FINALLY got my computer back. It is behaving better, but let's just wait and see. My hopes are to update Phoenix either later today or tomorrow, and to update this once more this week. I'm having to get all my notes back in place and find stuff. Plus, I've had to go to ER twice more. Thank you for sticking with me through the long wait. And I promise you, there's not too much more left. I think...there's this one and then five chapters?

Then I will be having a break from working on any other stories besides Phoenix and some oneshots, for a few weeks or until December (after NaNo) when I HOPE to start writing Districts of Rebellion, the prequel to this.

He was realistic about it. There was that new hardness in his stomach.

No more fantasies, he told himself.

Henceforth, when he thought about Martha, it would be only to think that she belonged elsewhere. He would shut down the daydreams. This was not Mount Sebastian, it was another world, where there were no pretty poems or midterm exams, a place where men died because of carelessness and gross stupidity. Kiowa was right. Boom-down, and you were dead, never partly dead.

Briefly, in the rain, Lieutenant Cross saw Martha's gray eyes gazing back at him.

He understood.

It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to do.

The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien

My eyes linger on him, and I look closely to see if I know him. I knew him in passing, a year younger than me—unseasoned, but eager. I remember when he sat there. He offered me water, and I had drank greedily. I fell asleep to the sound of his voice speaking to his friend beside him.

I lean across the dead man, and touch my hand to the neck of the boy beside him who's maybe fourteen or fifteen. His eyes fly open, and he grabs at my wrist until his eyes focus. Then the move from my face to his friends, to the neat little bullet hole between his open eyes. The boy begins to shake, "He's—he's—"

I cut him off, "He's gone." My voice is softer. His fingers tighten into my wrist. "He wouldn't have felt a thing," I pull away from him gently and slide my hands over the dead man's eyes. The words escape my lips without having to think about it, and the boy who's trying so hard to not cry stumbles over the words behind me. "The earth cannot hold you—may your memories warm the hearts of those you touched, and may your ashes blow free as you never were. May you find peace at last."

I pull my aching self up, and search his pockets only to find a few bullets and a half eaten sandwich. I tuck the sandwich in my pocket as the boy makes a sick face, and give him the bullets and his friends gun. "Take his boots," I order.

He wipes at his face, and takes the boots gently off. "Put them on," I tell him now. Trying to get him to focus, "Yours are shot to hell. You need them." He nods his head as he follows my orders.

I look around the area, there are a few sleeping and some are watching. The ground is littered with bodies already picked over but not moved. It has come time that we can no longer afford to take care of our dead—we cannot exhaust ourselves or stay behind because the only place to go is to fall back and the men realize it.

It is etched in their bodies, the way they lean—the way they breathe, the way they sleep. We are waiting on no one. No one will come for us.

I feel like I should give some speech, tell them that we knew this could happen—that we suspected it. I should tell them that we will do what we should have done to begin with, fight until there are none of us left—until there is no more District 12 for them to enslave. But the words are known, they feel it. Our last talk will come later, closer to the end. For now, we still have time, strength, and resources to last a little longer-take a few more of them with us. It's not a lot, but it's what we have left.

…

An hour or so passes before I remember the half-eaten sandwich wrapped up in my pocket. I set aside the weapons and bullets I've found scattered amongst the dead, and give them to the boy to take to be redistributed. The odds and ends, the small mementos of things they carried in their pockets are taken to Amelia who has come to collect them. She carries a heavy basket, loaded with stones, carvings, wooden jewelry, beads, wedding bands, and even some photos. These are the things our men carried, until they fell. These are the things left to sum them up to those of us who riffle through their pockets unknowingly.

I look at a picture of a girl smiling in a dress on her wedding day, pulled close to the man who's pocket I took this picture from. But as my eyes float to her smiling face, I remember her. I watched as her head lolled over a shoulder, her eyes wide and staring and her arms hanging at odd angles. I hear a gruff voice ask, "Who?"

