Jo puts her hand on her hip and scowls. Dean ignores her.

"I still think it's a bad idea," she whispers loudly—just loud enough that Ava Wilson will be able to hear her, but quiet enough to not make it seem like she's trying to make the girl hear her. It's a thin line to walk, but by God Jo's mastered it. School must have taught her something after all.

The girl they're discussing is squatting by the small fire Jo had used to cook the rabbit. With a few well-placed twigs and fanning breaths (flinching away from the flames when the sticks cracked and sent sparks up into the air), Dean had managed to revive the fire (hating the warmth but also loving it) while Jo went out to check the traps. Ava had sat down and shook while Dean fixed the fire, though the sun is barely setting and not even he is cold, even after shaking in a fever for the better part of a day.

Dean wants to ask her what happened to Dae Mon and Mary Worthington, but he suspects he won't get a straight answer.

"Come on, Jo," Dean argues back, keeping his voice at the same volume as Jo's. "Does she really look like she can do anything to us right now?"

He hadn't thought that they would be so lucky as to have a tribute wander right into their clutches. He needs to be able to sell the role that he feels bad for her. At the moment he's not particularly confident in his skills, so much so that trying to kill Ava Wilson now could alert her too soon and have her turn on them. He needs her to be lulled into a fake sense of calm and sleep. After that… well.

Dean's getting back to Sam, and he's taking Jo with him. Ava should just be glad she found them instead of Constance. They'll at least give her a quick, painless death.

Too bad he can't tell Jo his plans. Ava keeps sneaking quick glances at them and any whispering would alert her. Dean still doesn't know how she killed Dae Mon and Mary Worthington. He can't risk her having an ace up her sleeve that he won't see coming.

"Jo," Dean says firmly, "I want you to go out and check the traps again. See if you've caught any poughkeepsies."

Jo's eyebrows shoot sky-high. Technically speaking, poughkeepsie is their code for when they need to run. Hopefully Jo will be able to tell that Dean's planning something and not simply telling her to run.

"And then come back," Dean adds, a seemingly unnecessary comment to Ava and an explanation to Jo.

Slowly, Jo nods. "All right." She turns and treks into the woods. Just before she disappears behind a tree, Dean sees her begin to flip her father's knife. He hopes Sif Terr or Constance won't be waiting for her out there, but he also can't run the risk of Ava running off. She's too easy a target. She's just sitting next to the fire, shivering.

Dean turns to Ava. Holding his hands out to demonstrate that he's unarmed, he approaches her, limping, and keeps his eyes fixed on the hand she keeps in her pocket. "What happened?" He hopes the limp will make him more approachable. Too bad he's not even faking that. Though Jo had done a good job making a brace for his ankle.

Ava snorts. "The Games happened."

Dean can't help but internally agree with that. Out loud, he keeps his face neutral and asks, "Are you injured or something? Why'd you come to us for help?"

"I'm sick," she says simply, pushing her black hair out of her eyes. "I figured I'd either get help or die. At this point I don't care one way or the other."

Dean cocks his head and looks at her. He can't ever fathom giving up like that. He'd rather face the whole group of Careers alone than surrender. John always told him that surrendering is for the weak. Ava meets his searching gaze head-on.

Her eyes are hazel, just like Sam's. And as the sun sets, as the trees cast shadows on the ground, those eyes are thrown into sharp relief from the rest of her shadowed face.

Dean looks at the ground, clearing his throat. "What are you sick with?"

"Infection," she responds. "The Bloodbath. I barely got out. After that I've just been hiding in the forest. Haven't come out even once."

Now that is a lie.

Still, Dean keeps his tone light as he asks, "Haven't seen any other tributes?"

"Apart from Wraith Williams, who was the one to get me, not a one."

Lie. Why?

"How'd you survive?"

"Berries and dew."

Dean leans back on his arms when his face starts to get too hot from the fire. Over the fire he can only make out Ava's scraggly hair and hazel eyes. Hazel eyes. Sam's eyes. "Do you want me to do your hair?" he gasps out without even thinking about it.

"Excuse me?"

"Your hair," Dean repeats. "I can braid it, if you want."

Ava touches her hair self-consciously. "It looks that bad?"

"It's just… never mind," Dean says. "It was dumb. It's just, my sister taught me how to braid, so…"

"I never thought it would be a skill I would need," Ava says, a half-laugh. "Um… sure, I guess." Her hand goes out of her pocket for the first time and Dean finches, but it's empty.

