"Requiem"

A/N: I'm gonna switch to doing author notes at the beginning of the chapters I think. I dunno why, just feels better. Anyways, submissions are still open, and after this chapter we only have one chapter left of No Apologies. It took me twice as long to finish as Role Model did, but we got it done. I've been rereading through both RM and NA, and have found a lot of things that I want to focus on in order to take the best aspects of both of these stories, in order to make 102 the best one yet. Go sub to 102 if you haven't already, and otherwise enjoy the penultimate chapter of No Apologies!

~Why should I have a heavy heart?

Why should I start to break in pieces?

Why should I go and fall apart for you?~

Melody

Everything happened so fast. It was all so quiet. The Games raced towards the fastest ending anyone can seem to remember, and at the same time Glory, Audra, and Connie were shuffled into a hospital in the Capitol to no fanfare. There was no celebration of saving them, no public speech delivered by the president about their safety, no information about what had just happened, and with everybody focused on the finale, nobody seemed to so much as notice.

I was barely even given a chance to see Glory before they shuffled me and Galavant away, telling us we needed to attend this post-Games party for all the mentors, escorts, stylists, Gamemakers, and anyone else involved in the Games. Glory hardly even spoke a word to me. How am I supposed to focus on this celebration when she may not be okay? I still don't even know anything about what happened. All I do know is that she needs someone to be with her right now.

But apparently somebody from District One has to attend this thing. Galavant volunteered to go, but with Hailey still shaken up and bedridden, she needs somebody there for her, just as much as Glory does. And besides, Gal always was better at knowing what to say than I ever have been. I'm sure he's more use back at the hospital than I would be.

Still though, I can't shake the feeling that something is terribly off about all of this. Everything with the kidnappings, and the way that the Games raced to a finish, it feels like there's something bigger going on. Maybe I'm just worrying too much.

The Training Center is bustling with people, a mix of excited Capitolites raving about the Games, and the mentors who all seem like they would rather be somewhere else. Everyone is split into their normal cliques. Atlas, Kyle, Brendon, and Tristan are all downing drinks at the bar, most of the Careers are by the televisions, laughing and cracking jokes as they watch the replays, while a couple loners awkwardly make their way around the room. A few victors are notably missing. Mira isn't surprising, knowing her aversion to crowds, and Dalton doesn't care enough to come to mandatory showings, but Livia being missing is perplexing. Normally she's right at the heart of the Career pack.

Nobody here is exactly my normal crowd, but the replays showing are enough to get me as far away from the other Career mentors as possible. I don't understand how they can do it, sit there and watch their tributes die, cracking jokes the whole time. I won't say that I agree with the victors who drink away their lives, but I can at least understand them.

I hobble my way over to the bar, trying my best to not stomp anyone's feet with my crutches as I move through the crowd, a skill I've yet to master since leaving the arena. As I approach the bar, Tristan waves me over, flashing a smile and pulling up a stool.

"Hey Melody, nice to see you. Where's Gal?"

I return the smile, gratefully taking a seat as the rest of the group notices my presence. "He's back at the hospital with Hailey."

"She had a tough time there at the end." Brendon says, setting down his glass. "How is she holding up?"

"About how you would expect." I sigh. "She'll pull through. She's a lot like Gal that way. It's Glory I still worry about."

The rest of the men seem much more interested suddenly. "You've seen her?" Atlas asks.

"Her and Audra were at the hospital too," I say. "I saw them both."

"How is Audra doing?" Atlas asks. Him and Caleb always were close, no surprise that he's looking out for her. Even if the idea of a bunch of drunkards being the friend group for her is a bit worrying, at least she has people who care about her. The early days of the Games, back when there were hardly any of us, when you won you were alone. At least now we have some sort of semblance of a community, as dysfunctional as it may be.

"She's quiet," I say, recalling the brief time I had with them. "Both of them were. They were really distant, like I wasn't even there. I only saw them for a minute though, and I'm sure they're both still in shock. . . ." I trail off, unable to convince myself any further. All that those two have had to go through, maybe this was finally just too much. How much can a person be expected to go through before they just. . . break?

"She's a fighter, she'll pull through," Atlas says gruffly.

"Both of 'em are," Tristan chimes in. She quirks a smile at me. "They'll be alright."

"I hope so." I sigh. "I'm sorry about all your tributes, by the way," I say, motioning to the four of them. "This year was tough." Between Rain, Clyde, Peeka, Ephraim: they all got it tougher in one year than I've probably had in a lifetime of this.

"Yeah," Tristan says in a soft voice. "We lost some good ones. Prestige was a good kid too."

