Author's Note:

Thanks to everyone for all the reviews, favorites, recommendations, etc. As your reward, I give you… (drumroll)…a faster-than-usual update! Surprise! I would never have made it this far without the support of all my wonderful readers :)

I wake up in the early morning hours still shaken from the death of Katniss' young ally. As horrifying as it was to watch, I can only imagine what it has done to my friend who was actually there, who failed to save her despite her best efforts.

It hits a little too close to home. We're in our own kind of arena, here in Twelve.

I'm still proud of Katniss though, for the courage she showed. At the end, they didn't air much of the little girl's last moments because Katniss had chosen to take her comfortingly in her arms as the life bled from her. Fallen Tributes are not to be mourned. But Katniss made certain that she would not let her go unnoticed; they must broadcast the moment when a hovercraft retrieves a Tribute's body (to officially confirm a death for the gamblers who bet on the Games), and when they did her tiny figure was covered in wildflowers so that all of Panem would remember that her name was Rue, and that she did not have to die. Surely such a defiant act of compassion has infuriated the Capitol, and that means that there's a little of the Katniss that I knew left in the Girl on Fire. I just hope that this does not break her.

After I clean myself up and change my clothes, I find Rory waiting for me in the kitchen for the second morning in a row. His eyes train on me but he remains still, like a wary fawn expecting an ambush.

I sigh. Part of me admires his persistence, part wishes he'd give up.

"How about today?" he asks as I pick up my bag by the door.

"No, Rory."

"Why not?" Rory demands and I hear the legs of the chair scrape the floor as he rises.

I wheel on him and pin him with my meanest, coldest glare. He freezes, but he doesn't back down, I'll give him that. "I'm not doing this with you right now. Now sit down and shut up before you get everybody out of bed," I snarl.

He lowers his voice to a harsh, irate whisper. "You are doing this. What're you gonna do when you start at the mine next week, and you can't go every day?"

I hope he can't tell that I flinch internally at the mention of my impending career. At the implication that there may come a day that I don't make it home from work. "No, Rory."

I turn to leave again, but he won't let it go and I can hear the cruel sneer in his inflection when he speaks. "You can't just say no and not give me a good answer. Just because you're the oldest doesn't make you Dad."

To think there was a time when I thought there wasn't a mean bone in his body. Before I can stop myself I snatch up a handful of his shirt and drag him out the door with me so I can give him hell without waking the rest of my family. I toss him roughly into the dirt to get him away from me, because I'm afraid that another moment of physical contact may cause me to actually hurt him. Rory hits the ground with a pained grunt and then scrambles to his feet, but he keeps his distance. Still, he stares hard at me, angry and defiant, and for a heart-wrenching second I see myself in him. Which means that yes, without question, I have failed.

"You listen to me, you thick-skulled little ingrate," I say with alarming restraint, "you want a good answer? Aside from the fact that you're incapable of sitting still for more than five minutes, you are not going to the woods because it's dangerous. You seem to have forgotten that poaching is illegal. And maybe it's my fault for never being explicit about what that means, because I didn't want my eleven-year-old brother to worry about this kind of thing, but it's classified as stealing. And stealing is punishable by death."

"Don't talk to me like I'm an idiot, Gale. You sell turkeys to Peacekeeper Cray," he spits.

"And if Cray for some reason decides that he doesn't want to buy turkeys anymore, I get a bullet. Or if some other Peacekeeper changes their mind. Or if some Capitol big-shot visiting for a Reaping or the Games notices. And if you're with me when it happens, you get one too."

In the dim light I see him swallow hard as if truly digesting this for the first time. Nevertheless, he puts on a fair show of courage. "Dad taught you how to trap when you were my age," he points out.

"Dad taught me to trap rabbits in the meadow, Rory, and he didn't advertise that he was doing it by trading them. I went into the woods on my own, after he died, because I didn't have a choice. I do this so that you get one. When I start at the mine, I'll start getting paid, and I won't have to go every day. On top of that I have a few more months of Tesserae coming, so that buys some time, too. Eventually I might have to put you in this position, but I'm going to wait as long as I can because if one of us has to die to keep this family fed I want the odds to be that it's me."

Rory glowers at me hatefully, but he stops arguing. There isn't much he can say in response, I guess.

