A/N: Uhg! Sorry I'm so slow lately! I've been writing for NaNoWriMo on top of this and been super busy with that. After this chapter, prepare for some speedy timeline hopping. It's happening, folks! As always, your awesome criticism, corrections, etc are greatly appreciated.

Chapter 51: Empty

There was something sinister in the air that morning, something that pricked at Calliope's skin and burrowed deep into her gut. She knew danger well enough to know what that feeling was: dread. Something was building around them all, some anxiety gripped the Capitol and threatened to plunge them all into an era of fear if it was not handled correctly.

There was more pressure being a temporary President than Callie had anticipated. Plutarch insisted she make a speech, reassure the people. She wanted to do it her own way, to approach them how she would approach her own people, but he denied her request. It was a polite denial, but firm.

"To address Panem," Plutarch said plainly, "you need to appeal to Panem. You cannot stand at a podium looking like you're going to descend on them at any moment. You look like a military Commander."

"I am a military Commander," Callie fired back, annoyed.

"No," he corrected, "you're the acting President. At least until we get this sorted out. You can't be a military Commander standing on the podium as President, it's not going to help."

She scowled, sour and frustrated, but yielded that he was right. She knew it, but it did not make this any easier. The agreement had been that she did this her own way, but she conceded Plutarch probably knew this part a little better than she did.

As such, Calliope waited patiently in the parlor of her apartment until the stylist team arrived to prepare her. They had been given orders to make her appear neutral, a party with no vested interest in destroying the Capitol or the Districts. She must be the caliber of person who people trusted without getting attached to. It was a complicated process.

They pulled her hair down out of its braids, brushed it and washed it gently with something that smelled like flowers and damp earth. They began to cut away at the dead, split ends and pulled off almost two inches of it. Callie allowed them in silence, sitting irritated in the chair while they worked. She did not fight them, but she made her displeasure known. The only time she put her foot down and voiced her opposition was when they wanted to add highlights to her hair, darken in so she appeared less harsh, less wintry.

"Absolutely not," Calliope dissented, startling them. She had not said a word until that moment to any of them, "No."

"But-" one of the colorful, feathered women began.

"No," Callie replied with such firmness it was clear she would not change her mind, "If you can't make it work, bill me a different way."

The woman looked to her peers and hesitated, not sure what to do for a moment before nodding, "As you wish, madam President."

Callie's mouth twisted in a perturbed frown, "And don't call me that. Commander, Miss Cress, call my anything else. Just not that."

They fitted her in a dusty gray-blue suit, measured and fitted it to her carefully. The lapels were wide, a silver Mockingjay pin fitted to her shirt. It made it clear whom she had fought for, but in a subtle enough way to not alienate her. They had stayed with neutral tones for her makeup, simply curling her hair and draping it over her shoulders. Hair down meant warmth, maternity. It took away the harshness from her defined features - or tried to anyway.

"You need to smile more," Calliope jumped slightly, startled. She had not seen Gale in the doorway, watching casually. He smiled at her slowly, it was infectious and she tried to hide it, "Better. Smile more, win people over. You have to."

"If I'd had my way, no I wouldn't," she sighed, exhausted by the whole process, "I have to give a speech. I just want it all to be over with, anything but to keep doing this."

"You haven't even had a day on the job yet. Give it time, you might even like it," his smile turned cheeky, teasing. He was coming back from whatever dark place he went to after Prim's death and Katniss' arrest. The ledge he had been standing on felt farther away this time, he was less desperate to be saved.

Callie rolled her eyes at him and tugged out the wrinkles in the jacket, "I hate this," she muttered at herself in the tall dressing mirror.

"Me, too," Gale sighed, looking her up and down. It was true, he did. This person in front of him was not Calliope, not how he knew her. She hated it more than he did, he was certain, but it still felt strange.

There was a chime of a bell and the stylist team gathered their things quickly. Glory opened the door, still limping a little. The exoskeleton around his leg was likely a permanent fixture, the doctor had said, but they would not know for sure for a month or so. It was a less severe limp than it had been a week ago, but still noticeable. He was fighting it, hoping he would not be permanently attached to a machine like that.