Mission accomplished: make her feel safe. Next mission: kill her.

But she's not sleeping just yet, so Dean scoots over behind the girl, the girl that had cried when she'd known she would be a tribute, the girl that's lying about what she's been doing in a way that only confirms that she'd been the one to kill those other tributes. The girl with hazel eyes who might have a little brother. He could shoot her in the back of the head right now. It would take care of her, take one more threat out of the arena.

But what is she going to do?

When Dean concentrates, he sticks his tongue out of his mouth a little bit. He searches the ground for a sturdy piece of grass to tie around the ends of Ava's hair and starts to twist the strands together into a neat braid.

When Jo was younger, she would always braid her hair. When kids at school tugged her hair out of the braids, Dean would fix them. Eventually Jo stopped braiding her hair to discourage the kids at school from pulling on it, but the skill's apparently stuck with Dean even after all these years.

When Jo emerges from the treeline, Dean's just tying the braid off. Jo's lips tighten into a bloodless gash and she kicks at the dirt while approaching the fire, a squirrel clenched in a white-knuckled fist.

"One of the traps broke," she says curtly. "Tomorrow you should check them out. I'm sure you'll be able to improve upon them."

Dean nods, his hands falling away from Ava's hair. He feels guilty but isn't sure why he would be feeling that way. "You'll have to tell me where they are." No way is he going off with Jo into the woods and letting Ava stay here unsupervised. She could take all their stuff or worse, run off and leave them wanting for an easy target. "Tomorrow." The sun is already going down, no cannons have sounded at all today that he's heard, and he's getting antsy. Unless something big is going down elsewhere, their peace won't last for much longer.

"Remember when I used to braid your hair?" Dean teases Jo, who rolls her eyes at him and starts to skin the squirrel. "Whenever someone tugged your braids out, I was your knight with nimble fingers." He winks, too, to placate the Capitol watchers who are surely out of their minds with the need to be sufficiently entertained 24/7. This sort of entertainment is vastly preferable to the Bloodbath.

"Please," Jo snorts. "You were the one to ruin my hair nine times out of ten."

"Only because I much prefer your hair down," Dean teases. He's acting out a character in a play, in another world where he would be flirting with Jo for real instead of tense, worried about Sam, unable to think of anything other than family and survival. Only problem is that Sam is the actor in the family, not Dean. Sam is the everything in the family. Dean is nothing.

Love lets you down. Love is a hindrance. Love is a breakable bond.

Family… family lasts forever.

Jo pretends to act flustered and looks down at the squirrel. It's hardly big enough to feed herself, let alone the three tributes. But she'd never paid as much attention during their survival lessons as Dean had, because she hadn't idolized John. She'd never even considered the possibility she'd be picked for the Games.

Victor children aren't supposed to be reaped. It's not fair.

Dean blinks away sudden tears ferociously, rubbing at his temple in an effort to relieve the pressure behind his eyes. He obviously hasn't slept well at all if he's on the brink of tears after thinking about fairness, of all things, when it's very clear that Fate has decided from the very start not to deal him a fair hand.

You weak, boy?

No, sir.

Jo only realizes how small the squirrel is after she's finished cooking it. "Um…" she says, blinking, as if it had been much bigger earlier.

"It's fine," Dean says quickly. "I'm not hungry, anyway."

His stomach growls and Jo gives him The Look, but Ava is already nodding and reaching for the food. Jo has no choice but to hand it over. They can't arouse suspicion. Not until Jo knows what's going on. And Dean's fingers still shake the tiniest bit when he lifts his hands, his head still pounds.

Once Ava is dead, the Gamemakers will create more catastrophes to drive the remaining tributes together. Now, though, there's two groups of tributes sitting side-by-side.

Presumably the audience is watching their every move, waiting for someone to attack. Dean knows—he just knows—that Ava's not telling the truth. Ergo, she's dangerous. And surely the audience knows what happened to Dae Mon and Mary Worthington. They also know that Jo and Dean are focused on going home together. The tension must be unbearable.

Jo settles in next to Dean and hands him a leg. This way both tributes will go hungry, but at least Dean will be less hungry.

"Look at the sky," she says softly.

Dean obeys; it's much easier to be a soldier than to be a free thinker. It's why John both loves and hates him; he's the good, loyal soldier that will keep Sam safe, but he's also dumber than his brother will ever be. Sam's always been the perfect, golden child. He'll always be the favorite.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Jo asks.