"Go back inside, Rory," I say with a sigh. He waits just long enough to be insolent about it, and stalks silently back into the house. He misses our father – I know because I do, too, particularly because I'm certain that he'd have done a better job with my brother than I clearly have – and this year's Games have been especially frightening for him. But it doesn't ease the sting from the fact that he doesn't appreciate that I only want to keep him safe. Or that he used mention of our father as a weapon. Or that, as hard as I've tried, I haven't filled our father's shoes.

….

After school, I check on my mother and find her napping, and I'm not sure if I am relieved or intensely annoyed by it. I'm glad that she is finally catching up on the rest she needs, and somewhat offended that she isn't yet fit for further conversation. I poke my head into my father's office and find it empty, which is no great surprise but an additional disappointment; I'd seen him only once since I'd spoken with my mother, and then I had made a point of ignoring him rather frostily. He had let that go, I suppose because he felt that he deserved it. Now, I just feel like picking a fight, because I guess he deserves that, too. They both knew that my aunt had secretly taken her place in the last Quarter Quell, and if my mother was unable to tell me, my father should have. I'm their daughter- doesn't that count for anything? It does, I try to tell myself, and they did tell me eventually, and a secret like that isn't something you entrust lightly to a child, even if she is your own. But the emotion is still too raw to let me see reason. Combine that with an exceptionally awful evening of the Hunger Games last night, ongoing lack of sleep, and the knowledge that another media team is due to arrive tomorrow, and I'm lucky I can see anything.

So I spend most of the afternoon on the piano. I start with another nocturne, in the hopes that it might soothe my anger, but try as I might it is a lost cause. So I change to a loud, pounding, intense piece and find it to be infinitely more satisfying. The dissonant, slightly-manic sounds are something that I have never truly appreciated before, and now they are the only thing keeping me from tumbling completely over the edge. A perfect echo of myself, holding me back.

Rose eventually comes down the stairs into the parlor to see what all the commotion is about. She frowns curiously at me, and finally speaks when she realizes that I'm not going to volunteer any explanation. "What on earth is that racket?"

"It's a masterpiece, Rose," I say, rather more snottily than she rightfully deserves. But I'm in a bad mood, dammit, for a good reason.

"Are you sure about that?" she asks sarcastically. "You're going to wake up your mother."

I give her a tight smile. "Don't really care," I say before going right back to my racket.

I miss the expression on her face but I see her coming out of the corner of my eye, so I have just enough time to snatch my hands out of the way when she grabs the knob on the fallboard and sends it crashing down. I glare at her incredulously while she folds her arms across her chest and looks at me the way she looks at a stain in the carpet.

"What's wrong with you?" she demands.

I drop my gaze because I can't tell her. And because I've embarrassed myself.

"Whatever it is, if you want to take it out on your music, fine. But you're not a child. There is no reason to be rude to me, or to say something heartless about your mother. Who loves you very much, I might add."

"I'm sorry, Rosie," I say, and I hope she knows how sincerely I mean it. "I didn't mean – I'm upset at Mom. And Dad, too, for that matter."

"Well, that isn't any of my business," she says, "so I'm not going to ask why. But be patient. Your father called earlier to tell me not to let you go anywhere because he was trying to come home a little early. Said he's been meaning to talk to you." Then she wraps her arms around my shoulders as she squeezes me against her. I have to admit it makes me feel a tiny bit better. "I've seen both sides. Parents can be a nightmare, but so are children, especially when they're growing up. Give them a chance."

She has a point, I suppose. I think of the night I threatened to turn my father into Peacekeeper Cray. I think of how it must frighten my father – and my mother since she knows, too – that I am even marginally involved in a potential rebellion. I'm still angry, but I'm a little more willing to be nicer about it.

"Thanks," I say, as I hug her back. I decide to drag myself outside to find a seat on my mother's favorite bench, where I can be quieter about being irate. Without my piano I find it hard to sit still, so I get up and wander a bit, chase our rabbit out of the cabbages, pull up some coneflowers for Prim, trace the outline of my mother's mockingjay pin with a twig in the loose dirt. I just wish I could turn off my mind, if only for a minute. Forget the world for a while. Where is Gale when I need him?

….

When Katniss yells Peeta Mellark's name, it is startlingly spontaneous. Genuine. I don't think she knows it, but it's clear to see that Claudius Templesmith's booming announcement triggered something more than an unprecedented rule change in the Hunger Games. I know that I would be happy to hear the news if I were the one in the arena, that it would be the right thing to do to help my other District Tribute survive, that I would gladly do it. But the look on her face when the camera closes in on her says that there is more there than a sense of duty. How much more?