"President Cress," Glory said with a teasing smile. Calliope had formally adopted her father's last name now, Plutarch had announced her correctly this time. She had watched the headlines change from Lightwood to Cress with a sense of satisfaction.

Callie made a disgusted noise and looked herself over in the mirror again, "It's time then."

"It's time," Glory replied. His tone changed subtly, from playful to somber. He knew what she was feeling, he knew how much she hated this part. He tried to make it clear that he respected her for making this choice, for following through on it.

Calliope picked her head up high and walked across the room, wielding that air of authority she had come to know so well. Glory shook his head at her and held up a hand.

"You're not leading an army into battle, you're leading a nation into prosperity," he said quietly, "Don't walk like a soldier, walk like a person."

Callie wanted to scream. They had corrected her hair, her clothing, criticized her smile, and now her walk. It was as though she were expected to be an entirely different person overnight. She had little patience for the pageantry. Defiantly, she pushed her shoulders back a little more and continued to walk past him. She heard him let out a low sigh and pictured Glory shaking his head.

The door closed behind her, Glory and Gale at her back. They were her escort, her guards for the day. Crowe waited downstairs, still wearing the Centurion uniform. He wore the cape of Captain now, taking over her position. He would be good for it, Calliope knew, he wanted that. She smiled, genuinely happy for him.

"We have a speech to make," he said calmly and turned away from her. It was bizarre not being saluted, but it made sense. Callie felt nothing but bitterness for her new role now.

She had anticipated some form of commotion to befall her, some kind of battle among reporters for her attention. Instead, it managed to be exactly the opposite. A podium, understated in its simple wood design, stood in front of a single camera. The eye rotated and shifted as the operator willed it, testing the angles of the room. There was a single man sitting in a chair, a familiar man with colorful hair and a large, plastic smile.

He turned around and got to his feet, smoothing out the purple suit jacket and extending a hand to her, "Ah, President Cress. A marvel, really. Such a young lady filling such old shoes."

Calliope did her best to give him a warm smile, tried to scrape the rust off the years of training in District 1 for moments like these, "Caesar Flickerman. I didn't expect anyone to really be here, just a camera and me."

"Oh, I hope you don't mind," he said with a deep laugh, placing warm hands on hers, "I really just wanted to meet our new young President in person. You know, before the rest of the Capitol got their hands on her. You'll be an impossible person to get a hold of soon."

Calliope nodded and offered a polite laugh, but she heard its insincerity as it resounded on the blank walls back to her. Caesar made no motion that he noticed, probably so adjusted to false laughter and smiles that it did not occur to him to react to it. It made Calliope wonder for a brief moment if there could ever be a true integration of Capitol life with District life.

Plutarch stood quietly beside the podium, he gestured for her and she excused herself. He indicated a small screen set in the wood face.

"Your speech will run here. Just read it as it comes up," he advised her.

Callie paused and touched the screen lightly with her fingers, "What does it say?"

"Hm?" He asked as though he had not heard her. Callie felt trivialized in that moment, like she lost influence because of the shift in her position. She swelled with command, drew in her power and seemed to grow with it.

"What am I saying in this speech you wrote me? You never sent me a copy," her voice was hard and clear, threatening to bounce around the vacant room.

Plutarch cleared his throat, hiding how taken by surprise he was, "You give a short speech, ten minutes maybe, about the state of the Capitol. You reassure the people, you tell them leadership is meeting round the clock to orchestrate a transition into a democratic state. You announce the upcoming vote and let them know more details will follow. You also advise them you are acting in a presidential capacity and should not be seen as an opportunist. You tell them you were selected universally by leadership because of your allegiance to no single District and the recognition you have gained during the Rebellion. Is that sufficient?"

Calliope ran it over it her head again before nodding, "Thank you."

There was a sudden blare of trumpets, a pre-recording of Caesar Flickerman reporting a special announcement from the acting President. It had never been disclosed that Coin had filled that role, but Calliope supposed it had been unspoken.

There was a soft, bluish white light that flicked on beside the camera. It twisted to get a better angle on her. She hesitated, suddenly feeling like she was in a fishbowl and the entire world was looking in. A momentary panic took Callie's voice from her, realizing she was addressing the entire nation right now in this quiet room. Caesar leaned forwards in his chair, intrigued.

