kitchen.

I set the pill on the island in front of Lethe and went to pill up a glass of water for her.

"What is this?" asked Lethe.

"It's called Obliterate."

Lethe sniffed. "Sounds nasty."

I chuckled as I placed the water beside the pill in front of Lethe. "It's an illegal pill given to me by one of my clients. I don't why it's illegal since almost everyone in the Capitol uses it at some point in their lives."

"I've never heard of this pill, illegal or not."

"People here in the Capitol use it to forgo the grief process," I explained.

"What!?" exclaimed Lethe.

I smiled. "The pill makes the memory of the loved one you lost fuzzy. You want to feel sad but the pill combats those feelings with endorphins."

Lethe shook her head. "But I don't want the memory of Gully to be fuzzy."

"But it won't always be fuzzy," I explained. "One pill equals enough endorphins for a month. Once you stop taking the pills, the memories come back into focus but you won't feel sad about the memories anymore."

"I'm so confused," said Lethe, eyeing the pill like it was going to bite her.

"Okay, I'll try to explain better. One Obliterate equals one month of endorphins. These endorphins make the memory of your dearly departed fuzzy and whenever you want to feel sad, the endorphins prevent you. You're able to function normally and everything, you just won't be able to feel sad about your loved one. Once you stop always wanting to be sad, the memories of your loved one come back into focus and you'll be able to think about them without grief because you would have skipped over the grieving process."

"So, I won't be able to feel sad about Gully but I'll be able to feel sad about other things? I'll still be emotionally functional?"

"Exactly. The endorphins target the source of your grief. So if you took this and then saw a cat get run over, you'd still be able to be sad about the cat."

"I can see why every Capitol person would take this at least once in their lifetimes."

I sat down beside Lethe. "You don't have to take it. It's just an option."

In one swift motion, Lethe put the pill on her tongue and took a swig of water. "I think I'll need this if we have to go to a ball tonight."

I put an arm around her waist and pulled her against me. "I think Snow wants to see you crack. He really wants to push your limits."

"I won't give him the satisfaction of seeing that," she said, burrowing her face in the crook of my neck.

"I don't want to think about Snow right now," I growled as I rubbed circles with my fingers onto the bare skin between her jeans and sweater.

"I don't want to think about him either," she purred, nibbling the side of my neck.

"Bedroom?" I offered, sliding my hands up her shirt and skimming the edges of her bra with my fingertips.

"Bedroom," she agreed huskily.

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Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far. It means so much to me to hear what you think. Keep those reviews coing though. I want to hear your thoughts on what you hope happens with Finnick and Lethe!