Revulsion climbs up Dean's throat and renders him mute. The stars in the sky aren't real. They were created by the Gamemakers as a cruel mockery of the outside world. In the Districts, one can't make out the stars due to all the artificial lighting. In the arena, though, to fool the audience and Careers into loving the Games, nature is beautiful. It's a beautiful little cage each tribute finds themselves in. As if they're safe to enjoy the beauty.

Thankfully, Jo takes his silence as that of him being awestruck rather than disgusted. Her hand slides into his and she puts her head onto his shoulder. "I'll take first," Dean whispers. Jo nods. For a little while longer, she stays in that position. Both their bodies curve in to the others', seeking out warmth and affection.

Dean's never slept before without Sam's familiar, bony body next to his. He's still not sure how he's managed to do it in the arena these past—Dean frowns. How many days has it been? He's lost count. They've all blended together in streams of senseless violence.

Ava sits across them, the fire illuminating her features with an orange glow. She doesn't show signs of fatigue, despite having been recently 'sick'. Hopefully she'll fall asleep as the night drags on so Dean can slit her throat. It's better not to see it coming, he thinks. He'll give her that much mercy.

He wishes he could give her more.

Nonetheless, she is not the female tribute from his District, so she's in his way. Surely she's also noticed how Jo is sleeping and Dean is not. If she asks, he can say it's to keep watch from the other two unaccounted-for tributes, but she can't be too dumb if she knows to lie to him and how to have survived this long. Surely she can realize that just a bit of it is them not trusting her.

The night drags on. Mockingjays trill occasionally from the treetops as the little campfire dies down, taking with it the only source of heat the three tributes had. Jo starts to toss more in her sleep. She's not used to sleeping in the cold. Dean doesn't like it either; it makes his sleep restlessly as well. At least the cold keeps him awake as he and Ava pretend not to study each other out of the corner of their eyes.

At last, when Dean's yawned three times in as many minutes (he estimates) and the moon is at its highest in the sky, he nudges Jo to wake her. She comes to instantly. "Your turn," he mumbles.

Lying down, Dean tries to find a comfortable way to sleep. The ground has absorbed the cold and it's much harder than the bed he sleeps in at home. Every animal in the bushes sounds like the footsteps of Constance, every rustle of branches is the soft sound of her unsheathing a dagger.

But no danger befalls the group of murderers, and Dean falls into a fretful sleep not deep enough for dreaming.

It feels like five minutes when the first rays of sunlight hit his eyelids. Dean's awake instantly, though his eyes are sticky from sleep and heavy; it takes a splash of water in the face to wake him up completely. That, and a bright flash of pain from his ankle when he forgets and tries to put all his weight on it. Jo helps him retie the makeshift splint, but it's nowhere close to being healed. Won't be for a while.

"She didn't sleep the whole night," Jo murmurs in Dean's ear.

Ava is definitely not to be trusted.

"Can you be left alone with her while I check the traps?" he replies in an equally soft voice. Maybe if they wait her out—lull her into that sense of safety, wait until she can't resist sleep's call anymore—it'll be easier.

"Of course," Jo scoffs. "What will she do? Did you see her reaping video?"

Privately, Dean doesn't agree, but he can't find a way to voice his concerns without offending Jo. "Just… be careful," he warns.

"I've got my knife, remember?" Jo says with a haughty flip of her hair. "She won't be able to get that away from me, not even if I'm dead."

"All right, I'm going." Dean presses a kiss to the top of Jo's head, regardless of the way she smells. He smells filthy too. Bathing isn't the best use of time in the arena. "And when I come back, I'm braiding your hair too," he adds. "If we don't comb it out soon, birds will come to roost in it."

Jo shoves him. "First trap is thirty-seven paces in a straight line from this fire. Second trap, the one that's broken, I put right by the river by a nightlock bush. The river is to our right. You'll be able to find it. And the third trap is forty-six paces behind us, then three paces to the left."

"Thirty-seven paces straight, nightlock bush by the river, forty-six back and three to the left," Dean repeats. He presses another kiss to her forehead. "Be back in a bit."

Jo catches his hand as he turns to go and stands on her tiptoes to press their lips together in a chaste kiss. "Gotta fool an entire Capitol," she murmurs against his lips and Dean hums in agreement.

"Going to check the traps," he says stupidly to Ava once they've parted. The ravenette girl nods and looks at the ground.

