Chapter 13: Desk Job

We pull into the Capitol in the late afternoon of the next day. It always takes the better part of two days to get to the city.

When we pull into the station, the platform is a madhouse. Capitol citizens crying and screaming and hyperventilating, and we nearly get mobbed as we're led to our limousine.

I always wondered if Capitolites weren't entirely self-aware, yet I have the strangest feeling these people understand just what the ramifications for this Quell are. The people of the Capitol love the Games; they should be in ecstasy that Victors are being made to compete a second time, to determine the greatest tribute of them all. Still, there are more tears than cheers here, and I realize one important thing: even folks in the Capitol get attached to their champions, same as the districts do.

The insight oddly makes me smirk, for if I didn't anticipate this, I have a feeling Snow didn't either.

When we arrive at the Remake Center, Prim flings herself into Cinna's arms with such force that she leaves the ground. He merely picks her up and cuddles her close, patting her head. I offer Portia an apologetic grin as I embrace her.

"Ordinarily, you and I would be back together again, but ah…. something came up." I don't bother to modulate my voice, making sure that Haymitch hears me. The recovering alcoholic grunts. "Think you can handle a step down?"

Effie is actually glaring at me for my passive-aggressive swipes at Haymitch, but I ignore her. If Portia has anything to say about my surly attitude, however, she doesn't show it, smiling kindly. "Of course. Styling a Quarter Quell Victor will be the capstone of my career!" This seems to cheer Haymitch a bit, and for the first time, I feel a twinge of guilt that I've been acting like such a dick.

My feet seem to want to will me to follow them, but unfortunately, being a tribute is no longer my scene. Now I have a job to do, as I follow Effie down the city streets.

"You'll help me, won't you?" I ask her.

"Of course, child," she smiles at me brightly.

"Good," I squeeze her hand. "I'll need you."

In the history of the Games, there have been 75 Victors. 59 are still alive. 24 of these will be going back into the arena. Of the 35 remaining, including me, I hope that there will be at least one Victor I can sidle up to.

Effie is now beckoning me into a glitzy nightclub, with letters twenty feet over the establishment that reads Samson's. The lighting is dim once I step inside, Effie and I weaving through the crowd of people bumping and grinding and drinking. At a back door, Effie draws me to her side, indicating to the bouncer, who immediately admits us with a gruff, "Welcome, Mr. Mellark." As the door closes behind us, I look to her for an explanation.

"This lounge is for Victors only. Before the Games are out, we'll be sure to get you your Victors' ID; it will give you almost unlimited access to the city. And of course, everyone who is anyone will want to be seen with you!"

As we enter the private lounge, I can see Victors reclining, talking and laughing. There are also a few at tables with phones atop them, speaking gravely and seriously.

"Sponsor calls. There will be telephones available to you in the Training Center, once the parade is over. And also phones in Control Central, following Opening Day."

Two men with graying hair suddenly approach us, all smiles.

"There he is! The newest blood!" One of the men embraces me like I'm a long-lost nephew. Stepping out of the embrace, he kisses Effie's hand. "Miss Trinket, you look ravishing."

She giggles and blushes. "Oh, Emrys, you're such a cad!"

This Emrys sticks out his hand. "Emrys Avery, District 5, Victor of the 26th Annual Hunger Games. And this here is Chevy Anderson, District 6, Victor of the 28th."

I smile at the two, pleased that I'll at least be making some friends. Neither Emrys nor Chevy appear to be any older than their mid-sixties, and I am awed that they have both been at this for nearly half a century. If I wanted to ingratiate myself with mentors who have experience, I probably couldn't do better than these two.

Chevy slings an arm around me. "We're the only Victors from our teams on the outside, son. We have to stick together!"

I quickly come to learn that Emrys and Chevy are a lot alike. Both are from outsider districts. They each won the Games only two years apart, though they're roughly the same age: Chevy was eighteen when he won, Emrys a mere fifteen. Both were the very first Victors for each of their districts. Both only managed to coach two tributes to Victory themselves. And unlike their protégés whom they now have to mentor once more, neither of these men succumbed to any kind of vice. Effie says that Victors having any addiction problem is quite common, mostly as a coping mechanism, though the mechanism itself varies.

All of a sudden, I start to feel bad for all the nasty shit I slung at Haymitch.

