A/n: So, here is my Victor Exchange Story! Please give it a read, the formatting isn't the most unique, but it's still an out of the box idea, and I'm really proud of this story. Also, for anybody who is wondering, this boy belongs to Marie464.

I intentionally left the Games number ambiguous, because as of right now I don't know where this really fits into my canon verse or not. To clarify, no, he is not the male morphling.

Tribute: Elio Moretti, 17, District Six Male

District Six

The Moretti household is usually in an abysmal state of disorder, another façade of the growing wealth of the occupants, for the sake of being inconspicuous. A thin layer of dust coats the countertop, the door stands on a passable one and a half hinges, and the metal "toys" on the rack are haphazardly situated and not in order. Not today, though, and not for the past week. The stress has been too much, and, commandeered by 13-year-old Russo, the third-youngest, a cleaning war has been waged with the house, if anything to take their minds off of the fact that right now, as the family of seven sits huddled around the Capitol-issued television in their sitting, the eighth of their number is not there, but about to be on the screen.

A tense hush has settled over them all as they anxiously anticipate their brother. It is tenser than any sort of mission they've ever gone on before, tenser than any previous life-and-death scenario they have ever experienced.

Even Lita, Elio's twin and the most laid back of them all, is shaking with nerves. It's his fault Elio is there in the first place, anyways. That's how he sees it, at least. His and the Capitol's, because they pulled out the name Lita Moretti, and if they weren't going to do that, it would have been Russo Moretti, or Parker Moretti, or Elio Moretti. They were doomed from the start, but at least Elio has significantly larger muscle mass than the rest of them. That's why his function is the bodyguard and Elio is the interrogator. He would have done better there, if Elio just hadn't said a word, and Elio knows it. But he still had to go and volunteer, like his classic boneheaded self.

"I would rather die than you."

That's what he said, point blank, in the Goodbye room, before Lita even had time to ask the question: Why? He had fought back with many reasons for why he shouldn't have volunteered, even though that wasn't going to change anything.

"But, you're so more valuable to us! Any one of us can kick somebody's ass in a fight, but none of us can get us out of trouble like you. And—and you're everybody's favorite! Nobody doesn't like you!"

"Oh, well that really stinks! I guess you'll have to face the punishment fit for the crime without me for a bit while I'm living in the lap of luxury." But that mocking tone doesn't mean anything, and both of them know it, and then Elio comes in for a farewell hug.

"Why are all of you so nervous?" Quinn, the youngest and the only one still out of Reaping age, asks from the corner of the room. "We all know that he'll kill it tonight." She's correct, of-course, there's a reason that Elio is the interrogator, and there's a reason that every time the family is caught, and he is there, they avoid punishment. The way that she anxiously twirls a lock of the curly black hair that they all share gives her away, though. They all know what looms on the horizon, and that invisible force of worry clenches their throats.

"Quinn, be quiet, he's almost on," Celi, the only one who has survived all seven Reapings and the other girl, says in her hushed voice. It's her fault, according to her, because she was the one who got she and Russo exposed to the Peacekeepers, and now they know who they are. If not, it would be some boy that none of them knew or cared for waiting in the wings, one they wouldn't feel sad for if they saw him die.

"It's starting! It's starting!" Park hops up and down on the careworn couch in between his parents, both silent and resigned, sipping one of the few and coveted wines in the cellar.

The girl from Six has to be helped out of frame, her legs so weak and shaky from withdrawal that they cannot support her.

Now, Caesar, stands up, and, with his booming voice, says, "And now, give a very warm welcome to Elio Moretti!"

He walks out onto the stage in that confident yet personable way he has perfected, wearing a shockingly bloodred suit and waving to the crowd. It complements his angular features: dark hair, tall frame, and high cheekbones.

"Hi Caesar," he says, just as charismatic and laid back as he was back home, talking to anyone on the street. It's rare a tribute will be bold enough to start the conversation before the interviewer, even rarer they are comfortable enough not to come off as awkward or rude while doing so.

"Elio, sit down, sit down," Caesar commands. "You're outfit definitely gave me quite a shock!"

"As much of a shock as my chariot costume?"

They both pause to reminisce on three days ago, when Elio almost accidentally ran his silver motorcycle off of the chariot while preventing his partner from doing the same thing.

"Maybe not quite that much," Caesar responds, chuckling.

"He's doing good, so far," Quinn observes.

"Quiet, he's talking!" Russo yells.

"-stylist said it was either this or no clothes and no sponsors, so I went with the first option," Elio, on screen, responds, sending a wink out into the audience for some man or woman to catch. The crowd loves it.

"So, Elio, a boy like you must have some friends going into the arena, am I right?"

"You are, and for a change I didn't even have to chase them down like I normally do," Elio says in the sarcastic manner it always seems like he wears whenever he talks and tries to be funny, which is all the time. The crowd laughs.

"He has allies, thank goodness," Park says, relieved, in his caring way. "We all knew he would get them," he adds in his signature uncomfortable yet endearing fashion, the thing never being able to escape him. He shrinks back into the couch, embarrassed.

Lita looks on, trying to keep his signature calm demeanor amidst the anxious ones of his siblings, and yet it's hard without Elio there with him, to balance him out with his jovial yet calm humor. He worries that it will always be like this if Elio dies, condemned to an existence wallowing in his own quiet depression, monotonous even with the rough-and-tumble chaos of the family occupation. Staring at him on the screen seven feet away, Lita hopes that Elio doesn't do something stupid without him, like he always seems to. He never did have any planning skills whatsoever, and Lita knows that he is strong—he earned an eight, for Panem's sake—but he still feels that ever-present urge to protect him. He is family, and the Moretti family alays protects one another.

"Well, first is Vesa," Elio says, responding to Caesar's prompting.." The camera cuts to the small, redheaded District Seven girl next in line, blushing. "Then Bobbin." The tall and skinny Eight boy does finger guns at the camera, though he lacks Elio's laid back air.. "And, last but not least, Sable." The broad blonde from Ten smiles up at him. Lita remembers that Vesa and Bobbin earned sevens and Sable also earned an eight. "Of-course, I don't really need any of them." The crowd lets out a small gasp, but the Moretti's wait unflinchingly for the payoff they know is impending. "That is, if I want to die of poisoned blueberries, mutt stampedes, or rips in my clothing."

"But, of-course, those aren't the only people close to you, are they? Got a family back home?"

"Do I? You don't even know, Caesar."

"They're talking about us," Russo says, looking anxious, and yet puffing his chest out for nobody to see at the same time, as if cameras are about to fly in any moment to get an angle on him like they just did for his allies, his sense of pride getting the best of him as he puts on a winning smile.

"No, I don't. Please tell me!"

"Well, first, you know my twin brother, Lita. He's the one I volunteered for. Be really observant if you replay the footage, we look indistinguishable from one another." Lita inwardly laughs with the crowd as Elio steps forward in front of his brother, a good three inches over his already substantial height, with twice the muscle mass.

"Tell us more about him."

"Well, to start, we're as close as brothers can be. When his name was called, I didn't even have to think about whether or not I wanted to volunteer or not. We balance each other out pretty well. He's like my straight man."

"Anybody else of note?"

"Well, I do have four other siblings. First is Celi, and she's kind of like all of our sister-mom. Then there's Russo, and he's thirteen. It's fun to act up with him, because he always confesses if we get caught, so I don't have to. And then there's Parker, he's my book buddy. My sister Quinn is ten, so she's the youngest. Quinn," Elio turns to the camera, "let's just say I won our last checkers game since it was a draw. You know I was about to checkmate you," he adds in an obviously sarcastic manner.

The checkers table is the only thing left untouched. None of them had to communicate to agree. Quinn's queen and rook still have Elio's king prime for the checkmate as his two remaining pawns stand on the opposite side of the board.

"Oh!" Elio exclaims. "I forgot! Hi Ma and Pop! I've been following the rules since I got here."

Despite it all, his mother's eyes tear up as she watches her son, even after all of the desensitization her job requires, affection brewing in them. Her husband smirks beside her. "There's my boy," he says, triumphant in the fact that the deadly circumstances haven't taken the kick and the optimism out of his son.

"No girl back home? You are quite handsome."

"Nope! I'm single and ready to mingle, so ladies, gents, or whatever other gender you are, give me some sponsor money and help me get back home if you want a shot!"

This gets raucous applause, and Celi and Ma both blush.

"He'd never pass up the opportunity," Lita says from a chair in the corner, breaking his long silence. His family all nod in agreement.

"One last question, Lita, and wev'e got to make it fast. How did you get such an impressive score?"

As Elio opens his mouth to answer, a buzzer goes off, and he waves goodnight and struts off of the stage.

Lita smiles, overjoyed but not surprised with how well his brother did. His brother is a charmer if there ever was one.

"Come on, Lita, we've got an appointment." Lita's father stands up as Vesa, Elio's ally, skips onstage. He gestures to the large weapons rack with guns, bows, and swords gleaming silver and black. "We've got to make it snappy now that Elio's off, best to do it now under the cover of the interviews. We told them we'd have more food by the end of the night."

Lita stands up, satisfied, and walks over to the weapons rack in the hidden back room. He isn't surprised with Elio's score, not in the slightest, though he knows that if he had been there, he could have scored higher, and the unnecessary guilt of having his name pulled out of the glass bowl stays with him. Elio never grew accustomed to the idea of killing, not like the rest of them did. That's why they made him the interrogator. That and his drive and charisma.

Killing is what they have to do, it's how they make a living. None of them are ever going to break up the family business. Family comes first, over everything, everything else.

Lita picks up his gun, silencer, and his katana, and the two men clip on their black cloaks. The assassins walk out of the door, ready to make their next kill.

The Arena

Elio winces as the sun blasts his eyes, putting his right arm up to cover his face as he rises into the arena. He can't see anything, only black, and he wonders for a moment if this is what death is like, before his throbbing eyes adjust to the climate and he directs his vision away from the sunbeams ricocheting off of the metal cornucopia.