The screen bloomed to life, words began floating in front of her. It drew her focus and she began to speak with a robotic accuracy.

"Citizens of Panem, of the Districts and the Capitol. We are experiencing a beautiful transition, a change in our lives we never dreamed we might see," Callie felt her voice dry up as the next sentence appeared on the screen, 'I have been placed at the head of this grand transition, unanimous for my neutrality. We will begin addressing current issues in a timely and orderly fashion.'

She frowned, suddenly feeling exactly like she had promised herself not to feel. She was reciting Plutarch's words, not her own. She was wearing his clothes and his styles, she was following his orders. Calliope was just another false icon, just like Katniss had been. But this time, they did not have a carrot to wave on a stick to get her to run their race. Coin was gone, her blood relatives were dead, and the people who were loyal to her outnumbered the people who were not.

Callie lifted her head and tapped the screen so it went dark. Plutarch froze, his face fell, he started to reach for her when Glory's hand clamped down on his shoulder.

"I was asked to take this position because I don't align with a District, I don't align with the Capitol. I am the commander of a militia force, we leant our hands in the Rebellion and were part of the overtaking of the Capitol," Callie seemed to shift, her face changed to something harder and more weathered by the war, by the loss, "The system we had was broken, it was wrong. We were punished for a war we did not wage, we were subjugated and brought down underneath the boot heel of the Capitol."

"What is she doing?" Plutarch whispered at Glory.

Glory felt himself smile, "She's being President her own way. Just like you said she could."

"The Rebellion is over, President Snow is dead, and now it's time for change," Callie continued, "We don't want to become the thing we conquered. We need to find a means to coexist with one another, Capitol and Districts alike. All voices deserve to be heard, all Districts deserve to be equal with the Capitol. So we will be implementing a system to give everyone a voice, everyone a vote. In three weeks, we will have our first national election. I don't know how we will manage that, yet, but we will know soon enough. The people will decide their next President. All of the people. While I am acting President, I will take minimal action at my post. I was not elected by the citizens of Panem, I was put in place by request. Though I may have the authority of President, I will be choosing to limit that power until my tenure over the next three weeks is complete. I will keep Panem safe, I will keep it fed, and I will act on only what is immediately necessary for the betterment of all of us. We will rebuild Panem, we will build it up and become as great as I know we can be."

She gave a firm nod to the cameraman and the light turned off. Caesar Flickerman gave her a small, quizzical clap and got to his feet.

"Thank you, Madam President," he said, "I look forward to working with you during your seat."

Callie shook the hand that was extended to her, but did not provide any niceties in return. It was not what she had been trained to do, not how she had been trained to react when speaking with this man, but she was not that girl anymore. The thing she had learned from the Rebellion over all else was that she owed nobody anything. Undoing trained responses was half the battle left to fight in Panem. It could start with her.

Glory took his hand off Plutarch's shoulder and the Capitoline former Game maker tried to hide his anger, disguising it as constructive reprimand instead.

"Don't deviate from the script, Miss Cress," he warned, "Not again. What were you thinking? You need both sides of the country to trust you right now, they're terrified and they need to forget who was on what side in order to survive. I wrote that speech the way I did because I've lived among these people, I know what they need to hear!"

Callie frowned and locked her blue eyes on his face. She had a wintry hardness around her, a set sense of what she was doing, "The problem we've faced time and time again is that we tell the Capitol what it wants to hear, not what it needs to. They don't need to hear how I wasn't involved, they need to hear how I was. Snow ruled behind a curtain, he hid his hand from everyone in the country until the end. We can't expect to change things if we start off doing them the exact same way."

Plutarch opened his mouth to respond, but hesitated. She saw the divide on his face, the tearing apart between knowing she was right and needing to control the situation.

"Everyone is afraid," Gale offered, his voice level. He was offering support to Calliope's decision , "We can't cater to the Capitol because they've been blinded to the reality of Panem longer. We need to address the universal fear. I think she was right to distance herself from presidential power. The people don't need a tyrant for three weeks and then a whole fourth person governing them in the same two months. It was the right call."

Plutarch pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath. He nodded as he let it go, "We can make this work."