"Want to sit with us on the Avenue for the parade?" Chevy asks me. "We can introduce you to some of the others!"

I grin gratefully.

As the sun sets, the 30 of us or so mentors here depart in groups for the Avenue of Tributes right outside the horse stables. Chevy, Emrys and I all find seats, the Victor from 5 dealing out popcorn and lemonade when a vendor passes by, dropping a wad of sesterces that's worth more than my family bakes in a year.

"Will every district have at least one mentor to help them?"

"Technically, yes. Though Districts 3 and 11 will have to have theirs loaned out," Chevy tells me his eyes dimmed with sadness.

"Who got the contracts for those?" Emrys sucks hard on his lemonade. "Not Careers, I hope?"

"Old Jules of 7 is taking on Wiress and Beetee from 3. And I think Abram Mills of 9 is coaching Chaff and Seeder."

"Abram's still a boy himself. He won't be able to give any advice that ol' Chaff doesn't already know…."

I couldn't imagine teaching tributes from another district, tributes I didn't know. "Is loaning out common?"

"In the early days, before every district had a Victor, yes," Emrys explains. "In the first couple of decades after the Dark Days, imprisoned rebels were released on probation one month a year to mentor the tributes. If they coached a winning one, that prisoner in exchange would be granted a full presidential pardon. Chevy here finally broke the curse on District 6. It was the last district to nab a first Victor – took them almost 30 years!"

Chevy blushes. "Well, technically, by that time, Lucy Gray Baird had disappeared, so y'all were back to needing your escort to teach you."

The cheers of the crowd split the air, and the District 1 chariots are pulling out of the stablehouses. I split my attention between watching Gloss and Cashmere wave and blow kisses to their adoring fans, and my new friends pointing out some of the other mentoring tributes.

"Bovina will help you if you ask her; she's the loveliest lady you ever could meet," Emrys tells me of the old woman from 10. She must have won one of the earliest Games. "I'd steer clear of Ben from 9; he's pretty heavily invested in getting his district to bag a Quell win. Ask for a drink, and Big Con Murphy can get you one; he brews ales back in District 7…. That's his talent."

Chevy smacks his colleague's arm. "We're up."

We watch the District 5 and District 6 chariots rumble by one right after the other. I recognize the man in the Five chariot because I've seen him passing bottles back and forth with Haymitch and Chaff Habarti, the man from 11. His district partner reminds me of the redheaded girl from my Games.

As for Chevy's Victors, both of them have yellowed skin, sunken eyes and hollowed cheeks.

"Morphling addicts," Chevy whispers to me sadly. "Both of their Games twenty, thirty years ago were critical failures. From a ratings standpoint." Tears well up in his eyes.

There is hearty cheering for the Districts 7 and 9 Victors; poor Woof and Cecelia, the young mother from 8, get lost in the shuffle. They're just passing our row when the roaring reaches a fever-pitch.

Emrys stands all the way up in his seat to get a better look. Then he frowns, cursing. "Aww, now….. that ain't right!"

Chevy smirks. "Wishing you could handle that fire, eh, Emrys?"

It takes another moment for me to see what they mean.

The District 12 chariot is emerging into the city lights…. and Prim and Haymitch are both on fire.

Not literally, of course – like last year, it was synthetic. But as the audience bellows for them, they both stand statuesque, appearing almost regal. Haymitch even has something that looks like the Victors' Crown on his head; even from this distance, I can see that he's scowling.

By the time the last chariot has reached the City Circle, the audience is chanting and stamping its feet. "PRIM! PRIM! HAY-MITCH! HAY-MITCH!"

President Snow takes the podium and delivers his speech. As the address nears its end, Emrys and Chevy push me out of our row, and we hustle down to meet our tributes when they disembark the chariots.

When I reach my charges, I am dismayed to find Haymitch getting into a heated exchange with Cinna, yelling in the stylist's face and tearing the weird headdress from off his blonde curls.

"What a disgrace! It looked like it was broiling me! I was starting to envy Roan and Elena and their flaming belts!"

"Now, Haymitch, be reasonable: your exalted status should be honored, especially in light of the circumstances…"

"Exalted status, my ass! If I had known I would be wearing this, I wouldn't have volunteered for the boy…..!"

Stooping, I pick up the crown that has Haymitch so upset. When I turn it over in my hands, the brightly burning words stare back at me, emblazoned in gold: Quarter Quell Victor.