60, 59, 58…

This is it. He is in the Hunger Games. Back in Six, the killing was surreptitious, indiscreet. It isn't like that anymore. Any one of these tributes could run at him and stab him in the front.

He worries about his family back home. He doesn't want them to watch him die. He wants to make it back to them alive and in one piece, and they can once and for all be freed from the killing and killing. But that's what he'll have to do to make it out of here. Kill. There is no asking Pop, or Ma, or Lita, or Celi to do it anymore. They all have to die for him to make it back and see his family again, so he can spare them from the pain of having to watch him die the same way they have countless others. It isn't the same with them.

40, 38, 39…

He locates his allies. Sable is only three pedestals to his left, sandwiching the angry Two girl and quivering Eleven girl in between them, three away from the semicircular ring's end. Bobbin is four down, situated in front of the mouth. Vesa's tiny frame is near the other end. The boy from One is beside her, and his partner is nearby, too.

20, 19, 18…

Elio sees a bow glinting fifty feet from him. It's tempting, the weapon that he used back in his home, but neither Bobbin nor Sable are fast. He makes eye contact with them and primes himself to run for Vesa. Besides, the Two girl will want the bow, too.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1

The gong sounds, and Elio runs like he has never runs before over the dirty grass of the clearing the tributes are in. He senses Bobbin running behind him—at least, that's who he hopes it is—and runs faster, towards Vesa. He has to protect her; he can't let anyone hurt her. Not Sable or Bobbin either, but especially not her. It seems so bizarre, especially considering she weighs about half as much as him, that she behaves exactly like Lita back home, but she does, and she's his family in the arena. She's earned his trust, and now he will do anything he can to save her. At least, save her as long as he can until he has to save himself.

The One girl tackles her down and pins her to the dirt as she runs for a rack of throwing knives, punching her in the throat, and once more in the temple, before running to grab the magazine laid out for her ten yards away. Vesa lets out a strangled, weak gasp of air, flat on the ground as her adversary runs for her weapons of choice.

"Vesa, run!" Elio screams, and she stirs, removing her hands from her already bruised throat and stumbling onto her knees.

The girl from One makes it back to Vesa before the can stand. There is a nasty, audible thud as she recollides with the dirt. The One girl goes in for the kill, raising the knife and laughing. Suddenly, this is the only thing in the world for Elio, as the carnage around him evaporates, and he runs, lunges barehanded—he should have thought that out better—and tackles the One girl. They roll together for about five feet, leaving Elio on the bottom.

"You're good too," she says, smiling.

Behind her, Vesa is still on the ground, incapacitated. Elio sees a muscly silhouette sprinting nearer and nearer through the blades of grass he is pinned to, his vision blurry from his head smacking the ground. Above him, the One girl cackles solely to intimidate him. He won't let it work.

Mid-laugh, he throws a punch, one like Lita taught him how to throw in the basement downstairs when they trained to get bigger, one that Pop would be proud of, and he is all of a sudden conscious of his family again. He can't let them watch him die. The career girl tries to catch it but grasps only his slim wrist as his fist nails her in the jaw. She looks personally offended, and Elio laughs of all things, when facing a fair chance of death in the coming minutes. He can sense his family all urging him on, screaming at him to throw another. He does, but this time his oppressor succeeds, a wicked smile on her beautiful face.

But all of a sudden, she gasps and flies off of him and to the right. Someone leaps over him, and a sickening crunch is heard. She walks back to him. Above him stands Sable, reaching out a hand.

"I could have done that on my own," Elio says, not meaning it, graciously hugging his stout ally as he spots Vesa heading for the shaded, ominous looking jungle. Bobbin waits to meet her, a heavy pack on his back.

"I got this for you," she says, holding up the prized bow. "I did Two a favor, she really wouldn't be able to operate it anyway. Not with only a few unbroken fingers, that is."

"Nice!" Elio takes the bow and turns to the One female, who is sprawled out unconscious on the ground, completely vulnerable.

"All yours," Sable says, turning to run. "And make it snappy," she adds, "the boys have just about dispatched the Nines, and they'll head for us next."

He notches the arrow and pulls back the string. This is it. Ironically, this is his first kill, not as an assassin, but as a tribute. He always liked being the interrogator best. Most of the interrogatees confessed without pain, and that way he never had to feel that horrible feeling. He knows his family is pouring over their television right now, egging him on. She's completely vulnerable now. She can't put up a fight. Not like she was mere seconds ago. He doesn't want to do this.

"Elio, come on!" Vesa yells for him to hurry from the tree line.

He has to do this. For his family. He sees the boy from One look over at him, furious. He releases the arrow and hears a squelch a millisecond later. He heads off to meet his allies.

"What were you guys waiting for?" he asks, skidding to a halt in the uneven dirt before hurrying to kick off of it and back into a run into the dense foliage, Bobbin holding up a low-hanging frond.

"Not the time for humor," the Eight male says, pushing him past and rushing after him as the quartet hop over logs and brush past trees and leaves.

"Sorry, just trying to lighten the mood," Elio counters.

Conversation falls flat as the four of them rush through the jungle to who knows where, just away from the carnage they just escaped. Eight cannons ring out through the arena, and Elio knows that one of them is for a girl who died of his doing.

Later, as they wade through a ravine that pummels their waists but nothing higher, Elio still wedged in between Vesa in front and Bobbin in the back as Sable pushes onward. All of a sudden, Vesa slips, her tiny frame pushed by the water and slipping under the murky white and brown froth. Elio gasps and clings to her arm, pulling her up as Bobbin grabs his bow to ground him. She arises, choking and spit out mud. They finish the trek to the other side.

"Guys," Vesa says, stumbling down to the rocky dirt, "I need a rest." She massages her throat, an angry purple bruise running down it. "I'm just so tired, and it's hard to breathe, I'm sorry."

"It's totally fine, me too," Elio says genuinely. "I could still do CPR if you want, the trainer from the station said I was a master." He winks at Vesa, who blushes.

"Not a chance, boy," she says, pushing him away playfully.

"It's fine, I'm pretty exhausted myself," Bobbin says, shrugging off the pack he's been carrying for what must be at least ten hours.

"Let's just hike, say, another mile in fifteen to put some distance between us and the water in case anybody else out here gets thirsty," Sable says. "If the couple from Four sees us from the opposite side, they can swim across when we sleep, we won't hear them. Plus, they splintered off, so we have no idea where they could be." That thought hangs in the air like the somber bells' ringing through ancient towns signifying a death, not too unlike the cannons that boomed mere hours ago.

"Come on, Sable, let's scout out the area for a better water source than what we just went through," Bobbin says, gesturing to the river. "If we had a pot we could collect dew tomorrow morning. If we break into our sponsor fund now…"

He and Sable walk off, leaving Elio and Vesa resting.

"Hey, I just wanted to say thanks." Vesa doesn't look Elio in the eye, more the chest. "You know," she elaborates, "for saving me… twice."

"Believe me, it really was a tough decision to make."

It takes Vesa a second to realize he is being sarcastic. Normally, people need a few to get accustomed to the constant barrage of jokes, most of that ilk.

"Really," she continues. "You could have just let me die both times. I'm indebted to you." She forces out that last part with a tinge of dejection.

"Yes, you are," Elio continues. "You owe me quite a few favors. Are you sure you don't need that CPR? It's not too late."

"Oh, stop it," Vesa retorts, her face a light pink, though she tries to hide it.

Elio didn't come into the Hunger Games planning on getting a slight crush on one of his allies, but fate Reaped Vesa and stuck her in the arena with him, so what did plans expect? They've never been much of his forte, and the odds were relatively higher seeing as Elio was into anything—man, woman, or otherwise. He would still kill Vesa, though, if he had to. At least, he hopes he would. Blood is thicker than water, that's what they always say. Until then, he won't make any effort to stop himself, because Vesa, and Sable and Bobbin too, for that matter, have already wormed through his guarded side. They're closer friends than any he had back home in Six, sans his siblings. They aren't that close, and they never will be. He wouldn't let them, even if they had a chase, because that would only make his inevitable task even harder. Now Elio has to come to terms with the fact that murder is a must in the arena. He has already done it.

"Since when has being indebted to me been so bad anyway? I don't ask many favors." Through sly with words, Elio makes few conscious attempt to manipulate Vesa into telling the answer that he is curious to hear. Though he is an excellent liar, even better than he realizes, he prefers to be straight up.

"You don't understand. Sorry, I didn't mean that to be offensive, you just don't, not coming from where I come from."

"Well, offense taken!" Elio says, effeminately putting a hand to his chest in an exaggerated manner, his other hand dabbing at crocodile tears.

Vesa smiles at that. "It's just hard on the streets. Nobody to protect you there, kind of like where we are now. Especially when you have to protect others. My sisters, I mean. If you get indebted there, you've got to be careful, that person can cash it in any time. Nobody doesn't fulfill their debt in Seven. Bad things'll happen to you if you don't."

It's the same back in Six. But even though Elio tries to hide it from himself, he realizes that maybe his family is the bad thing Vesa mentioned in his scenario. He tries not to let himself believe that, because the people they killed weren't good. They were assholes, quite frankly. Rich assholes with no heirs, who would have no better use of their money than to give it to the poor, of course with the constant chunk being kept by the Moretti's, though nobody had to know about that. He isn't entirely good, but he sure as hell isn't bad, and the lines between the two have always been blurred. He has no trouble going to sleep every night. He hopes that this one will be the same.

The girl that attacked Vesa was like them. Rich, mean, sadistic. She was the one who started the whole thing, she got what was coming to her.

"I won't leave my debt unfulfilled, though," Vesa says hurriedly. "I'm not gonna betray you or anything like that. Believe me, I won't!"

"Sounds suspicious," Elio says, smirking. "Seriously, it's not a problem. Don't try to repay it. Wait! Forgot I said that."