"She was," I say quietly, shaking my head as Brendon holds out a drink to me. "She didn't even want to be there, either, just got dragged into it thanks to some rotten luck. I suppose that's what you all go through every year, isn't it? Even then, I guess we still brought one home."

"And none of us will hold you to it." Brendon shrugs. "Hailey took out that ass from Two, that makes her alright in my book."

"I'm glad she did, if he won I would've had to take him out myself," Kyle speaks up, in a dark voice that tells me he didn't mean that as a joke.

"We can't hold the Games against people." Tristan says in a stern, almost motherly voice.

"And why not?" He shoots back, his voice only slightly slurred. "Look, I don't have a problem with almost every person in this room, I don't have a problem with you, Melody, I don't even have a problem with Gal, he may have volunteered for the Games, but he didn't really know what he was getting into. He didn't enjoy it. But people like Horatio, like Livia? Why do we gotta play nice with them?"

"Because then where do we stop?" Tristan hisses. "Hailey killed one of my kids. Kyle, your girl killed my other boy, when they were supposed to be allies. Glory killed both of mine last year, and Audra is the reason Glory's big brother died in the arena. We can keep playing this game, and it won't take long before all of us have a reason to hate each other."

Everyone goes silent for a moment. Even if I see where Kyle is coming from, I find myself agreeing with Tristan. But maybe that's just because whether or not I was reaped, I'm still from District One. My tributes are so often the monsters that they're talking about, even if these last two years may have been different.

"You know, for all their faults, D12 does know how to produce victors who know what they're talking about." Everyone's attention goes to the new speaker, Apollo Thompson sliding onto a stool besides Tristan.

Nobody else is brave enough, or old enough for that matter, to say anything more on the subject of District Twelve victors.

"Apollo," Atlas says instead, breaking the tension. "Didn't expect you to be here."

Apollo downs a shot of whiskey and shrugs. "Yes, well, it's my last day in the Capitol for a long while, so I figured I would swing by."

"Last day in the Capitol?" Tristan asks, shaking her head as Apollo offers her his flask.

"I have some. . . unfinished business, back in District Two," he says. "And after that, who knows. Hopefully somewhere that I'll never have to hear the word Hunger Games ever again."

"District Twelve is lovely this time of year," Tristan says, causing the men to all snort and murmur their disagreements under their breaths.

Apollo just smiles. "So I've heard."

The sound of feedback fills the room, and I wince as I look for the source, eventually finding it, as Head Gamemaker Tali Choice takes center stage, attempting to get everyone's attention.

"Well, anyways," Apollo grunts, raising his flask to the air as he nods to each of us. "To you lot. To another year."

"To another year," we all echo, the men downing their drinks while Tristan and I share a tired glance.

"Although I suppose we'll only be seeing Hailey next year, assuming you lot return to tradition?" She asks in a low voice, the room beginning to settle down in preparation for Tali's speech.

"I think we're moving on from tradition, actually," I say.

"District One, moving on from tradition?" Apollo laughs, setting aside his drink. "Never thought I'd see the day."

"Well, Gal and I, we've been thinking. Glory, this is all too much for her to deal with yet. Gal figures him and Hailey could take on mentoring for a little while."

"And you?" Tristan asks.

"Well, we were talking about me just staying back and watching over Glory. Which, for the first year, maybe I will, just to make sure she's alright. But after that, well." I shrug sheepishly. "I don't know, maybe it's silly, but District Nine still doesn't have any mentors, and seeing that Clara girl this year. . . well, I think everyone deserves an equal chance at things. Maybe I could see what I can do. Help out the underdogs for a little while."

Tristan smiles at that. "Well, if you do come back, you're always welcome to join our little band of misfits."

"We'll have you a raging alcoholic in no time." Brendon laughs.

I quirk a smile, turning around to face the group. That smile quickly drops. "What are you doing, Apollo?" I ask.

He continues to dig around underneath the clothed table. "Just looking for something that I dropped, I think I saw it-"

His voice cuts off for a long moment, the entire room seemingly falling into silence.

"Oh."

Glory

Everything just seemed to happen so fast. One moment I was in the Capitol, on the rooftop waiting for the Games to start. Then I was in that dark room. I remember them shooting Garen. I remember thinking I was going to die, sobbing and crying and not being able to stop myself. After that, everything turns more hazy. When they came for us, brought us out of the room we had been locked in and took us to the hospital here, it felt like only a few minutes had passed. They're telling us it was over a week.

