*Please Reaad*

I'm sorry.

I don't know how many times I've said that stupid sentence, but I really am. Honest. It's a really bitchy thing to say because it's lost it's meaning now that I've REPEATEDLY SAID IT

I FEEL ANGRY AT MYSELF IF IT HELPS.

I've been trying to work on my own stories but I've resorted back to fanfiction-writing. The thing is is not THESE FANFICTIONS and they're new ones and I don't know why I put more work onto myself for trying to update ALL THESE FANFICTIONS!

I apologise profusely, folks.

I just want to thank 'Just-Awesome-Old-Me" for waking me up in my non-fanfictioning-slumber. You can just thank her for that.

And also for that anonymous "Guest" that gave me a kick in the ass a couple of months ago. You're awesome, have a donut. Really. I'm sorry that I ignored you, it was just me being stressed and trying to update so many things and ... I shouldn't be stressed about that stuff ...

Sorry.

I love you guys so much, you know, for sticking with me despite me being so awkward and weird and non-updating :3 Thank you so much for the faves and follows, it means a lot.

I hope I can make it up to you guys. Just hold on so I can try :)

Conclusion - SORRY, THANK AWESOME-OLD-ME AND I LOVE YOU.

Chapter Twenty-Five

HARRY

Harry had the oddest feeling that he was missing things.

Not the usual absent thing, either. Like major parts of his life had been ripped away from him and chucked behind, as if someone was trying to tear him apart. Hermione and Annabeth, he supposed, must've been experiencing the feeling too – the way Annabeth ran a hand through her golden locks frustratingly, her grey eyes questioning at the ground as if having a silent banter with her leather boots, and how Hermione would distantly gaze at a standard tree in thought.

Whereas Harry was trying to distract himself – in result being completely normal-looking to the viewers in that Capitol place and considerably useful to the four. He had been helping himself with a few stray rabbits and the odd handful of berries, making sure that neither was poisonous to his knowledge from training, which he knew he lacked. Just to be sure, he checked with Hermione, who was glad to cooperate.

Annabeth, however, was up to her head with worry. She kept glancing at the twitching, snoring, and drooling Percy with a mixture of fury and care. "He shouldn't have run off," she muttered.

"You shouldn't have said those awful things," Hermione countered with a challenging raise of an eyebrow. All Annabeth did was keep looking at her district partner with sad, regretting eyes.

It seemed that she didn't need to be told that; her blaming Percy was a way of not blaming herself, Harry knew. The District 4 tribute turned her gaze at the floor, her shoulders drooping, and Harry swooped in before she could do anything else. "And don't blame yourself. He'll come around."

"I'm sure you had your reasons and Percy had his," Hermione added with an agreeable nod to her best friend, before turning her head back to her favourite, standard tree and staring.

Harry coughed, drumming his fingers on his legs as he looked at the stars, lying on the leaf-infested floor with his eyebrows crossed. He knew they should've been moving around to stay away with the Careers and other lethal tributes, since they'd been here for more than twelve hours already but at the same time knew they couldn't. Even Harry wouldn't be strong enough to carry a fully-grown teenager along, but even if he could they'd be too slow.

The trio laid on the ground in silence, Annabeth hugging the sleeping bag. They all had an effectively organised system, as far as sleeping was arranged, if Harry said so himself. The Bag of Blissful Sleep – in other words, the sleeping bag, but he decided that the Bag of Blissful Sleep was a better name for it – was used in turns; Hermione, Percy, Annabeth and Harry. Since they were all fully-fledged teenagers, none of them could share, especially with Percy and Harry, who were both quite muscular and tall. The same fore-mentioned order was for guard duty (except at different times), and tonight was Harry's turn.

They had also decided that having a fire was warm, yes, but also a very clear signal for the Careers to come along and cut their throats. So not only was Harry exhausted, but also very cold, too, with no fire and no source of light.

"Wake me up in a couple of hours, Harry," Hermione told him from his right as her eyes fluttered shut, pulling the sleeping back towards her chin and turning over to her other side. In minutes she was fast asleep, her chest rising and falling in a steady pace, and he heard Annabeth shift from his left.