I sigh heavily, with more than a little sympathy. As he is technically the reigning champion of the Quarter Quells, not to mention the only one of the previous two left alive, Haymitch would of course be getting extra attention from the Capitol: attention he almost surely doesn't want.

Then again, maybe that 'exalted status', as Cinna put it, could be helpful as an angle. I'll have to ask Emrys and Chevy.

Effie whisks our delegation into the Training Center elevator, where we're joined by Johanna Mason. The only living Victor from District 7 is surly and exhausted, quickly moving to cast much of her parade outfit aside. For a second, it looks like she's going to strip down to her birthday suit, but then she catches Prim's eye, and for some reason, halts before disembarking on Floor 7.

We reach the penthouse suite and I dismiss Haymitch and Prim to bed; there's a lot of hard work to do tomorrow.

Over the next three days, I'm holed up in Control Central, with the other mentors. Every district has their own station, filled with as many buttons as there are in most Capitol showers. Effie gives me a tutorial in navigating them. Stuck in the corner at the far back of the room, I'm not anywhere near Emrys or Chevy. I do, however, like my colleague at my left, Abram Mills of District 9, right away. He's not that much older than me – about 22 or so – and I realize I remember watching his Games as a small child. The 69th was set in an arid desert. Back then, Abram was quite obese, and the arena helped him shave off much of his baby fat. He took the Crown in a stunning upset after only killing two others and with a Training Score of 3 – the lowest ever for an eventual Victor. It is this point that Abrams underscores to me the most, laughing about it each time. He doesn't seem to mind that he's coaching two fellow Victors who aren't from his district, and I observe him closely as we begin to work the sponsor phones.

I'm at least heartened that there doesn't seem to be any shortage of people interested in backing my tributes. The Capitol adores Prim, and everyone remembers the legend of Haymitch Abernathy like it's an old bedtime story. I receive modest backing from two crossfit centers, a five-star restaurant, and at least one non-profit. Abram shows me how to click and drag the funds into my cash stores on the monitor. Even with this success, Effie warns me to be wary: it is very rare for districts to get back-to-back Victors; to date, it has only happened twice, and neither case involved what is known as an outsider district. If Effie is thus preparing me for a loss, she isn't being very helpful; if anything, she's just raising the pressure. I know she's trying to be kind, but I don't care what she says: District 12 will be the third district in history to rack up consecutive wins.

Overhead television screens allow us access to security camera footage from the Training Center, where we can watch our tributes prepare themselves. Prim and Haymitch are sticking close by, and I know we have at least triumphed in one thing: the most awkward pair of Victors Reaped for this thing. The two are nearly thirty years apart in age and life experience. Haymitch is still getting the shakes from not having a drink in so long, whereas Prim is probably on pins and needles about having her period.

In terms of discrepancy, District 4 seems to come in a close second behind us: an 80-something little old lady matched with a vain pretty boy who has spent every day in the Capitol so far somewhere from half to nearly completely naked. I don't know what to make of Finnick Odair hanging around my crush's little sister, and decide it's best if I don't tell Rory Hawthorne about it. Prim is giggling like a besotted little schoolgirl. What's even more amusing is that Haymitch clearly doesn't like it one bit, hovering near Prim like a father trying to protect his daughter by chasing her suitor off with a shotgun. He doesn't go so far as to push Finnick away outright, probably in deference to Mags, the old lady from 4.

"He'd be good to get in with them. Finnick has a mind-blowing command of sponsor cash."

"A Career? Teaming up with District 12?" I've never heard of such a thing.

Something mysterious passes over Abram's face. "Oh, trust me, Finnick's no Career. But better y'all get him than Brutus and his crowd."

Sure enough, by the time I get back to the penthouse to greet Haymitch and Prim after their first day, there is an alliance contract waiting at my desk from one Halibut Shore and Briseis Barrington, the District 4 mentors. After consulting with my tributes at dinnertime, I decide to sign it and send it back with their approval. Haymitch is enthusiastic about having allies; I can tell Prim is decidedly less so, but she hides it admirably and trusts Haymitch's judgment.

At the end of the three days, Haymitch and Prim are sent in for their private session with the Gamemakers. The TV screens giving us a window into the Training Center are turned off now, so we can't see what our charges are doing.