I can remember glimpses of my time in that room. Audra was the one trying to stay strong, telling Connie and I that everything was going to be fine, that people were going to come find us. Nothing specific though, just bits and pieces, like a blurry, torn up photo. Even once we left things took a while to clear up. I know that some people came to ask the three of us questions, that none of us knew anything. A while after that Connie's mom came for her and the two left, maybe to a different room in the hospital or maybe somewhere else.

It's only now that things have really began to slow down. I've had time to think, to realize what happened. They took us, and they were going to kill us all. They killed Garen. If he hadn't told that man to kill him instead of us, would he have chosen me? After everything, all the people who died, after Gloria died so I could live, I was that close to it all meaning nothing.

Audra is still in the room with me, but neither of us have said a word to the other. The doctors said we have to stay here for another day, and he explained why using words that I couldn't understand. All I know is that I'm stuck here, lying in this bed while Audra lies in hers right across from me. Melody stopped by, but she barely even got to sit down before some people told her she had to leave. Nobody else has visited us. It's just me, and the girl who killed Concord. I wish I were anywhere else. Well, almost.

A television is playing some soap opera on muted volume, but neither of us are watching it. Audra has a pile of unread books next to her table, and I have some coloring books and unopened packs of crayons on mine. My whole body feels tired, and I just want to sleep, but I can't even manage that. Every time I close my eyes, I see awful things. It's just like those first few nights after the Games, but this time there's nobody there to tell me that it's okay, that they're just bad dreams. No Melody, no Apollo, no mom or dad.

Audra isn't even lying down. She's been sitting on her bed cross-legged for what feels like hours now, just staring at her lap. There's an opened letter torn up beside her, and some barely eaten soup too.

Both of our heads perk up as someone pushes open the door. It isn't a doctor this time, but it isn't Melody or Gal either. Dressed in full pajamas and with a white gauze wrapped around her stomach, Hailey limps into the room, looking surprised as we are to see either of us.

It takes me a second to realize what that means. Hailey is here, hurt but still alive. That means she won. Which means Prestige is dead.

I expected to cry when it happened, if it happened at all. I thought that it would hurt, that I would feel guilty, like I didn't do enough to save her. It was supposed to make me feel something, something rotten and horrible that I'd never want to feel again. But it only makes me feel more numb.

Audra seems to realize the same thing. She bites hard on her lip, looking away from Hailey and back down to her lap.

"Sorry," Hailey murmurs, turning towards the door. "I thought Galavant would be in here."

"Wait!" I shout out, stopping her from leaving. "You won," I say meekly.

She nods her head.

I swallow the lump in my throat. "And Prestige-"

"The guy from Two got her," she says, her words coming out in a hurry. "And then I got him. She got unlucky. I got 'lucky,'" she practically spits out the last word.

Audra looks up. "I knew they weren't going to ever win, but Levi and Sigma, did they at least go quick?"

Hailey is quiet for a moment, her voice dropping an octave as she shakes her head. "No."

Audra bites down on her lip, nodding her head, as if she was expecting to hear it the whole time. "Who?" She asks timidly.

Hailey is quiet again. "Me," she finally says, tugging on her sleeves to cover up her palms. "She killed him, I think, or maybe I did, I don't know. And then I stabbed her in the heart."

Now the whole room is silent. I can't tell what Audra is thinking, she's just back to staring down at her lap again. I'm still not even sure how I should feel. Prestige died. Maybe if I was there, she'd be okay. If I would've just not gone up to the rooftop that night, if I had just stayed in bed and toughed it out, then maybe Prestige would still be here. Even that feels like a bitter thought though. Isn't that wishing that Hailey would be dead then? She's standing right in front of me, does wishing she were the one who died make me a bad person? It's all just too confusing, and so I chose to just not think about it at all. Not yet, anyways. Melody will know what to say. She always knows what to say.

"It's okay," Audra finally says, her voice soft.

"No it isn't," Hailey shoots back immediately. Her eyes are burning red, but even though she's facing Audra, I can tell it isn't her she's mad at.

"It doesn't matter what you did in the Games," Audra says gently. "Gal, Caleb, everyone did bad things, it doesn't make them bad people."

"We're fucking murderers, yes it does," Hailey says, and the word murderer rings through my head, making me wince. "Just because they throw a bunch of us in a room together doesn't suddenly make everything okay."

"You can't-"

"You don't fucking understand, okay?" Hailey explodes. Both of us flinch back from her, and Hailey sighs, leaning against the wall. "I mean, how would you know? All you did was run. You fucking ran for eight days and then when the finale came you hid behind a rock until those two assholes killed each other. You didn't do a single fucking thing, didn't hurt anybody, so how the hell would you know?"

"What do you mean?" I ask her, my voice wavering. I turn to Audra, feeling all that pent up anger and frustration rising in me. "You killed Concord."