He craned his head to see Annabeth sitting up, her back pressed against the base of the tree. Her stormy gray eyes were staring at Percy's sweating, pale face with concern and another emotion that he'd never seen before. The wizard had thought he had her all figured out – protective, smart, cunning, lethal, tactful, sarcastic, humorous when she wanted to be and dare he say it, quite pretty. But it never really crossed his mind that she could be capable of caring.

Maybe it was how she dealt with the Hunger Games. To conceal herself and hide from the cameras, in fear that they wouldn't like who she really was. He supposed he could've been wrong – most likely, he was – but he couldn't very well strike up a conversation about it.

"Do you miss anyone?"

The question startled him. He raised his eyebrows as he sat up next to her. "Aren't you supposed to sleep?"

"Yes, but you're avoiding the question," she shot back.

Well, he didn't really want to answer that question. It was the very thing he was trying to avoid, after all. But deciding that it was probably the best to answer – he still didn't really understand all the sponsoring side of things at such a level to actually please, no thanks to Johanna and Blight – so he nodded. "Ginny," he said with a sad, hoarse voice. "Ron, her brother, and their family. And this little boy called Teddy."

"Teddy?" Annabeth's eyes twinkled. "I like that name. Short for anything?"

"Edward," he said, smiling to himself. "His parents died, and I was his godfather."

"Who's this Ginny and Ron, then?" she asked, looking away from his face and into the dark bushes and trees ahead.

"Ron's my best friend. Hermione's too – though he's more closer to her than me." He laughed. "People used to call us the Golden Trio – we were inseparable." Inseparable, he scoffed in his head. More like bloody attached by the bone. "And Ginny's my, err, girlfriend back home."

He could almost hear Johanna scowl at him. You smartass, saying that bullshit! You don't tell people you're taken, they won't be all over you anymore!

Followed by a tut from Harold, the escort, and a frustrated growl from Blight.

Yet he continued, "She's a redhead. Bit of a temper, you know?" He laughed, remembering the way her face would glow with red to match her hair. "Once, when I got home late from work, she gave me a full hour's rant about how I should've been home by six. The whole house shook."

Annabeth opened her mouth as if to ask another question, but thought better of it and stayed silent. It was probably too personal – or something to do with the past, since Hermione did tell him of their exchange at the Training Centre. Apparently she was from 2012.

"I've heard worse," Annabeth said, grinning at some memory with a glint in her eyes clearly stating 'it-wasn't-pretty-but-now-hilarious'. "My sort-of boss used to be an alcoholic, but got banned and now has to drink other beverages for the rest of eternity." The two laughed – Harry at her over-dramatic wording, and Annabeth as if it was an inside joke. "He gets really cranky all the time."

"About what?"

"Oh, you know," she said with a waft of her hand. "He gets cranky about loads of stuff. But mostly about a game of Pinochle, and occasionally with me and my best friend."

For some reason, Harry found it difficult to picture Annabeth with any sort of friends. Which was something he related to, since there weren't much people around that he'd exactly called companions.

Before he could ask about her friends, though, a light rustle came from above in the tree tops, and he immediately got out his spear that he found a on his hunt a few hours before. It was kind of like a wand, he supposed, with how straight it was and how it easily fitted in his hand without any difficulty. Though, he eyed Hermione's wand that was gripped securely in her hand longingly.

"Hermione," he whispered, realising she wasn't as asleep as he thought she was as she jumped to her feet, wand held out, face blotched with red. Harry went to tell her to get out something she could actually use, but decided not to.

Maybe the Capitol found it funny that Hermione held out a stick for defence. Again – with the weird sponsor thing.

"No, no," whispered a small, strained voice from a couple of branches up from Hermione's favourite standard tree. "Percy. I can help Percy."

"You can?" Annabeth replied, the twinkle in her eye vanishing and replaced with a threatening fire, like she needed to protect them all by herself. "Can you show yourself?"

"Only if you put your weapons down," the voice answered shakily.