I don't get any better answers that night at dinner, both Haymitch and Prim staying unusually quiet. They don't budge on details, no matter how much I press them, and we all sit down on the couch to watch the score returns more than a little strung out.

Gloss and Cashmere get 9s. Enobaria, the woman from 2, nabs a 10. Brutus and Finnick tie for 11s, and I want to retch. Low to medium for the rest.

And then Caesar announces District 12. Both Prim and Haymitch get 12s – perfect scores, the first time a tribute has been awarded such in the pageant's history. Prim and Haymitch share a silent look.

"Why did they do that?" I ask. Then, a moment later, I blanch as I answer my own question. "So that the Careers would target you. They're stacking the deck against you." I feel myself start to shake, and I come back to the possibility that my tributes may have done something to antagonize the Gamemakers. Something risky. Prim did something risky last year, and she was rewarded for it. "Bed. Now." I'm relieved when neither of them argues.

The next day is largely a free one, and I spend much of it in the conference rooms drilling Prim and Haymitch on the angles to work for their interviews. I am quickly frustrated when I run headlong into them both having their own ideas for what they want to do. Both of them seem set on bemoaning the fact that the Quell is happening at all. When I ask Haymitch why, at the end of our session, he levels me with a very serious look.

"These Victors are angry, boy. They'll say anything to try and stop the Games. I suggest you let us be us."

I very much think it is absolutely not a good idea to let Haymitch be Haymitch, and I am about to protest when my old mentor cuts me off again. "You trust me, don't you?"

And despite everything, despite the arguments we've had and the disagreements, particularly over this year's Reaping, I don't even have to think about it when I answer, "Of course."

Haymitch winks. "Then don't stop now."

I enter the Capitol Studios for the interviews that night a nervous wreck, calmed only by my ability to find seats near Emrys, Chevy and Abram. I mostly tune everyone out until my tributes come up to round out the night, though there are a few notable moments.

It starts with Gloss and Cashmere from 1, the latter crying over having to leave her beloved Capitol fans. Beetee Latier, the man from 3, questions the legality of the Quell with jargon so grandiose that it leaves Caesar blinking. Mags Flanagan makes a bit out of whacking Flickerman over the head with her cane; after suffering a stroke a few years back, there's not much of her interview that can be understood, outside of her referring to Caesar admonishingly as 'young man.' Finnick Odair saunters onstage and reads a poem to his one true love…. and about a hundred women (along with roughly 50 or 60 men) faint because they're sure he's talking about just them. Off in the wings, I can see Blight Gavin, the man from 7, smirking and chortling devilishly.

After that, the interviews transition from almost funny to downright sad. I can feel Emrys and Chevy cringing as their Victors give us a series of lessons in substance abuse. Matthias Fletcher, the District 5 drunk, throws up all over the stage and only manages to string out his intention to kill Primrose Everdeen, prompting raucous laughter, which only causes him to get more and more belligerent. Mitt Compton and Maeve Collins, Chevy's fellows from District 6, are both stoned high as kites, and keep mumbling stuff about the color wheel. "You're all one big happy strawberry of friendship! Sharing is caring!" Maeve gives the entire audience one big air hug. Johanna Mason cusses the audience out until there are more BLEEPS than actual words. Next to me, Abram is snickering.

Woof Barton of 8 randomly wanders off the stage in the middle of his interview and…. doesn't come back. This, of course, comes right on the heels of Cecelia, blubbering and waving Polaroids of her three little kiddies in the air, causing all the Capitol mothers in the audience to become unglued.

By the time we arrive at District 11, I am scrunched halfway down my seat. Please, Snow, let it be over. It's not like I can't sympathize with the clear betrayal the Victors feel – they're practically hitting Caesar and the audience over the head with it, like Mags with her cane. Seeder waxes on how, in her district, President Snow is viewed as all-powerful. Well, if he's all-powerful, why doesn't he change the Quell? Chaff segues right into this by saying Snow could easily change the Quell if he really wanted to, but that he must figure it must not matter much to anyone. It's a shrug-of-the-shoulders, 'Meh!' response that nonetheless paints Snow as unfeeling…. and the audience is responding to it.

By the time Primrose is up, everyone is an absolute wreck. People have been weeping and collapsing in the aisles and calling for change. The sight of the little girl who stole the nation's heart practically causes a riot. Capitol mothers, already groomed by Cecelia's plight, try and rush the stage, forcing the Peacekeepers to fling them back.