"Too late," Vesa says, grinning.

"We have debts back in Six, too. And they have to be repaid. Or else… bad things happen, like you said."

Vesa looks at him with her penetrating yellow and green eyes, like she knows what he is thinking at this moment. "Don't feel like you shouldn't have killed the One bitch. You should have. Her or me. Who do you choose?"

"Tough decision," Elio says, assuaged from the dark thoughts that had, in fact, been swirling around inside his head, but that wasn't all of what had been holding him up.

Back home, it was almost as if he stood on a high ground over the rest of them, except for Quinn, who was only ten and hadn't been assigned her role yet, were already prepped to kill when the opportunity finally presented itself. Elio never killed anyone, but all that has changed now. He didn't want to lose that jovial, relazed part of himself that was so crucial to him, but then again Lita hasn't. Maybe that's why he, and even Pop and Ma and Celi, had looked at him with tenderness, felt he was more vulnerable than the rest of them even though he has beaten up his fair share of playground bullies and can flex bigger than anyone he knows aside from Lita and Pop, barring the career males, the girl from Two, and Sable. All of that has flown out of the window now, if it was even there in the first. He doesn't feel that much remorse, more fear of what her partner's wrath entails. That's one debt he hopes isn't repaid.

He would kill the One boy if he had to, and anyone else. That's the only way that he can make it back to them, back to his family.

"You saved me, Elio. You did a good thing."

"A real Robin Hood, aren't I?" Elio says gallantly, hoisting up his bow and standing up in a gallant pose.

That gets another laugh out of Vesa. She doesn't understand how true the statement is. He'll kill, but in the end, it for a good cause. So that the poor in his neighborhood can have some good, hearty meals. So that Vesa is saved. So that he can see his family again, because he would lose all pretense of goodness to get back to them.

"Thanks, Vesa."

"Any time." She smiles at him, and Elio, as good at reading people as he is, knows that something more than debt forces her to his side.

Sable thumps into the clearing loudly, lacking the stealth trained into Elio and Vesa from a young age. Bobbin comes behind her. They are both grinning ear to ear.

"Get up, you two, it's been long enough," Sable says merrily, thumping a heavy hand on Elio's back and her other on Vesa's. "We found a way to get water!"

District Six

It's Elio's third day spent in the arena, and the third day in a row that Lita, and most of his family as well, have not been able to go to sleep, instead opting to pay rapt and obsessive attention to the night coverage, despite the most eventful thing going on at night being the Five girl's midnight diarrhea and the lamentations and moaning that follows consistently. The eyes of Quinn and Park are bloodshot from staring at the television for so long and in such close proximity. No one has died at the Morettis's hands in days.

The tribute count is down to fourteen, and all of Elio's alliance has remained intact. Mainly powered by Elio, the witty and comical banter has been enough to keep the Gamemakers from punishing the group of four, whom the Moretti's gather is quite well-liked in the Capitol. Sadly, the careers are all also alive sans the girl Elio killed. The boys have been traipsing concerningly close to Elio and his allies, while the incapacitated girl from Two nervously guards the cornucopia with a whip placed there for the boy from Ten, who ran at the gong and was found by the careers yesterday, since it is the only weapon that she can operate with seven fingers, including both thumbs, in poor excuses for splints. The lovey dovey couple from Four who broke off are nowhere near them, but each have already dispatched a tribute.

"Now, if we pull if the radar map of every tribute's tracker, we can see that Glory and Cyprian are getting dangerously close to our favorite band of four!" Claudius says excitedly, patting Caesar's back next to him.

"Ahh… there may be a little rivalry going on after Sable took Ambrosia out of action and Elio dispatched of Olivine. Let's see what will happen!"

The two men look on excitedly as the career boys walk through the forest, slashing leaves in their path with their swords, and in the process erasing any sense of stealth.

"They're only mile away, now, Claudius."

"Oh, I see, I see," Claudius says in a hushed, excited voice. "Ooh, I'm so giddy to watch what unfolds!"

The disgust that Lita feels, pointed at the two men on his television screen, registered noticeably, even under his deep worry. They, and the entire Capitol, for that matter, enjoy watching this, enjoy seeing young children die, and in his eyes, that is astronomically different from the death the Moretti's cause. They kill the enemy, the gangsters, the drug lords, the rapists, and the murderers, but most importantly the snobbish, cruel wealthy, especially the ones that fit into one or more of the aforementioned categories. Their kind of murder is justified, just like any murder in that arena is justified. The thing that isn't justified is the Capitol putting them in there in the first place.

"Ma! Pop! Celi! Get in here!" Russo yells from his place in front of the television. Lita's parents hurry in from the kitchen, their hands still meat stained, as Celi presumably scrambles to towel off from her lukewarm bath.

"What is it?! Did anything happen?!"

"No, but it might be about to."

"Don't be that worried," Quinn says. "It's four against two, advantage Elio, and the average score of his group rounds up to an eight." The shakiness in her voice betrays her fear.

"How could you not be worried?" Russo asks. "They both scored tens, and they have the element of surprise, and Elio's bow isn't good in close range."

"Well the other three all got sponsored better weapons!"

"Shut up, you two!" Lita screams, quelling the fighting. "You're turning into Caesar and Claudius! Do you really want to be like them?"

A pause lets Lita's words sink in as the entire family looks at him, shocked. Most of them have never seen him that loud or angry at any time they can remember. It's a testament to how badly he, all of them, need Elio here that now the whole energy has been swept into disarray, and Lita feels like without Elio here, he is a completely different person. They used to both be so calm, as Elio would crack jokes, and he was the best mediator.

"We're not like them, and we're never going to be like them," Russo says, not looking Lita in the eye as he focuses back on the screen inches away from him.

"Lita," his mother says, delicately stepping over the sprawled bodies of her three youngest, whom she has given up admonishing in such dire times, to sit down next to him on the smaller couch. "Thank you for mediating the fight, but next time, please leave it to us." She hesitantly puts a motherly hand on his shoulder.

"Somebody has to do it without Elio," he says so that only she can hear. "So if you two won't, I will. And I'm sorry for saying what I did to Quinn and Russo."

Ma nods and, her arm still around him, sits back on the couch to get a better view of the television screen.

What Lita said isn't true, and he knows it, and yet, in a way, it is. They kill too. They reap the rewards of it.

None of that matters, though. 'There are lions and there are lambs.' That's what Pop told all of them when they were babies. 'Lions work hard, they fight for themselves and for what they believe is theirs. They'll do anything to protect their pack. Lambs are content to let the lions walk all over them. Lambs are content to stay poor and let the lions rule. Lambs will shove someone else in front of them to take a bullet. Lambs are weak. You are a lion.'

There is no good and bad, only lions and lambs, only people you love and people you don't. Elio is a lion. Lita knows, or at least hopes that he knows, that his twin brother will fight to come home. They all miss him and need him so badly. Without him here, it feels so wrong, like a clock with the hour hand missing. He has to fight, like a lion, like a Moretti. None of them care what he has to do as long as he makes it back. Lions killed. They have killed. But above all, lions value family, because the blood bonds of family are the only things that brave the storm of water and the clashing forces of good and evil.

"It looks like two forces are about to clash."

As one, every pair of eyes in the room darts back to the television, where Caesar and Claudius look on excitedly and expectant. An overhead satellite shows the career boys are only a hundred feet from Elio, and they are creeping stealthily. They know who is near.

"No!" Celi screams as she rushes in, her hair wet. "What's happening?!"

"Ma, is Elio about to die?" Parker asks nervously, backing away from the screen as if the careers could reach out and take him too.

"God damnit, move, boy," Lita hears his Father whisper from feet away.

He can feel his mother's hands go even clammier as they cling to him, as the woman who he had never seen cry until Elio was taken away buries her face into his broad shoulder. This can't be happening. Elio isn't about to get ambushed and die, he's better than that. He has to stay calm, stay optimistic, but that's immeasurably hard without Elio here watching beside him. There is a hole in Lita's throat, his stomach flips and flops like a load of dirty clothes in a laundry machine.

A collective hush settles around the room as everybody quits their outward fretting and their bickering, all fearfully transfixed. Some of them shield their eyes, peeking through their fingers. Others pray, tears falling through closed eyelids. Lita stares unblinking, trying to send messages to his brother in some bizarre way, trying desperately to keep him alive.

Silence buzzes through their ears, as the feed cuts to the alliance of four, Elio and Sable mid conversation. They both stand near the rushing water and are mock circling each other as if in a duel, all four oblivious to the threat feet from them.

"Don't be try'na show me up, Six," she says playfully. "I can throw some burns too, ya know."

"It seems to me like you're the one too big for your britches," Elio says, imitating the District Ten drawl with surprising accuracy. "I thought southerners were supposed to be hospitab—behind you!"

The boy from One springs out from behind the bush at Sable, whose back is turned. She twists around, only receiving a nick on her back. She utters a loud battle cry of pain and stumbles back, searching for the axe sponsored to her without turning her back to the threat.

Elio sprints to his bow and notches an arrow as the boy from Two, Cyprian, holds Bobbin up by his neck from behind and brandishes a sword.

"Don't move!" he yells, his comical persona fading instantly.

Lita takes a moment to silently thank some sort of higher power, because his wishes, in a way, have been granted, and Elio stands in a position of power.

Sable, however, does not.

"You killed her!" the boy from One screams, pointing at her mistakenly. "You killed Livi!" Tears run down his dirty face, flushed with rage, and mingle with sweat. Vesa runs at him but he holds up his sword, and she halts. He holds his sword out and backs Sable up to the river edge. "You KILLED HER!" This time he points at nobody in particular, and as his eyes point at each of the four in turn, Sable takes her chance and runs at him.

He catches her side with his sword first, but that doesn't stop her. He swings a punch, but she swings back. The boy, having gone crazy, charges, his sword limp.