"No," Callie said calmly, "We can support the people until they make their decision. There is no making things 'work', not while you have me in charge. We do what needs to be done and we do it transparently."

She did not want to wait longer, already fully aware of the madhouse that would be the Presidential Offices. People would be lining up, shouting, trying to get their voice out there. Glory ushered her in through a quiet back door, snuck her into the building and up a private stairwell. Gale had already arrived in the Office, he stood guard by the doors with Crowe. Even through the heavy wood, she could hear the shouting and the animosity outside.

"What's going on out there?" Calliope said, taking a few steps towards it. She placed her hand against the white and gold wood, feeling the hum of noise.

"They're afraid of what comes next," Crowe said with a sigh, "They don't know what side you're on."

"This isn't about sides," Callie hissed, annoyed at the situation more than him.

"It is to them," he offered back with a gentle shrug, not meaning to offend.

She sighed and turned to look at the gray veined marble desk. Instead, she stared up at the harsh, commanding face of Alma Coin. Coin had already replaced the picture with one of herself, doing whoever knows what with the old one.

Calliope stared up at the menacing frown on Coin's painted lips, the long red-on-red of her elaborate battle armor. She had made it seem as though she had been a pair of boots on the ground, a soldier just like everyone else who had fought and died in her name. Just like Pru.

"She didn't waste time," Gale was at her side, following her eyes with a judging frown.

"Remove that," Callie said sharply to nobody in particular.

Gale looked down at her, studying the hard expression on her face. He could feel the disgust and distaste radiating off her skin like a palpable heat. She was overwhelmed and it was starting to show.

"Yes ma'am," he said and took a step towards it. With a nod to Glory, the two men lifted the painting off the catches and stowed it in a corner.

They were walking away with it when the commotion got worse. There was a voice, clearer than the others, shouting and demanding the doors be opened. There were guards outside arguing with the lone male voice, but there was a sound of shuffling and a bang into the doors. Then another. And another.

Callie had turned to listen, wishing with everything she had that she still had the knives in her. The door opened just enough to let a single man slip through. He was dressed finely, but his shirt was torn at the collar. Brown hair and sun bronze skin, he was a painfully familiar person to see.

"I need to speak with you," Finnick said, something between a hard demand and a desperate request, "Now."

Calliope touched the desk with her fingers and nodded to him, a little dampened by the lack of cordiality or friendliness. They had been in the trenches together, she had saved his life. Weeks ago, he would never have been so cold. Now, so much had changed and those days fighting to get inside the Capitol felt years away. She was different now, so was he. It was difficult not to take it personally.

"What can I do for you," Callie said with a soft, inaudible sigh. This would be her next three weeks, an unending stream of requests and demands she would stave off until the elected President could do their job.

Finnick seemed to notice the cloud of isolation she seemed to exist in, it softened him, "Sorry to barge in, it's a madhouse out there."

"No, please," Callie took a seat in a one of the chairs, piled on top of a carpet like a living room within an office. She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up at Gale. He did not smile or offer a word of compassion, but the gesture was reassuring. She nodded, not needing to say anything else.

Finnick looked from Gale to Calliope and sat across from her, "I didn't know..." His sentence trailed away, he did not want to finish it.

Callie sighed softly, not exactly sure of the status of her love life either, "You needed to speak with me."

"Yes," he respected the privacy she had quietly requested, "Before Coin died, we agreed on something. I want to know if that vote still stands."

It was the first Callie had heard of this, "Vote about what?"

Finnick shifted uncomfortably, a foreign thing to see the normally confident man do, "We voted on a final Hunger Games."

"What?" the exclamation was involuntary, she said it with such a disgusted alarm that she had no time to temper it.

"The Capitol gives up its own children for a final Hunger Games. Then we end it forever," He pretended not to notice her reaction.

Calliope stared at him, he looked like a different person sitting in front of her now, "How could you even suggest that? After everything you've all been through, how could that even possibly be on the table?"

"Don't, Callie. Just don't," there was a shadow come to settle on Finnick's face, a darkness he kept stored away from the light lest it swallow it up, "You don't know. You don't understand how we could do it because you didn't live it. You lost people, we all lost people, but you didn't live that loss."