"She's a child!"

"She's a little girl!"

"Stop the Games! Stop the motherfucking Games!"

Caesar is trying to say something into the microphone, but we can't hear anything. And Prim is usually soft-spoken, even on the best of days, so that even with Caesar passing the microphone to her, we might as well be listening to a mime. Our gracious host is now chuckling and laughing tightly as he and my crush's baby sister have what might as well amount to be a private conversation, for how little of it we can pick up. "Aren't you embarrassed?" Caesar asks at one point, almost shouts it, and it's one of the few things we can hear. The audience boos lustily, wailing and crying for Primrose. Prim's own eyes are wet, standing there in her little white dress, so similar to the one she wore at both Reapings, the picture of innocence. The buzzer blares like a foghorn and Prim goes back to her seat without any of us having any idea what she actually said. But perhaps she didn't need to: her body language says it all.

When Haymitch swaggers on to bring us home, the roar from the crowd is like that of a jet engine. He half-falls into his seat, and for one mad moment, I fear he snuck a drink, even when I took great pains to lock the liquor cabinet in our suite, though I figured he was sober enough to control himself.

"Well, well, well, I've always saved the best for the last and here he is! Haymitch Abernathy: the Victor of the Second Quarter Quell!" The screams are deafening. After the Prim fiasco, we calm down, though it's slight, and there are still plenty of hecklers, enough so that I completely miss Caesar's first question.

"I'll stand by what I said last time, Caesar: they'll all be one hundred percent as stupid as usual, so I figure my odds will be roughly the same."

I remember the line: Haymitch gave it in his first interview before the Second Quell; I watched the tape alone one night in my mansion after the man had gone to sleep.

"Any regrets?" Caesar asks.

"Not so much for myself, although I do wish I had gotten more kids out of the arena. I wish Prim got to have a life. She has a boyfriend at home." He sends a wry smirk out at us, and we all share a chuckle. Then he sighs heavily. "What's even sadder is that she and the Hawthorne boy are promised to each other. Especially now that she's expecting a baby."

Wait – what?! I throw up my hands.

"Oh, come on! That's such bullshit!" Abram is leaping out of his seat and hollering.

He's right – a thirteen-year-old knocked up with a baby? Come on, Haymitch, what the fuck? If you're that insistent on asking that we 'let you be you,' at least have the decency to lie competently!

But, what I'm starting to realize, to my astonishment, is that Haymitch may have just pulled the biggest, steaming load of crap out of his ass…. but the Capitol audience actually seems to believe it. Never mind that a literal child expecting her own child is so sickening, not to mention that it probably breaks all kinds of laws even here in the city. Many of the fans are now sobbing, ugly crying, loping about like wounded animals and calling for help.

The buzzer sounds, but we don't register it, Caesar is shrieking to make himself heard, and Haymitch merely jogs back to his chair and hugs Prim.

Then, it happens.

The Victor-tributes all start to join hands up and down the line, including Chaff, who only has one hand and a stump. The twenty-four champions being thrown back to the wolves lift the one, unbroken chain on high, and I see Caesar turn white.

"Cut it! Cut the feed!"

The lights abruptly shut off, plunging the whole recital hall into darkness and terrified screams split the air, but too late.

All of Panem has seen.

My new friends manage to hustle me back to Control Central. We're the only four in the place, working the phones, though it feels like we're almost in hiding. Emrys is finding half his sponsor pledges for Matthias rescinded after he threatened the life of a little girl on national television. Never mind that he was raving drunk. Abram is also trying to do damage control after Chaff implied the president of our nation is an unfeeling bastard – to his face. Never mind that it was true.

I'm one of the few that seems to actually be in a better place (sponsor pledges speaking) than before the interviews. My phone is ringing off the hook, mostly from little old biddies who want to back Prim and save "that little baby." Whether they're referring to Prim or the nonexistent fetus growing in her belly is not for me to say.

By the time the calls slow, I'm drained. I turn to my colleagues and can tell they feel it too.

More than anything, I wish Katniss was here right now. She would know what to do, what to say. How to calm me. The need is so strong that it gives me an idea.

"Hey, Chevy, can you place calls from here to the Victors' Village?"