Prim gasps in surprise, eyes wide and mouth agape as she stares at the screen in disbelief. "They really did it – they changed the rules, just like she said…."

"Madge was right!" says Rory with the first smile I have seen from him all day. It is clearly for Prim though; he has yet to utter a single word in my direction since this morning.

I try to force one myself, but it's difficult. Katniss' odds of survival may have gone from one-in-six to one-in-three, but there are strings attached. My brother is angry at me, and it's only a matter of time before he tattles to Mom, I'm sure of it. I can count on one hand the number of days left before I join the ranks of the walking dead, because the mine kills everyone eventually.

"Do you think she can help him, Mom?" Prim asks her mother.

Mrs. Everdeen mulls over the question for a minute. "He didn't look well the last few times they showed him," she answers in her soft, matter-of-fact healer's tone. "He needs stronger medicine than what she can find in the forest. But she may be able to give him more time."

I suddenly wonder why Peeta hasn't received any parachutes during his time in the arena. I hadn't cared before, I admit, but if they were so enamored with the Star-Crossed Lovers story, wouldn't they want to keep Peeta alive, too? Surely District Twelve had earned the sponsorship funds – if they caused enough of a stir to cause a rule change, which has never happened in the entire history of the Games, they ought to be able to afford medicine. Unless the Gamemakers won't let Haymitch Abernathy send it, because they are saving it for something….

That gnawing sense of guilt creeps back in as I wish for a moment that Madge was here again. I wonder what else she knows - she's been right about most everything so far, I can't deny that, whether I've liked what she was right about or not. But that doesn't explain the guilt. No, that comes from wanting to see the way she'd beam with joy over this turn of events, wishing for the easy way she pulls me out of myself. But then, when I glance back at the television, the guilt begins to crumble a little under the weight of what is unfolding there.

….

When my father gets home, it can only be considered early because I am actually still awake. He finds me curled into a small, sulky ball in an armchair in the parlor with a stack of fresh newspapers. I fold the page in my hands neatly while I think hard about what Rose had said to me earlier, and try to keep my hostility from showing on my face when I look at him.

He chooses a chair across from me, meets my eyes, looks frighteningly sad. "I'm sorry I haven't been here to talk to you."

The distraught look on his face convinces me to forgive him instantly. I wait to see if he has anything more to add, and when he remains contritely silent I ask him evenly, "All these years, why didn't you ever tell me?"

He shakes his head. "She wanted to explain it herself. She thought it ought to be her responsibility, so she asked me not to."

I can't help but frown at this. It takes effort to keep my voice steady, to keep from lashing out at him. "I asked you not to tell her about the pin, because I thought that should be my responsibility, but that didn't stop you, did it?"

"I didn't tell her," he says. "As much as it's painful for her, she knows what's going on, Magpie. She reads newspapers. Watches reports on television sometimes."

My sudden willingness to forgive him is quelled by the use of my embarrassing nickname. "Then why didn't she?" I ask.

"Because she was already worried about you. She didn't want another thing added to the list of reasons your life was in danger by making you keep a secret like that." He smiles a little and adds, "And she always said how much you reminded her of her sister, so I think she had a feeling you'd end up picking this fight on your own."

"What if I never picked the fight?" I say.

"Well, then, I think she would have thought you weren't ready to be told yet. But I don't think you'd have never picked the fight."

"You didn't seem happy about it when I did," I point out just for the sake of being argumentative.

He shakes his head again. "I was terrified. I'm still terrified. But I was also pretty sure you'd have found a way to get into this somehow, with or without me, because I don't think you realize it but you're awfully stubborn when you want to be."

I scowl at him, but I can't argue.

"And, even though I'm terrified, I'm proud of you, everything you've done. And so is she."

"I'm still angry."

"I guess you're allowed to be."

I may be an extraordinarily good liar, but my father is an extraordinarily good politician. Somehow, he has managed to get me back on his side. But I'm not quite ready to tell him that.

"Don't be afraid to talk to her, too," he says as he rises from his chair. "Let her get to feeling better first, but she can tell you a lot about these plans of ours. She was there from the beginning. A lot of this wouldn't have happened without her."

Footnote: What was Madge playing, you ask? Prokofiev's Sarcasms Op. 17. As I always say, look it up and take a listen, but be forewarned – it is not for the faint of heart!

Also, for those unfamiliar with piano anatomy, a fallboard is the hinged "lid" that covers a piano's keys when it is not being played.