"Glory, you idiot!" Cyprian screams from the spot where he holds Bobbin, but it doesn't matter.

Sable halfway dodges, and they both fall into the water and the jagged rocks only yards beyond.

"Win, fuckers!" Sable yells as she goes flying in. Then she goes under, and all that remain to be seen of either of them is a streak of blood lingering amidst the tumultuous froth.

"NO!" Vesa screams, running to the edge and futilely extending a hand downwards, a forlorn look on her face.

"Fuck!" The Two boy says angrily, trembling with rage at being left stranded, an arrow pointed at his face.

Elio looks on at the place where Sable and her adversary last stood, tears welling up in his eyes. The room is still tense. Elio must stay calm. He knows it and so do they. He isn't out of the thick of it, but Lita is just happy that he's survived up to this point. Sable and Glory are just two numbers down in that moment of not caring for anyone or anything but his brother.

They're at a stalemate, Vesa inches from the point of the career boy's sword, Bobbin panicking, and Cyprian, panicking even more, at the riverbank, holding Bobbin hostage as Elio's arrow points at his throat. Two cannons ring out, breaking the silence.

All of a sudden, Cyprian slams Bobbin into the tree as he fights back, slashing his gut open, and is greeted by an agonized whimper of pain. Vesa throws the knife she was holding and scrambles over to his side as Cyprian, said knife lodged in his shoulder, runs away frantically. An arrow pierces the back of his knee, and he stumbles to the ground as Elio, conflicted, rushes forward. Another follows, this time in his head. A cannon rings out.

All of a sudden, the room erupts into celebration.

"Yes!"

"He survived! He killed them!"

"There's my boy!"

Elio stands, silent, immensely relieved, because his brother is still alive, three steps closer to making it back home. Pride swells in his stomach, pride in how strong his twin is that he sees reflected in Pop's eyes, because he a Moretti, and they taught him how to do that. He isn't even saddened that Bobbin lies on the ground in pain, incapacitated with his future looking grim as Elio kneels down beside him. They don't matter anymore. That can all wait for later. The boy who did that was a Moretti, and he is coming home, Lita just knows it.

The Arena

It is day six in the arena now, and ten are left standing after the girl from Five bit the dust last night, though Elio is inwardly sure that it is about to be nine. Bobbin is in a dire state. They were hardly able to relocate him to half a mile from the river, agonized yells and blood sloshing out of his wound impeding progress. He hasn't moved from his place propped up against the trunk of a tall, beige tree for over thirty-six hours, possibly closer to forty-eight by now, and his wound is hardly getting better. Quite the opposite, actually.

Elio tries to be laid back and positive on a daily basis, but right now he's finding it hard to do so. His allies—his friends—might start dropping like flies. He doesn't want to think about that, and instead he tries to entertain Bobbin, take his mind off of his condition, and make his last days as worthwhile as he possibly can. Sadly, laughing only hurts him and tears open the lengthy gash on his stomach. Elio is an optimist, but he is no idiot.

Vesa isn't as resigned as the other two of them. "Trust me," she said on day four, "I've healed worse than this, guys. One time my sister's leg got broken in three different places, and the bone pierced the skin and everything. But that's beside the point. You'll be up and walking in no time." Vesa is kidding herself, she's in denial, and the other two know it. But Vesa's asleep right now, and Elio has been up since the timer Bobbin found in his pack said her four hours of watch was up.

It's now two people that Elio has killed, but he doesn't feel as guilty about it as of today. The sensation is fading. It's all to protect his allies, to avenge his allies, and to get back home. Those reasons are surely honorable, especially when both of his victims have been trained volunteers who tried to murder an ally of his first. His family does it as an act of repayment to the poor, to bring down the vicious and stingy rich, who surely deserve to be in jail on some charge of drug dealing, sex trafficking, or something along those lines.

He does feel guilty about Sable though. If he could have been a bit faster with the boy, he could have brought down the boy from One before he took her down into the river below. It felt like a shot to the heart when she died, but he has to get used to that sad feeling that has pervaded the alliance the past few days, that feeling of being not completely whole, because it sure isn't going to leave anytime soon, especially not with Bobbin.

He looks over at his ally, just to check on him, and sees that his eyes are open. For one horrible moment he thinks he is dead, but that isn't the case.

"Sleeping with your eyes open?" Elio asks quietly, scooting over to him so as to avoid awaking Vesa.

"No," Bobbin responds, his voice tired and raspy. "May be doing that soon, though."

"Bobbin, don't think like that. You're going to make it through this." Despite being such a good liar that sometimes he even fools himself, Elio knows that this is false, and it comes out fake and strained.

"No, I'm not, and you know it. You've been saying that for days, and have I gotten better? No. You know it too. It's my time."

Elio can't think of anything to say, maybe for the first time in his life. Not even a joke to crack. He's excellent at fibbing, but he can't keep on doing it to Bobbin and to himself any longer. Now isn't the time for joking anyway.

"Fine," he says. "You're right."

"I want to go my own way, Elio," Bobbin says, and Elio can tell just that is exhausting him. "I don't want to lose to them. You know who I'm talking about. I want to have the power. I want my friends back in Eight to be proud of me. I don't want them to see me die in pain. I think this would be better."

"Me too. Do you want to do it now, then? That way Vesa won't try to convince you not to."

"Sure."

That one word crashes over Elio like a wave of freezing water, with it the realization that if he does not do something about it, his ally and companion is surely about to die. He knows that this is a good thing, but at the same time hates himself for it. He despises the world he lives in for making that a good thing, but there has been so much death over the past years that it feels like it doesn't even matter anymore. For a few seconds, he takes the time to truly ponder why his nation must be so utterly fucked up, enough to make death a commonality, a spectacle. This isn't the time to think about that though, it is the time to help a friend gently ease his way out the way he would prefer it, and deal with the repercussions of it and grief later.

"How do you want to do it then?"

"My knife is laying just over there. Give it to me please. I'll just make it nice easy. Jut a little cut."

Elio leans over and takes the dagger from the ground. He hesitates as he is about to hand it to him. He doesn't want to go through the same pain and mental torment that he did only days ago when Sable died. He's never experienced death in that way before, the death of somebody he cares about. It's making him start to realize that maybe death isn't the answer. After a while, it can all just get so mindless and all-consuming in its wrath, even if in the beginning the cause was a valid one.

"Are you sure about this?" he asks Bobbin.

"Yes. It's either this or something much more painful. I don't want to be a burden on you guys, either. Just make sure that you try your best to win. If you do, could you see if you could get some of my friends out of the orphanages and give them some money to start a life?"

"For sure."

"Thanks, Elio," Bobbin says, taking the knife held out to him with difficulty. "You're a good friend."

"You are, too." Elio almost wants to snatch the knife from him, even though he knows that this is the noble and pragmatic thing to do. He knows what is best, but he doesn't want to feel loss again. He would be happy—no, definitely not happy, but relieved and encouraged, bittersweet—to hear a cannon shot off in the distance and know that ten was whittled down to nine, but not now. Not when his friend is on the verge of suicide. But most of all he doesn't want his family to feel that excruciating pain.

"Tell Vesa she's a good one too, and I'm sorry for giving up on her. Make her understand."

"Sure thing, captain."

Bobbin wheezes out a laugh. "Is that the best you can do? Oh, that's the oldest one in the book," he says, in what would be a yell in any normal scenario. "Don't lose that, Elio. You'll need it. We all need it."

Elio can't think of anything to say anymore, so he just nods. That's best.

"Cori, Coco, Sash… the rest of you… whenever you're down, think of me. And make a name for yourself, walk the walk, don't just talk the talk. Love you guys… You too, Elio… and Vesa."

He lifts the dagger up at that. Elio almost screams no, but it's too late, and the bubbly red liquid is already pouring down his neck like a waterfall, his eyes blank and unfocused. The screams he was holding in erupt inside him as the cannon booms. Elio realizes that he is, in fact, crying, more like bawling, all of the calmness he was holding in for his friend's sake diffused.

"Elio! Elio! What happened?!"

"He wanted it like that," Elio tells his ally without looking at her. "No big fuss. His own way. He didn't want you to talk him out of it. He told me to tell you that you were a good ally and a good friend. I'm sorry."

"Damnit," she utters, her eyes streaming tears, and she takes a circle around the small clearing they were staying in.

It all seems so stupid now, the whole premise of it all. The Hunger Games. Elio just wishes that it could all end now and he could go home to his family, that they could fly off into the sky above together and never touch down on earth again. But he can't, and he has to face that fact. He had come into it planning on backstabbing his allies eventually, but he didn't think it would be this hard to watch them go.

"It's okay." Vesa is beside him now, both her arms around him. "I forgive you."

There's only one thing to do now. "We have to fight in his memory and Sable's," Elio says. "One of us has to win."

"We will. We have to. And we must stick together. We only have each other now."

Elio knows deep down that at some point he may end up shaming Bobbin and Sable eventually. He can't think about that now, though. He'll have to kill until then, though. He's fine with that. An eye for an eye, that's what they say, and extends into the cruelty and senselessness of death. He has to kill to escape. If he tells himself that he's only protective his family from being hurt, it sounds better. Until then, he just wants to delay the inevitable.

He hugs Vesa, because she's the only person he has left to hug. It feels nice anyway. He didn't want to get attached, but that desire is far gone now. What she said is true. They only have each other now.

District Six

"And now, we enter the Moretti household, home of our favorite jokester!"

The preppy young—at least, so she looks; it's hard to tell with Capitolites-woman with the enormous, pastel purple wig and matching outfit can hardly fit it all through the rather slim door into the house, which will likely be cut out of the staged reentrance.

Lita sits nervously on the couch out of view of the cameras with the rest of his family in their living room. The tension is palpable now, and he hopes it is passed off as stage fright by the camera crew and the interviewer, the energetic, foreign lady in her black and neon light purple pantsuit, fanning out into a frilly tail at the bottom, exposing legs of a darker purple color and perilously tall matching heels. In all honesty, that is part of it.