"No!" Audra's eyes widen, and she scoots back in her bed, looking panicked. "I-I couldn't."

"What do you mean, you couldn't?" I ask, tears spilling into my voice just from speaking about Concord again. I've tried so hard to ignore it. Tried so hard to follow Melody's advice and forgive her for what she did. But I never could. "It was just you and Concord left, and you won and he died."

Audra's pushed herself back up against the bedframe now, hugging tightly onto her legs and resting her chin on her knees. "They other boy hurt him, really bad, but Concord killed him first. He would've won. They would've taken him out of the arena and saved him, but I was still alive. He was hurting, and he gave me his knife, and begged me to kill him." Her hands are shaking, skin turning pale. "He just wanted me to end his pain, but I couldn't do it. I sat next to him and held his hand for three hours while he waited to die." She looks above me with distant eyes. "I couldn't do it," she trails off in a whisper.

"You didn't kill him?" I ask, and I can't even think of anything else to say. My brain is still fuzzy and I can hardly even think, and all of this being thrown at me at once. . . I just don't understand. Mom and dad told me when he died that it was because of her that he lost. All because of the girl from District Five. Why'd they tell me that if it weren't true?

Audra shakes her head, flashing a small smile as she dabs at tears in her eyes. "He was real nice you know. Never tried to scare the rest of us like all the other Careers did, he was real friendly during training. Concord, he seemed like a good person," Audra says, and despite everything I allow myself the slightest bit of a smile.

"And how many people did he kill?" Hailey asks harshly, and the question makes my insides crawl, that smile disappearing. It's something I never even thought of. I've never watched his Games, and I always assumed he just. . . did nothing. Maybe he would protect himself, but he wouldn't kill anyone. Not Concord. Right? "Why does everyone do this. Just pretend that everything we do in there is okay. That none of it even matters."

"He did what he had to," Audra says firmly. "Just like you did. Just like all of us."

"No I didn't." Hailey says, and for the first time that tough, gritty voice drops away, her voice cracking as she lightly shakes her head. "I didn't have to. None of us had to."

"She's right," I find myself saying. I've tried so long to forget about it. I had nightmares for months, and all I would see was Nova. Sweet, little Nova, who trusted me, and thought I was his friend. And I killed him. I killed him. How can I be a good person after doing that? "We're all bad people."

Hailey sighs, her features softening up as she walks towards my bed. "It's not like that, you're not- you're not a bad person. It's different. You were scared and you panicked. You didn't want to kill them."

"And did you?" I ask.

"I don't know," she says.

Nobody says anything after that. The room begins to grow quiet again, and I find myself glad that my brain still isn't really working. All of this, it's just too much. I don't want to have to think about any of this. I just want to go home and be with my mom and dad again, and just be a kid. I never want to come to the Capitol again. I never want to think about the Games ever again. I just want it all to be done with.

"Wait, why are you guys in here anyways?" Hailey speaks up, looking between the two of us curiously. "And why didn't you know about what happened in the Games?"

The two of us exchange an uncomfortable look, unsure what to say. We don't get a chance to come up with an answer.

"Coira!" A voice calls out from the halls. "Coira! Coira!" A man that looks somewhat familiar bursts into the room, his hair a complete mess as he takes deep breaths and frantically looks around the room. "Where's Coira?"

"She left with Connie a bit ago, I think they're still in the hospital," Audra says.

The man nods and makes towards the door, but Hailey steps in front of him.

"What's going on?" She asks, deepening her voice to sound tough but unable to hide the way her voice shakes.

The man shakes his head, moving around her. "I'm sorry, I gotta-"

"Jaycen," Audra says in a low, wavering voice, and that's enough to get the man to stop, turning around to face her. "What happened?"

"The party," he says quietly. "It just, they, the whole training center, it, it collapsed. It's gone. All of them are gone." He shakes his head, rushing towards the door. "I'm sorry, I have to find Coira."

He leaves before anyone is able to ask any questions. I feel a creeping fear rising inside of me as I turn to Hailey and Audra. "What's he talking about?" I ask, not sure if I want to know the answer.

"The after-Games party," Hailey says quietly.

That panic rises. Back when Melody visited, I can remember the guards coming to get her, they said something about a party. But that can't be it. It can't be. No.

"Who?" I choke out. "Who was there?"

Audra is back to staring at her lap, while Hailey falls backwards into the wall. Neither of them will look me in the eye.

"Who?" I shout, and I can already feel the tears streaming down my cheeks. I already know who was there.

Hailey just shakes her head, not looking sad, or mad, or much of anything. She's just there, her voice a hollow whisper.

"Everyone."