She stayed silent and stared at him. He was right, but it felt inhuman to satisfy his request. It felt deplorable, another affront to the lives they had fought to avoid losing. They were silent for a long time before Calliope found her voice again.

"You want me to give the go-ahead on a final Hunger Games for children of the Capitol," she said slowly, trying to sound impartial. She wanted to sound presidential, keep the edge out of her voice.

Finnick noted the attempt and ran his hand over his hair and face, "I do. Because it's what all of us voted for, everyone who lived it. Katniss voted for it."

"If I do that," Callie replied in a calculated tone, each word on a metronome, "What makes us different than Snow? We rebelled because we wanted to change things, make Panem honest and accountable. If we start off our new Panem with this, why would anyone trust me? Or you? Or any President that takes that seat?"

"We need this," Finnick whispered, "We can't move on without this."

"You can," Callie said, "You want to punish the children for the sins of their fathers, just like what the Capitol did to us. You want their children to suffer for what they can't control. Do you want your own child growing up in a world where you did that to someone? It was your choice to do that to someone else? You fought beside me to end that, don't turn around and do it to someone else."

He placed his head in his hands and she heard the shuddering breath he took, "No. I don't. But I can't get it out of my head, every time I look at them. It follows me when I dream, everywhere I go, I can't shake it. I feel like I need it to happen or it'll never really be over."

Calliope got up and moved to sit beside him. She placed an arm lightly over his shoulders, letting him lean into her. They stayed like that for a few minutes, just listening to each other breathe.

"I don't understand it," Calliope said, "but maybe it's better I don't understand it. I can't see it that way, so I can't do this for you. But maybe that's what we all need right now, just a moment to exhale."

Finnick nodded and pulled away from her, "Maybe."

They stood up slowly, he pulled her to him in a tight, desperate hug. She whispered quietly to him and let Gale show him to the rearmost door.

"What did you say?" Glory asked when they were out of earshot.

Callie offered him a slight smile, "I gave him the name of Katniss' doctor. Maybe he can help. "

"Callie!" Finnick called, peering from behind the secret door. He looked alight again, like his old self and someone she recognized, "I hate that stupid suit."

She broke into a laugh for the first time in weeks, a short and sweet sound that felt rusted and unused. Gale looked back at her when he heard it, feeling his whole heart smile with her. He watched the woman that had been beaten and fractured and taken those pieces to make something new for herself. He saw the woman he had met in the forest, who had leant him advice when he felt the most rejected he had ever felt.

Calliope looked alive again for the first time since the rebellion had overtaken the Capitol. Gale decided in that moment he would give her that back forever, not just a temporary second that ran away as quickly as it came.

Callie met his gray eyes and felt herself smile again, different and yet the same. She had not paused to consider what would become of them. The thought of leaving him again never even crossed her mind. It was why he had so easily slipped into every aspect of her life. Gale had formally given up his apartment for hers, he had insisted he be assigned to her detail, he stayed with her as much as she stayed with him.

That night, buried in dark blue sheets softer than clouds, Gale lifted a hand to brush her hair out of her face. Callie caught his fingers and held them for a moment, looking up at him. She looked vulnerable then, the guise of power slid away with the rest of her clothes.

"What is this with you and me," Callie felt silly for asking. They were in the middle of a great upheaval, she was in a guest room in the Presidential Palace, and she was asking Gale to define their relationship with her.

He watched her in a fog, lost, "What do you want us to be?"

Calliope shrugged and rolled over to lay on her back and stare at the ceiling, "I don't know. Not something shapeless, we can't do ambiguity. We already established that."

Gale shifted to be closer to her, she felt his warm breath against her shoulder whispering through her hair, "I don't want you to think about this now, not with everything else going on. I'm here, I'm in this with you until you don't want me to be anymore."

"What if that never happens, what if I never want you to leave?"

"Then I won't. We promised not to leave each other again, I plan to keep that promise," Gale sighed tiredly into her hair and felt her fingers in his.

They lay there in silence, never completely awake and yet never really sleeping either. They were stuck someplace in the middle, some dreamless between that wrapped around them like a cocoon and kept them safe from the rest of the world.