The television, black and lifeless for the first time in days, tantalizes them from its perch, and they can all but speculate on his current activities. It makes them all jumpy, not to mention the fact that the weapons have been meticulously hidden, the rack wedged under Ma and Pop's mattress, yet the fear still remains that what they are doing will be exposed. Lita knows that it is good and charitable, but the Peacekeepers obviously seem to disagree.

None of them have any way of knowing if the very Peacekeepers standing in the woman's entourage were among the ones that caught Russo and Celi with their masks off on that fateful mission, which set into action all of these terrible events, starting with them fearing Russo would be Reaped, and then Lita's name being called out. Elio won the coin flip they held to see who would volunteer, and yet he forages through the arena as the interview team preps for where to shoot, deciding it all for them. Lita suspects that Elio may have volunteered anyways, despite it being the stupid thing to do, because Lita could have scored a nine, probably a ten, if he had been the one who boarded the train. All of that is unchangeable now, though, and reminiscing on it does nothing to help the anxious mood permeating the family.

Celi, on the other hand, is much more nervous for a different reason, specifically the men and women in white surrounding her. She's good at hiding it, and only her family can tell by her ticks that this is incredibly daunting to her. She hasn't even left the house since that night sans Reaping Day. In her paranoid and defensive mind, she is almost certain buy just the head tilts they give her that they know who she is. Most likely, the all know who the Moretti's are. Possibly they suspect them but have no proof. Perhaps they only know their actions. Either way, she trembles, scared, and subconsciously tries to hide behind her siblings in front of her, putting up her typical mask of toughness and indifference.

"Don't be scared, Celi," Park whispers in an attempt at being inconspicuous.

Russo elbows him: "Be quiet, they can hear you. Now isn't the time. And don't try and act like you know what it was like to be there, and experience that fear, because you don't. Thanks for trying, though."

"Yeah," Celi adds. "Thanks."

The camera clicks off, and the purple woman walks over to the family.

"Now, lovelies, let's first get Mama and Papa, and then we'll do everybody else in turn. Does that sound good?" She says it all in an annoyingly cheering and condescending manner, as if she is rallying kindergartners to play some new game.

"Yes," Ma says, the coldness in her voice not striking the woman.

"We'll just sit you right about here," she says, pointing to the main, faded sofa, "and have all the brothers and sisters move out. Cyprus, move the chair over there for me please? No, not that one, the beige one in the corner."

She flattens out her dress as she sits down across from Ma and Pop, both looking anxious and surly, their guard walls up.

"So, just to introduce myself again, my name is Ignatia Santa, hi! And now introduce yourself," she prompts.

"Ricardo Moretti."

"Matilde Moretti."

"Now, I'll start you off with an easy one: What do you love about your son?"

"Well, everything, really," Ma replies. "What isn't there to love? He's such a joy to be around, so I can't really even say." She says it all in her practiced stoic nature, but heartfelt sincerity seeps through it.

"We miss our boy," Pop says. "He's the heart of the house, he's just so energetic and lovable and fun to be around. It's like a whole new life here without him, and we want our old one back."

"Aww, how sweet," Ignatia says, simpering, and Lita can't tell if she is being overdramatic, insincere, mocking, a combination of the three, or this is just a normal Capitolian reaction.

After a few more questions along the same line, and then Ignatia asks another: "Are you proud of your son in the arena as of this moment?"

"Well of course," Pop says. "He's fighting like a Moretti. He's doing us proud. We're so happy he never laid down let death come to him. We never knew he would. He's always been a fighter. All of us have been."

"What are your thoughts on the most recent developments involving him?"

"We feel bad for Elio," Ma starts, "losing his allies like that, but it only fast-forwarded the inevitable. We still feel confident that he can make it to the end with just Vesa. He's strong enough to do it by himself."

"And about Azalea from Eleven? The girl he and Vesa most recently clashed with?"

"We respect our son for doing what he did," Pop responds, rebuking her attempted baiting of them into who knows what. "It shows strength of character. If he didn't do that, there's no way he'd make it back."

Lita feels the same. Killing is second nature to him by now, not killing a fourteen-year-old girl with a broken leg but killing. In Six they all kill the enemy, and that girl is the enemy in that arena. He'd rather all twenty-three of them die than family. That's what is most important.

They interview Celi next.

"What kind of a relationship do you and Elio have?"

"We're very close, much closer than normal. But that goes for all of us. I'd want to say it be a kind of mentor-student relationship, but he teaches me more than I do him."

"What does he teach you?"

"Just… how to keep rolling with punches. How to be better with my words, boost my confidence. He's always got an arm ready to loop around my shoulder."

Next is Russo.

"I've always kind of wanted to be Elio," he says, responding to the first question asked to him. "He's just so cool, hardworking, honest, funny, and charismatic, and he always seems to know what he's doing. I've just always tried to learn stuff from him, and he's kind of my role model. No offense, Pop and Lita.

"None taken," Lita says, softly smiling with distant sadness in his voice.

In truth, the same applies to him. If Elio doesn't make it back, somebody needs to keep on his persona, maintain the energy as best as he or she can. Who is he kidding? Elio is irreplaceable."

"Miss you Elio, I know you'll come back home," Russo finishes.

Park is interviewed after him, and it seems they're going from oldest to youngest but saving Lita for last. Park is perhaps the most awkward of all of them, as he always is, blushing as his eyes shy away from the camera and lights. His words are still loving and from the heart, though, and his love for his older brother is unabashed.

Last is Quinn.

"Of-course I want Elio back," she says in response to the staple question. "He's the only one who's willing to play me in chess twenty-four/seven. I'm confident he will, though. Betters, place your money on my brother, you'll be sure to get a payday! Sponsor him anything you want." She smiles at that, a strained one, trying to keep some semblance of humor running for the interview in Elio's absence.

"I do miss him a lot, though," she answers to the next prompt. "I love my goofy older bro."

Lastly, it's Lita's turn.

"Take a seat right there, darling. Now, this may be a bit longer than your brothers' and sisters' interviews, okay sweetie?"

"Yes."

Lita isn't nervous. He's nervous been nervous around a spotlight, and he's excellent at always staying chill and going with the flow, staying relaxed. It's what he's best at. Then again, it's been hard recently without Elio by his side to protect despite his constant pleas and claims that he doesn't have to. Especially considering where he is. He has to fight against feeling on-edge now.

"So, Lita, I understand that you and your brother are very close, am I right?"

"Yes, Ignatia. It's kind of like a yin and yang thing we have going on, where we even each other out. If you can't tell already, he's the louder one of the two of us. He's the laughter buffer. It's been pretty quiet without him around. We're hardly ever part, and I feel like he's a part of me and vice versa. If he dies… a part of me will."

"That's so sweet of you," Ignatia gushes. "Now… do you have any favorite memories of Elio?"

"Probably the time when we were eight when we tried to switch without anyone noticing. People did almost immediately, but Elio got us out of punishment, and then we went off and got some ice cream to eat and just hung out. It was an awesome day, and it reminded both of us of how much we need each other, and not to ever try to swap bodies again."

Lita is getting sad reminiscing on that day. Everything seemed to be so free back then, before they realized that they world around them wasn't as carefree as they were and vowed to keep that carefreeness in spite of it. He always wants to cherish that memory. It may be the best one he ever has of his brother.

"Are you proud of your brother for making it this far?"

"I am, no doubt about it. I always knew he would end up in the final eight, just like I know he'll win, but I'm still proud. I'm proud to be his brother. And I'm also proud that he won't stop fighting. He'll do whatever it takes to get back to us."

"Any thoughts on Vesa, Elio's charming ally…?"

Elio forces a laugh in the face of all of his pain. He's good at masking it. "I definitely didn't think Elio would fall for somebody in the arena, but he definitely knows how to pick them. I can't tell you how many times he's made a fool of himself flirting with somebody."

"Do you think that she could bring Elio down?"

"No. Elio feeds off of the strength of other people. He and Vesa make a good team. If he doesn't win, I want it to be her."

The interview drones on and on like that for another half hour, before Ignatia finally gets up to leave and, after bountiful fake blown kisses for the camera to record, exits.

It's all over now. The house is quiet, and none of them say anything, just standing there solemnly for minutes before Ma rushes to flip the television back on. It feels so lifeless without Elio. Lita misses him so badly. They all do.

The Arena

It's day eleven, and a cannon shot out in the distance at dawn, signaling the final four. Elio is still alive, and Vesa is too. The other two still kicking are most likely the lover pair from Four, since they're a duo, and they probably found the girl from Three earlier today.

Elio is, at this point, running out of jokes, which is explicable when considering the harsh conditions that he has survived in for days and the tense mood swirling around the jungle where he sits in wait, arrow notched, as Vesa scouts the trees, step one of their plan. Her plan, really. The fact that Vesa's partner's face was in the sky last night doesn't help, and all day she has been in a tearful and distant sulk, semi-impervious to Elio's feeble attempts at comedy.

Elio is honestly shocked that he has made it this far. It feels good, to possibly have truly proved Lita wrong and shown him that he can, in fact, protect himself and others. He doesn't have to do any protecting anymore, though. The end is near, whether it be of life or of the Hunger Games. That is what is truly souring the mood between him and Vesa, and it is souring his thoughts as he sits in wait. At some point in the very near future, one of them is going to have to die, whether it be at the hands of the Fours or at the hands of one another. Elio has been conditioned for this for practically his whole life. He has killed three people already, so why should this one be so hard?

He has to watch her die to make it back to his family, and that is what he prizes far above anything else, even his dignity. Elio has known to work hard his entire life, and he won't stop doing that now. People who don't do not deserve to win the Hunger Games. Vesa is not as important as them, even after all that they have been through together. Blood is thicker than water.