"A stick isn't going to kill you," Hermione lied, and Harry almost guffawed at her simplicity. She gave a baffled Annabeth a look that said 'I-know-what-I'm-doing', and in return she dropped her dagger with a shrug.

(Later that night she would tell him that she agreed to wilder things, to which he would laugh and assure her that it was something he related to by a mass scale.)

He stabbed the spear a few good steps in front of him before retreating a few paces back. Whoever it was felt safe enough, and with a fast, scampering movements, he or she arrived on the ground with a small landing.

Harry could tell that Hermione was tempted to say the ever-useful Lumos spell, with the night being so dark and the moon hidden by the hung over branches way above.

They were shocked to say the least to see District 11's little tribute, Rue.

"Rue?" Hermione gasped. "What are you doing here?"

The two had had a rather pleasant conversation when in the climbing station in the Training Centre, talking about squirrels and how useful it would be to turn into one, and despite how terrible Hermione was at climbing the pair got on marvellously.

"I saw Percy and Katniss get stung by the bees," she explained, her brown eyes glancing at the unconscious heap on the floor that was a snoring, distressed Percy. "I went to find you. I have some, um, leaves."

"Leaves?"

"Leaves to make him recover," she said slowly. "I learnt it at home. Used to climb the trees and sometimes I came across some tracker jackers."

Almost immediately, Annabeth ran over to the little girl and enveloped her into a hug. Harry shared a surprised look with Hermione and Rue – Hermione mirroring his expression while Rue was pleasantly taken aback. The District 11 tribute melted into her embrace, and Harry began to understand why. It must've been a while since the twelve-year-old was met with any type of caring, supportive and non-violent contact, and he figured it would most probably be one of her last.

Though, he didn't especially like thinking those things. He would've wanted the little girl to make it out if any of his allies didn't, but he was determined to get Hermione a ticket out of this arena.

*...*...*

"There!" Rue looked up triumphantly from a leaf-covered Percy, smiling at the three of them as if expecting applause. She then realised that she was loud and out of her comfort zone, saying more quietly, "I did it."

"Thank you, Rue," Hermione said genuinely, giving a smile in effort to boost this girl's confidence. "But what did you exactly do?"

"Covered him with leaves from head to foot," Harry muttered under his breath, but Hermione seemed to have heard since she elbowed him in the ribs. Hard.

"It's a special sort of leaves that acts up with saliva," Rue told her quietly. "Thanks for chewing, by the way."

"Pleasure," Annabeth joked, pulling a leaf out of her mouth and sticking it on his forehead. "Real pleasure."

Rue knitted her eyebrows at the boy, scrunching her nose in thought. She seemed to debate with herself, leaning in to his face for a closer look before finally announcing, "He drools in his sleep."

Almost immediately, Annabeth burst out into a fit of mildly loud laughter, resting a hand on Harry's shoulder. The others just stared at her weirdly, waiting for her to stop, but she didn't seem to get the message. Rue started to giggle at the hysterical blonde, giving a shake of her head that made her black curls bounce.

Hermione cast Annabeth a scathing glance, smirking at the mirth that clouded her eyes, before looking at a beaming Rue. "Do you want to make an alliance with us?"

The laughter died as soon as she asked the question, the air becoming serious once more. Harry nearly wanted to glare at Hermione; he didn't want to fear for anymore lives, the stress from the war that he thought was long gone resurfacing, despite it being on a smaller scale.

To his surprise, Rue looked hesitant, mistrust flashing across her eyes as she flexed her fists. A kid shouldn't have to make choices like this.

"I – I'm sorry," said Rue, biting her lip. "There's something I have to do."

Just like that, she scampered off back to the tree tops, swinging like Tarzan across the canopy of forest trees and away from security. Naturally, Hermione looked at her retreating figure with regret, as if Rue's choice was her fault. "She shouldn't have gone," she said hauntingly. "I don't want her killed."

"She's a girl on a mission, though," admitted Harry. "Respect her for that."

Annabeth shook her head, reading his thoughts. "She shouldn't be here."

"None of us should."

The two girls looked at him strangely before they caught his hidden meaning. They definitely shouldn't – more so than the others.

They had a future to live in the past.