"Probably. You can try. When I've come to the Capitol before, sometimes Mitt would stay behind. I'd always make a point to call him at night and check on him, but that was usually back in our rooms in the Training Center. Never tried to place a collect call from here."

I insert the sesterces I need and dial the District 12 Justice Building.

"Hello, District 12 Justice Building."

"Yes, hi, this is Peeta Mellark. Can you please patch me through to the Victors' Village? Specifically, the extension to Primrose Everdeen's house?"

"Oh, no need for that, Mr. Mellark. It is my understanding that Miss Everdeen's mother and sister are here on the premises now."

I feel my heart turn to ice. What the hell are Katniss and her mother doing in the Justice Building? I'm starting to feel paranoid, and damn it, I don't very much care – after the night I've had, I'm allowed to be terrified. I think we all are.

Then, her sweet voice comes over the line. "Hello? Peeta, is that you?"

I let out a long breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. "Hey, sweetheart."

"So you body-swapped with Haymitch, huh?" It's a joke that I used to laugh with her at, but now don't find very funny – Haymitch developed the annoying habit of calling Katniss 'sweetheart,' likely to mock her surly personality.

"Don't be cute. I'm not… not really feeling it right now," I chide. "What are you and your mother doing out there? Are you safe?"

"We're fine. The Mayor invited us over to watch the interviews. Plus, I owed Madge a visit."

I blink. "I didn't know you were friends with the Mayor's daughter." By her own admission, Katniss has maintained that she's never been very good at making friends.

"We understand each other," Katniss tells me. "Besides, as she's seeing Gale now, I suppose I should give her my blessing."

I feel a palpable relief wash over me, lifting my spirits for the first time in Games. Katniss hears me sigh through the phone; I can almost feel her smirk.

"You sound relieved."

"It's nice to know Gale is spoken for, that's all."

"Wait…. did you….?" And then Katniss starts to laugh. "Oh, Peeta, no, it was nothing like that! Not with Gale and me."

"Good," I smile. A pause, and then: "I miss you."

"I miss you too," she murmurs, remarkably gentle, especially for her. She lets another silence hang:

"Please tell me she's going to be all right."

I smile. "She's going to be all right."

"You'll bring her home alive, won't you?"

"I gave you my word, didn't I? And have I ever broken a promise to you?"

"No," she croons tenderly. "You haven't." I can almost feel her biting her lip. "Can I talk to her?"

"Wish I could, sweetheart, but I'm in Control Central. She's across town, asleep. And even if I could bring the phone to her, I can't; I'm on a collect call. Victors aren't allowed mobile phones. It's…. easier for us to be monitored."

I hear her breath catch. "You think they're listening in right now?"

"Probably," and I want to curse myself because I hadn't thought of that. Would Snow really go after Katniss to hurt Prim? To hurt me? After tonight, I would imagine that all bets are off.

"Is she really pregnant? Your answer determines whether or not Rory Hawthorne survives the night."

"What do you think? And don't voice a guess."

Katniss does not, but even with her presence silently here with me, though a world away, I can tell she has come to the conclusion I was hoping for. I suppose I should exult that Rory Hawthorne's life will be spared.

"I gotta go," she whispers. "Good luck tomorrow. Do… do you have my handkerchief?"

"I got it." I lift my wrist, where it is wrapped around tight.

"Good night."

"Good night, Katty. And…. remember, I…."

"You have one minute remaining on this call. Please insert an additional 100 sesterces to continue at this number, or hang up and dial again," an automated voice suddenly cuts through.

"Damn it!" I whack the receiver in my hand. "Chevy, I need more change!"

"What am I, the Bank of Pompey? Wrap it up with your girlfriend!"

"She's not my girlfriend," I mumble. A pause, and then: "She's my possible fiancé."

"You lucky dog!" Abram whistles. "Wait: possible….?"

I don't bother trying to explain the agreement Katniss and I came to. I stagger to my feet. "I'm calling it. Good night, boys. Happy Hunger Games."

"And may the odds be ever in your favor," Emrys intones solemnly.

I hail a cab for the ride across town to the Training Center and ride the elevator up to find the penthouse suite dark and quiet. I fall into bed, dreaming of Katniss's face.

Will I able to save her sister's life, again, and thus gain her hand in marriage?

Come the morning, I'm about to find out.