"Psst, Elio," Vesa whispers from the treetops.

He looks up at his ally, grim with anticipation. "What took you so long?"

"You try swinging from tree to tree for three hours while trying to be stealthy and searching for two people you're about to kill."

"You found them, though, didn't you?"

"Yes. I found them. There about two miles east of us, near the ravine we camped at."

"If there that far away, then why are we whispering?" Elio asks before laughing softly.

Vesa smiles and giggles, but it's strained. "I have no idea."

She drops to the ground with barely a thud and takes the knife that Elio hands her.

"Come on, I think we should walk for most of it. I made a mark on a tree about a quarter of a mile ahead of us." Vesa starts along worming herself through the trees.

"Why do you say that?" Elio asks, starting along behind her. "I bet I'm even better than you at all that Tarzan shit."

"Sure," Vesa says, and he can tell she is grinning behind him, but it is bittersweet.

Elio's grin is bittersweet, too. "What were they doing when you saw them?"

"Wouldn't you like to now?" Vesa responds, which makes Elio laugh.

"I'm finally rubbing off on you."

"It was inevitable. Seriously, the girl was sitting outside their tent trying to prepare something on a spit while her partner was practicing with his sword. I figure he best time to try and ambush them is when they sit down to eat."

The time flies as they trek through the humid and muggy jungle, dusk, their ally, creeping up on them. It seems like no time at all until they make it to the cross marked tree.

"Now we climb," Vesa says, starting to inch up the tree.

Elio takes note of the hugging method she uses and starts his way up after her. Once they both have made it up, Vesa hops gracefully, so gracefully it shouldn't even be possible, onto a limb four feet away, and stands ten feet above him.

"See you on the other side," Elio says, volume at a bare minimum so she can hear him.

The words hang in the air, ominous and foreboding. Elio meant the end of their journey, hopefully their victory over the Fours. He realizes now how it sounds.

"You too," Vesa mutters, not quite meeting Elio's gaze. He suspects she is thinking the same thing that he is: One of them is about to die. There is a chance they both will.

Vesa scales further up the neighboring tree, hops onto the next one, and eventually disappears behind the heavy green foliage.

"Sorry, Vesa," Elio says, so that only he can hear.

He's all alone now. No. He isn't. Because the entire nation has their eyes on him right now, he knows it, and all of a sudden, he is more conscientious than ever that his family is not, in fact, watching him. They are here with him. He is so close to seeing them again. He won't let them down, not after all that he has put them through.

Hopping from tree to tree is as difficult as Elio expected it to be, but Vesa cleverly gave him the much easier path. It's not too long before he teeters onto a thin branch and all of a sudden sees the pair from Four below him by ten to fifteen feet, enjoying their meal, staring at each other the way that lovers do. So obliviously vulnerable. He is positioned above the boy almost perfectly to drop. They are only lucky that Elio has lost all of his arrows to hunting and slaughter and must use a sponsored scimitar instead.

He is grateful for the nearby ravine, carrying away their sounds with its raging torment. He can see them sitting in the exact same place the boy from Two was when he died. It makes him oddly mad to see them at his camp. Something is different from when it was his, though. He is the aggressor now, not the defender, in the everlasting cycle of kill after kill.

Elio looks across from him and finds Vesa, her vibrant red hair patted down with mud. He smiles and holds up his index and middle finger crossed. She mirrors him and points downwards. This is it. Elio readies his sword hand.

Vesa holds up three fingers. One drops. Elio looks down. Another drops. The fall is more daunting than Elio was anticipating. The last one drops, and Elio can't wait any longer.

He plunges down in that same way an assassin would, gliding through the muggy jungle air as it rushes past his ears for a millisecond that seems like an eternity. Mid-flight, the motions feel so reminiscent of those he has seen his family perform time and time again as they swoop in on their prey, the harbingers of death. Death, that thing that always seems to follow him and everyone, the thing that he is probably about to cause as his arrow nears the Four boy's neck. The thing that is ever so centric to him making it back home, the result of something that must be done. He has to do this, and at this point he is just as much or more a killer as all of his family members, especially after what he did to that poor girl from Eleven. Death is the answer to becoming victor. Death is the answer to everything. He hopes that isn't what his family thinks, because he can't bear seeing his friends, his family in the arena, die. There are better ways to solve problems and right wrongs, and here he is, about to kill a boy who must have killed at least as many tributes as he has.

And then, just like that, he falls to the ground with a silent thud and can see the horrified look on the girl's face for a blurred flash before his knees collide with a muscled back and blood spurts sky high as the boy falls, dying, to the ground, choking and clawing at his lacerated neck and the growing pool of red around him. He falls limp. A cannon sounds.

A scream sounds moments later, one of fury and pain, mental not physical. Elio looks up just in time to see the Four girl, blood running down her legs, slam Vesa into the tree she just dropped from. Vesa's grip slackened, and she collides with the sturdy trunk once more dropping.

"RAAAGHH!" The girl from Four, weaponless, punches Vesa in the head, blood from a wound trickling down the back of her skull now where she has hit the tree. She falls limp to the ground.

Elio stands up, and is going to react and try to save his friend for who knows how much longer until the inevitable, because he loves her like he loves a sister, or maybe in a way much more complex than that, much more romantic than that, and he doesn't want her to die, when she stirs and grabs the knife she dropped beside her. She then proceeds to stab it into the rogue career girl's leg.

She shrieks and stumbles, falling to the ground beside her boyfriend's corpse and clutching it like a lifeline as she draws her left leg in. "Delmar! Delmar!" Her tears of loss pour down dirt-stained cheeks as she shakes him futilely. "No! No, you aren't gone." She cups his face in her hands and sees his lifeless eyes, before her expression transforms into something much worse, and she drops his head in resignation.

He rushes over to help his ally up, but she can hardly stand at the moment.

"Elio?" Vesa extends a hand, trying to regain some sense of balance. A concussion is obvious.

"Your's truly," Elio says as he hoists her by the armpits.

She drops back to her knees, grimacing in pain as she tries to stand. She looks up at him gratefully, innocently, perhaps even lovingly, but turns so her profile is facing him as she clings to the tree.

Elio's scimitar still rests in his hand, and the Four girl seems to be temporarily incapacitated with grief. Elio can sense his family back home cheering for him, uttering commands of what they know is the pragmatic thing to do. Vesa will surely be up and stable in seconds.

At this point, the sense of it has become so numb to him that it feels as if he is watching Vesa fall to the ground with hole in her chest caused by someone else. He did that. He won't let himself forget it. Elio forces his eyes away from the hurt and betrayal in Vesa's, for once in his life, because he can't bear it.

He approaches the Four girl, still sitting down, quite the easy target. She doesn't seem to care, and it's not like Vesa is coming back to finish either of them off.

She looks up at him, and, with nothing but pure loathing in her voice, says, "You did this." She pulls her lover's corpse tighter, waiting for him to pull the finishing blow as she relishes in his evident internal pain.

This girl has a family back home. So did her partner. They had each other, and now they are apart. This is what death and loss does to people, and he would never let it happen to the seven he loves dearest back home watching him on the edge of their seats.

Elio kills her with one quick slice to the throat, and a cannon booms. Only one more must go off. He has practically won already.

He walks back over to Vesa and kneels down in front of her.

"I'm sorry, Vesa. I'm so, so, so, so sorry. I didn't want it to have to happen this way."

She looks up at him with effort, sadness and agony on her face, but some semblance of contentment there too. "It's okay," she says. "This was inescapable. It had to happen at some point at another. And I'm glad you won. You deserve it. Just please try and remember me, and try and find my sisters, and try and help them. They'll understand. Make sure they overcome it." A solitary tear drips from her eye, and one of Elio's does the same. "I'll be chilling up in the sky waiting for you."

"Give all those angels hell for me," Elio says. He's just joking, one last joke. It's not even that, just his ingrained tendency to try and lighten the mood. Just a stupid pun. He doesn't want any of those angels up there to be given hell if that place is real, especially not the twenty-three souls who died in the arena.

"You can count on it." Vesa's eyes are beginning to dim. "Now do it. And don't be too hard on yourself either."

Elio raises his scimitar, and he is lost for words, the choking sensation in his throat almost too much to handle. "Goodbye, Vesa," he musters out.

"Goodbye, Elio."

One swing of the sword and he is crowned victor. He can hear the hovercrafts above as beams of light shines down from the trees in the dusk, a ladder dropping down for him to grab. He did it. He can see his family again.

District Six

The footage of Elio's tearful reunion with his family in Six does not do it justice. Every one of them is crying, even Pop, who has never been seen crying by any of them except Ma, not even when Elio was made a tribute. They take turns hugging Elio in intervals, muttering things unintelligible. They all look immensely overjoyed despite their tears, with some a few cheek stains, others outright bawling.

It could never capture the sheer magnitude of jubilance at any given reunion, not even the off occurrences of orphans, pariahs, or tributes with asshole families winning, and that is because the whole district goes up in a revel to rival all other revels of any other occasion. Nor could it capture the raw emotion felt, or the love given.

"Missed me?" Elio asks as he is bombarded by affection, some of it from people he has never even met.

"Yes, you idiot, we missed you!" Lita runs in to embrace Elio.

"Don't get so sappy on me, okay? Let's keep this a man hug."

Elio laughs and is overcome by the realness of this just then for the first time since he killed his final opponent. He hugs his twin brother back.

"I'm sorry," Lita whispers at a volume only Elio can hear. "For having my name drawn out of that stupid fucking bowl. And for always thinking I had to protect you."

"Don't be sorry for that," Elio says back. "Be sorry for telling everybody we tried to switch places! Now they'll never be able to tell which one of us is which."

Lita laughs and releases his significantly smaller brother to the affectionate wrath of their family.

"I can't believe you made it out!" Russo says as he and his siblings bombard Elio. "I never could have done that, Elio you're the most amazing person ever!"

"Indeed, I am," Elio responds.