The man who carries her, lays her down amongst the other dead gently, straightening her arms and closing her eyes before answering. "Andrea. She was out with the snipers, Peacekeeper got her with a lucky shot."

I hand the picture to Amelia, and she recognizes the girl too. "There's no one left to give this to," she says quietly. She stares at them, their faces frozen with happy memories. Her voice breaks for a moment, "Don't you envy them though?"

I know what she means. If nothing else, they were completely each others for awhile. They stood up before their friends, they joined together in a simple ceremony almost older than time itself—a ceremony I'll never have. A ceremony that Amelia has experienced with someone other than whom she'd always planned to live the rest of her life with.

We're supposed to pity the dead, not envy them. "Yes," I say. "I do."

She nods and brushes at her eyes, and tucks the picture into her pocket. "I'll keep it, like all the others who have no one left to remember them. I can at least keep them safe."

Sounds echo from behind us, and I turn to see what's going on—shielding Amelia behind me. "Go Amelia," I tell her and she obeys—fleeing over the next few barricades back to her wounded, back to her baby.

I watch as the Peacekeeper steps out past the rubble with a white flag that blends in so well with his uniform. The men are crouched, ready to spring.

I walk toward him as he stands in the vast expanse of area in between the remnants of the blown up barricade, and the one we hide behind in safety. "I want to have a word with your leader," he shouts.

I step past the barricade, my leg stiff and feel bloody and dirty. My eyes focus on him. The pistol is loose in my hand, and all I have to do is drop my shoulder with one practiced move to allow my rifle to fall into my hand and shoot.

I don't stop walking until I'm six feet in front of him, and I line myself up so that I'm directly in front of him—a harder shot to make. "You're looking at her," I say.

"You should put down your weapons, we want to talk with you about ceasefire," his voice is calm and soothing. Trying to make me see reason in his words in the fading light of day.

"No, I'll keep them," I watch him swallow hard.

"Let me tell you the terms," he says. He takes out an envelope and begins to carefully open it. I know what's in there, what's always in there—lies. Promises that will be made then broken. They'll assure us safety, no more punishment…and then they will deliver it anyways.

I feel the heat rise in me, coursing through each small fabric of my being. "No," I say. He stops unfolding the paper and creases his brow, "We do not accept your terms."

"You haven't heard them," he admonishes me like a child. "Just listen, they're fair."

"We do not accept them," he stares at me confused, like I've lost my mind. "These are our terms." My voice rises, so that now everyone can hear me. "You will leave our District. You will leave your weapons and your food, and you will be allowed to leave unarmed. Anyone who remains behind of you will be executed. You will never come back here again. You will leave me and my people alone. These are our conditions."

He shakes his head, "That's insane. I can't give you that, no one will give you that. You're outnumbered. You're dying, we can—we will obliterate you." His face turns red and his hands clench, "Take what your given girl and be glad of the terms." He lifts the paper again to read.

I stop him, "Your second option is to keep on with this fight. We will not surrender. You will have to kill us like you did Thirteen," I feel a lump in my throat when I remember the people I had known from there. "We will not surrender, we will fight and take as many of you with us as we can. So send them all, send the whole damn Capitol! Send everyone who can fight to come at us. Because we will not surrender to you, we do not accept your terms. We would rather die."

His face is white, and I feel sorry for him for a moment because my decision has been made. Really, it was probably made the moment I stepped over that barricade. "Is that the message you want me to send?" His voice carries across the stillness.

"No," I say flatly in the silence. My voice rings out. "No," I say it softer as we face each other. "I don't want you to send anything."

He looks at me in confusion, "I don't understand. What do you want me to tell them? You have to give them an answer."

"I am giving them an answer, and you will be delivering the message." I step closer to him. "We will not surrender. We will kill anyone of you that does not leave our District right NOW." I say it sharply, "You have been warned. You have not heeded the warning." I see something dawning on his face as I raise my gun to his forehead.

"You're the message," and I pull the trigger.