"He gets it all from me," Quinn says jokingly in contrast to her face, red with excitement, and her eyes, tearful with joy.

"I think it's the other way around, kid," Elio says merrily, pulling Quinn in.

"Are you hurt or anything? Are you sure everything is fine?" Park asks nervously, perturbed by the raucous crowd around them churning under the Moretti's platform. He comes in to bear hug Elio with, pulling the hand behind him closer.

"Nope. Did you do fine when I was gone?"

"Yes," Park responds reassuringly. "Well, as good as can be expected."

Celi stands anxiously, scared of the loud crowd behind her, though concealing very well minus those twitches only her family can recognize.

"Come here, big sis," Elio says, lunging forward with three smaller bodies pulled along to enrapture her in the hug.

"I figured, well, you dealt with all of that horrible shit in the arena, and you must have been scared out of your mind, so I might as well face my own fear," Celi says quietly, still trying to hide her emotions behind her wall of anxiety, but a glorious smile breaks out to thwart her efforts.

"Don't sell yours short. Everybody's different. I'm just glad you came."

Next, Elio moves onto his parents, patiently waiting for their turn as they watch their children celebrate with contentment and happiness.

"Come here, honey," Elio's mother says as she brings him into the warmest bear hug he has ever gotten. "You don't know how much we've missed you," she says, voice wavering. She cups his face in her hands. "You've gotten so skinny. Are you sure there's no scrapes and bruises that the Capitol forgot to fix?"

"Nope, I'm clean as a whistle."

Elio approaches his father last.

"Son," he starts, speaking at a volume only Elio and his wife can hear behind the uproar beneath them, "I think I always took you for granted and underestimated you. And I—I just wanted to say that I am sorry. You are much stronger than I ever could be. I'm proud to have you as my son. I love you. You are a lion. You are a Moretti."

"Thanks, Pop," Elio says, hugging the man for the first time that he can remember. "I love you too. And don't act like I'm strong and you're weak. I learned it all from you."

The Moretti's, after repetition of this for some time, step down. Elio is lifted high, the newest victor, and quickly begins to crowd surf as he basks in all his victory-induced fame. It doesn't last long, however, and he is quickly returned to his awaiting family. They haven't seen Elio for a good three weeks. There's some catching up to do. And while Elio behaves gaily, in the back of his mind he tries to reaffirm his insistence that what he did to win was warranted to win for his family, he can't get out of his mind the image of the forlorn, crying, positively bleak woman who seemed to have taken a humongous amount of morphling in a very small window of time, forced to stand by herself on the platform with Elio's family, and the image of his skinny little district partner, Acosta, only fourteen, being bludgeoned to death by the boy from Two seconds into the bloodbath.

Six months later, Elio arrives back in his home of Six from the Victory Tour. His speech is hushed, and his eyes meet no other pairs. The mood of the celebration is somewhat suffocated without his air. His final speech of gratefulness as he pays tribute to Acosta is hurried.

"What's wrong?" Lita asks him after he closes himself off into Elio's palatial bedroom. "Did something happen on the Tour?"

"I just… when I saw those kids in the arena, they looked like enemies. They looked like the people we…" he quiets, conscientious of the cameras all around, "the people we used to kill. But most of them were good people. And I still see their faces every time I close my eyes, all twenty-three of them, and I'm always worrying now if one of them should have won instead of me, because I don't feel like a good person." Elio looks up sadly at his brother, guilty and in pain over seeing the agony he personally caused. "You never saw the way they acted," he continues. "The way they looked at me. I didn't even have a reason to kill Azalea. And I'm starting to think that I should have just let Vesa win instead of… of betraying her."

Elio has to force the word "betraying" out, the think that the Moretti's despise most, left unspoken until now. He tries to muster a smile for his twin, the one he always wears, but his humor is spent now, and his heart is jaded.

"Are you serious?" Lita asks his twin incredulously as he puts an arm around Elio, unlike his normal mellow and aloof self. "Elio, you did what you had to do to win, and that's all that matters. There are no such thing as good or bad people, only people in the middle. Moretti's fight, and we aren't afraid to kill. You have to reaccept that now." He lowers his tone to talk about more secretive subjects. "They were just enemies, just like the ones we used to fight against. We killed them for a good reason. Don't feel guilty about it, because they would have just as soon done the same to you. Family comes first, Elio. Any one of them can die as long as it isn't one of us. Some of them should die. You should have seen us when you weren't here, dude. It was horrible and foreign. You're just the center of everything, we need you so much, so don't be guilty, be grateful and proud and happy."

"Why does everything have to come back to death? There are better ways to fix things."

"Because that was the only way you could get back to us. We're a family, Elio, and we need every member. Don't feel remorse, a kill is just a kill, somebody we don't know. Why should we feel sad? There are problems that we need to fix, and sometimes death is the only way to solve them."

"That isn't true."

"Maybe not for anybody but us it isn't. You're a Moretti, and why can't you keep on embracing that. We take a bullet for each other. We kill for each other. It's all fair in the end."

And with that, Lita slams the door shut and walks off, leaving Elio to stew in his own confliction and misery.

The Arena

The air around the tributes is frigid with the draftiness of the dungeons they are trapped in and the tension arising. Some of them are about to die. Elio panics when he sees it shivering as he wrings his hands with a white-knuckling grip. He is scared. Worse than scared, terrified. He sees the katana placed only fifty yards away from him, so tantalizing. He trembles, shaking like a leaf, and the girl from Seven puts a hand on his shoulder, smiling reassuringly. He corrects himself. Woman from Seven. She looks almost as scared, but nobody in the room looks as nervous as Elio, tears welling up in his eyes already.

The gong sounds, and Lita Moretti leaps off his pedestal and sprints straight for the katana laid out for him.

"No," Elio whispers, praying twin telepathy is somehow real. "No!"

Lita has no allies, and he is by far the strongest tribute in the arena sans the careers, having scored a ten in training. The highest score of any other outlier was a seven. The careers have already begun cutting down their victims, and by the time Lita reaches his weapon, the tribute count has already been knocked down to twenty-one.

All of a sudden, the boy from District Eight runs at him wielding a dagger. He is young, only thirteen, and very foolish. Lita wastes no time slashing his potential killer and running away.

And then a knife lands in his Achilles tendon and he flops to the ground screaming in agony.

"NO!" Elio bellows, trying to communicate with him.

The girl from One stalks ever-closer, slowly emptying her magazine on Lita as he screams in pain.

"Elio!" he yells. "Elio!"

"Gonna whine to your brother, huh?" she asks mockingly. "See if he can get you out of this one? It's no use. You're already dead." She laughs, and Elio gets déjà vu of this day last year, when the District One Female was on top of him. He is praying for another miracle.

"Elio," Lita says again, this time much quieter. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what? He's the one who should be sorry. He killed my sister. And now I'm going to make him pay."

"Elio. You were right."

Those are Lita's last words. The last knife lands in his head, ending his pain and misery, and District Six's chances at victory.

The world erupts in flames in Elio, and nothing seems to matter anymore except for running away, escaping it all. He screams, bawling, and bursts through the door without bothering to pack up his things. He runs around in circles aimlessly, the world around him spinning and blurred with tears. His brother, his twin, his role model, his best friend is dead, and it's his fault.

District Six

On December 17, for the first time in Elio's life, he celebrated his birthday without Lita. The atmosphere was tense and emotional. Ma had to leave as Elio opened his present, a wristwatch from Pop. Lita's lay unopened in the attic. Elio ran upstairs and found her clutching it to her chest. They both wailed.

The mood in the Moretti house has come to a definite and miserable standstill of grief and gloom, one that each occupant worries is permanent as the days and eventual months pass by. Whereas when Elio and Lita were both trapped in a bloody death pageant, at least there was some hope then that they would come back alive. There is no hope now that Lita will come back alive. They all saw what happened to him with their own eyes. They all wish that they hadn't.

Elio feels guilty. After all, he is the one who told Lita to go into the bloodbath foolishly. His twin would have done a better job of mentoring himself if Elio had just stayed in the background as comic relief. That's all he was ever good for, and now he isn't even good at that. The lies to the cameras come easy to him though, they always have. He almost likes it. It feels like an escape, the one true time when he can pretend like his brother is somewhere off in another room in the house.

He never quite realized how essential Lita was to the whole dynamic of it all. He hadn't been separated from him for longer than twelve hours prior to being Reaped, so maybe he had grown accustomed to it, took it for granted despite all of the drive and thoughts of how much his family needed him and he needed his family in the arena. After he fought so hard to retain it, it was broken.

It's never coming back, that unbreakable circle, no matter how hard Elio or anybody else tries. The rest of them want him to accept it, and deep down, he fears and knows that it is true.

Lita Moretti is dead, and he took their family, and a good chunk of Elio, with him. It's worse than anything feeling he has ever felt in his life. Worse than he felt when he killed Vesa. Now he really knows how it feels to experience loss. He thought he dead when he watched his friends die and saw their families devastated on the platforms on the Tour, but know he does. Now he has truly experienced the gut-wrenching agony of losing the person closest to him, and he is beginning to ponder whether or not he even wants to live.

It seems so stupid and ungrateful to say that as he stands on the dead bodies of twenty-three others who would all gladly take his place, especially after he fought tooth and nail to escape death. Its tendrils are stretching nearer him now than he ever felt them do in the arena. Now he feels them tickling his spine and wrapping around his head, trying to convince him to do something crazy, idiotic, and fatal.

Live doesn't seem to be worth living anymore though. Everything is tinged with the gray of melancholy, and every time Elio tries to lighten the mood with a joke, it is always halfhearted and awkward, and all near shoot daggers at him with their eyes as if asking him how he dares to say such a thing.

In short, Elio's family and his life are falling apart at the seams.

He feels aimless without Lita to guide him and to support him, and the guilt plaguing him is all-consuming. He tries to give purpose to his life by donating money to their families: Sable's parents, Bobbin's friends, Vesa's sisters. It doesn't make him feel any better. Before when he was laidback and relaxed, it was a cool sort of calmness, but now he seems to be wallowing in the monotony of not having Lita by his side.

"Lita! What is taking you so long up there! We need to be at the Justice Building by eleven!" His mother is calling to him angrily from the bottom of the stairs.

He knows that he should obey her, and yet this is the exact opposite of what any of them want to do. Sadly, attendance is mandatory, and victor unattendance is punishable by death. None of them want to go see Tourmaline Parma, victor of the previous Hunger Games, and killer of Lita. Nevertheless, they are all ready to go by ten thirty, and are dropped off by their chaperone with a few minutes to spare.

The speech is rather bland, but at least the girl seems sincere when she calls Lita a worthy competitor. She never looks at them, only straight forward into the distance as she recites her speech from memory. On the podium, Elio is grateful that he isn't nearer her. Around him, all of his family are able to hold in their tears. Most of them don't have any threatening to come, only sheer loathing at the girl in front of them.

For Elio it is a mixture. That girl killed Elio and caused him and his family immeasurable grief. He did the same to her. Her sister volunteered for this. So did he. So did Lazuli. Lita never volunteered for this. It was a petty, misguided act of revenge, but then, her volunteering in the first place was misguided. Elio hopes that she knows that now.

He likes to think that he was in the right when he killed Olivine, whose name he still remembers, because she was seconds away from killing Vesa, and then seconds away from him. It was just like all of those times when he and his family murdered all of those rich people that they thought stingy, mean, and tight-fingered for the good of the poor below them. None of those were really justified in the end. There were better ways. You could say that Tourmaline's act of murder was unprovoked, but in actuality, it was just an act of vengeance. That doesn't justify it, though. All in all, he, his entire family now that Quinn has had her eleventh birthday, and Tourmaline, too, are all killers. A murder is a murder.

After a hearty meal in the Justice Building, Elio walks out the back to get some fresh air, brisk with the frigid wind, but still refreshing, but when he walks out, somebody is already standing with her back to him, facing the pathetic garden in the cement backyard, golden blonde hair flying in the wind in its natural waves. Tourmaline

Elio moves stealthily to go back inside, hopefully unnoticed, but she calls out to him: "Stay."

Elio walks closer to her, curious as to what she has to say. The victor from One turns around to meet his gaze,

"Got something to say to me?" Elio asks, all trace of humor void in his voice, replaced by a challenging, angry confusion.

"Yes." She flicks her hair and starts to twirl it, the same tell as Quinn. She is quite obviously uncomfortable to Elio, who, hence his old job as interrogator, is marvelous at reading people. "I'm sorry. That was what I wanted to say. I thought that if I volunteered, and if I made my family proud, and if I killed the District Six male, then it would all be better, but none of it got better. It just got worse." She looks up at him, in the eyes for the first time, and he can see extreme pain in her eyes, even behind all of the mascara and fake smiles for the cameras, because there are no cameras here.

"It's just unbearable, the pain," she continues as Elio takes all of this in, his face hardened. "You should know that. I just wanted to escape it, and if not that then cause it to somebody else. I just wanted to kill to make other people hurt." Gasps pepper her words as she struggles to hold in tears of being overwhelmed. "And then your brother was Reaped, and I was just… just an evil idiot. I shouldn't have even volunteered for this in the first place."

A silence ensues, only broken by the gusts of chilly wind gliding through the compact alleyways all around them. She's right, and Elio knows it, on more than one account. This pain is unbearable. And she is right about death and killing too. All it does it hurt, never any good. Not even with the lowliest scum of the earth who deserve to leave it, because the trauma always festers, and people always must mourn. It's all the same, what he did in the arena, what his family did up until his victory, and what the Capitol does.

"You're right," he says, after a long while spent processing it. "And I'm sorry too, for killing your sister. Losing the person that you're closest to is something I wouldn't wish on anyone."

"Thank you," she says, hiccupping and wiping mascara off of her cheeks that slides down in black droplets. "This is embarrassing, I never do this in front of people."

"It's all cool, I don't judge," Elio says, and for the first time, he finally feels a hint of that old, blissful self of his in his words now that he is finally talking to somebody that he can understand.

"Thanks." She stands there awkwardly, and another awkward pause ensues, but Elio doesn't want to stop talking, and he can sense that Tourmaline doesn't either.

"Grieving is tough as hell," Elio says.

"It is."

"Why do we even have these stupid Hunger Games?" Elio asks, certain already of the answer. "They don't accomplish anything except for hurting people."

"I'm beginning to think that they aren't so good myself either," Tourmaline agrees with a hint of sarcasm.

"You know why," Elio says, hands indiscreetly gesturing to everywhere around him.

Tourmaline looks at him quizzically.

"Cameras. They have them everywhere."

"Are you serious?"

"No, I'm definitely not. How do you think the Capitol gets all of its intel and keeps such a hard eye on us?"

"Oh" Tourmaline says, picking up on Elio's heavy sarcasm. She nods her head and looks around them, taking a spin.

"I would've expected you to be more shocked with that information."

"At this point, I've been through so much that nothing can really shock me anymore."

Elio understands what she means. "Me too. I kind of feel like I… like I'm not the same as I was before it all happened, but not in a good way. I just want everything back the way it was."

"It's never going back to the way it was." The words ring out hauntingly in the street around them. Elio looks at Tourmaline, and all he sees is hollowness and hurt.

They are true, her words. It isn't going to happen. Now Elio just has to accept it and roll with the punches like he always does. Like he always used to, the same way Lita did.

"You're right." Elio looks up at this girl, his brother's killer, and those hollow eyes look back at him. He can't believe that he is having a heart to heart with the one responsible for ruining his life, when he has done the same to her. "And that's what really sucks about losing somebody. Death doesn't care, it just takes, and it takes, and it takes."

"I guess that ties into what you said a minute ago about the Capitol, and the cameras, and all of that. Death doesn't care, and neither does the they." Tourmaline makes no effort of obscuring her voice, and Elio is surprised that she is this anti-Capitol, something he has never seen before in a career. Maybe they all are behind the façades they put on for the cameras; maybe they all are haunted and destroyed the way that he and Tourmaline are.

"That's the cold, hard reality of it all. Lita, Olivine, and everybody else. It's all the same. And it hurts like nothing else. Like falling into a bottomless pit of despair."

"All that's left to do is try to overcome it. Try to pick up the pieces and make out of yourself the best that you can possibly be now. Nothing is ever going to be the same, so you might as well give up on the past and try to build your future."

"We can't forget about them though. I know that we both have to let go of the pain, but all of it will never fade away. I don't want it to. I want to remember him."

"We have to do a bit of both, then. I know that Olivine wouldn't want to see me like this all because of her. I doubt your brother would like that much either."

She's right. She's right about everything, and when Elio sees this beautiful girl, all that he sees staring back at him is himself, in all of his sadness and lost joyfulness. He doesn't want to be like that. He decides then and there that he will do what Tourmaline says wholeheartedly.

"Let's make a pact," he says to her. "In six months when we see each other again, we both are going to be better. We'll both have come to live with it and gotten stronger because of it."

"Deal."

Tourmaline holds her hand out to shake, and Elio takes it. A bittersweet resolve of determination exudes off of her.

"See you in six months," Elio says to her.

"Same."

She nods at him and leaves, walking up the backstairs to the Justice Building.

"Don't miss me too much," Elio calls out, and she looks back at him and smiles. This time her eyes are sincere. She closes the door, and she is gone. Elio knows that that is probably the closest the two of them will ever get, and he likes it that way. He sees a kindred spirit in her, and she is, by all accounts, gorgeous, but he could never love her after what she did. She is more of a companion now, the only one who truly gets him.

That one conversation, that one hint of comedy that would have been poor in any other situation now feels exhilarating to Elio, because after it, he feels like he is gaining a bit of himself back. He is just as resolved as the girl from One. He is going to build a new future for himself and his family.

Elio Moretti may have lost it all with one final flick of a knife, but he is going to get as much of it back as he can. He is going to cling to his family like he never has before, cling to that glorious sensation and circle of love, because it is all that he has left. He will not let the black water of loss break the blood bond his family has. The way it was is impossible to return to, but he will do his best. Elio will save his family, because it is his everything. Without it, he is nothing. Death is a wry mistress, but it will not break him.

This is the longest chapter or piece of fanfiction that I have ever written, and I have to say that I am immensely proud of it. I love Elio so much, and I have to say thank you to Marie for sending him to me, at the end of this long, hard road, I have gotten so attached to him, and while it feels good to get this burden off of my chest, all of the stress was worth it to see him come into fruition. I know this story may not have been at all what you were expecting, and I am sorry to you and to anybody else who read this marathon of a one-shot for putting you through this. Creative liberties just kind of made me go crazy with glee, but I think and hope I did all aspects of his character justice and portrayed him as you imagined.

I feel like this is one of my biggest accomplishments as a writer so far, and when I originally signed up, it was in tier two, so I am honestly shocked with what all I wrote and amazed at myself. It's also one of my first attempts at writing in third person, so take that into consideration when judging this story. I hope this wasn't to cheesy or boring in some parts and didn't drag, because I put a lot of work into it and I know you were probably hoping for a more experienced writer that you were more acquainted with. On that note, since we have never officially talked at all ever, hi! You're tribute form was excellently written out and if you enjoyed this and are still around this site in a year or so, please considering subbing to my SYOT or PMing me if you have an SYOT, your verse is quite popular and, from what I've gathered, is one of the best written on the site.

For everybody who read this, please give all of your thoughts on it in the reviews, since I put a lot of work into it and always love to see feedback and people reading. The fun in this vastly outweighed the stress, and if this thing is sort of a triyearly type of thing, count on me every time for a tribute. Will all of that said, bye!

-Mills