The first trap Dean almost steps in, but yanks his foot up just in time. He's saved himself from being caught, but at what expense? He looks like an idiot as he overbalances and falls. Dean groans some inappropriate words—words that, if he caught Sam using them, he'd use soap to wash out his little brother's mouth—and stands up. It hasn't caught anything yet, probably because it's a little more obvious to shorter animals. Gingerly Dean arranges it and steps back, admiring his handiwork. Providing there's animals in the trees, there should be something caught if he checks back later tonight or, at the latest, tomorrow.

"River to the right," Dean whispers and turns in that direction. He could use a drink right about now, and maybe a quick dunk—the days keep getting warmer, and the nights keep getting colder. The extremes, he knows, are meant to weed out the weaker tributes. The sick ones.

The thought almost makes him shiver.

There is only one nightlock bush by the river. A small animal carcass lies at its roots. The corpse must be enough to ward away other hungry animals. In the sunlight, the berries look ripe and full, the leaves a deep, inviting green. The river gurgles happily to Dean's left as he walks down the riverbed to the poisonous plants.

Indeed, there is a broken trap to the right of the bush. What draws Dean's curiosity, though, is the trampled grass next to the trap. Whoever had been here had mangled the trap to a point where it couldn't be fixed. It couldn't have been Jo. It might have been Ava, if she had been watching her before making her presence known. But what would be her motivation for destroying the only way she can get food?

Dean follows the tracks. He gets two steps before he sees the feet.

Sif Terr is lying in the grass, writhing. Her fingers are stained purple and foam dribbles from her mouth.

She'd eaten the nightlock.

It's too late for her.

Dean grimaces. "I'm sorry." He truly is. If there wasn't a Capitol, everyone who had died in the Games would still be alive. They were just kids. They're all just kids. Krissy was a kid. Dean's still a kid. Jo's still a kid.

The words are just matches held against Dean's heart, but they're not enough to catch. The wind douses their warmth.

As Sif stills, a cannon sounds. There was nothing Dean could have done anyway, but that doesn't mean it's still not terrible to see someone's last seconds full of pain.

He turns away from the body and heads back to the makeshift camp. Maybe Ava will have started to nap, thinking that Jo's the weaker of the pair, or that since only one of her enemies is at camp she's safer. Better to get the final showdown with Constance over with. No doubt she's gorging herself to the luxuries of the Cornucopia, as no one is left to challenge her.

Dean steps over a rock and hears it: the sound of panting breath, sobs, and pounding feet. He looks up and a form is running at him, weaving through the trees.

Dark hair streams from a braid.

Ava comes to a halt when she sees Dean. "I thought you were dead!" she exclaims after a second. "Oh, thank God."

"What happened?" Dean asks suspiciously. "Why are you chasing after me?"

"I'm not!" Ava wails. "We have to go now—Sif Terr found us! She—she—" her face crumples, but Dean's not moved. "She killed Jo. That's what the cannon we just heard was."

Dean cocks his head, confused. She's just spouting jibberish. Sif is the one that's dead, not Jo.

"Did you hear me?" Ava asks, drawing closer and fumbling with something in her pocket. "We have to go, Dean!" She takes a step closer to him. Dean only sees John in the way she holds herself. "She wanted you to have this." She holds Jo's knife out to him, the metal splashed with blood. The sight of it makes Dean stagger. His back hits a tree trunk heavily.

Ava holds it out to him blade-first. He can already feel it plunging into his stomach.

More like they couldn't get it off me. I'll die before anyone takes this from me. You know that. And after that I'll be buried with this knife.

"Why did you think I was dead?" Dean asks through numb lips.

"What?"

"Why did you think I was dead, Ava?"

"The cannon, duh," she says, still wiping at her streaming eyes. "Dean, I think she followed me, we need to go—"

"You said the cannon was Jo."

He's got to hand it to Ava; she's got quick reflexes. She lunges, Jo's knife in her hands, but Dean rolls away before she can make it. She'd wasted too much time trying to drag Dean along with her, or maybe biding her time, putting him in shock, in order to get a shot off. She had one chance and she lost it. And Jo's not even dead yet, Dean's brain screams at him, there hasn't been a second cannon.

He just needs to kill Ava and be done with it.

She turns, slashing with the knife as she goes, and Dean grabs her wrist as she overextends herself. The knife falls from her grasp easily and Ava gasps. Real tears start to form in her eyes.

"What did you do to Jo?" Dean asks softly.

Ava clenches her teeth and headbutts him right in the nose. They both reel back, Dean clutching his nose as blood starts to fall and swearing when the pain scorches through his face. His eyes start to water and he splits blood out of his mouth. Ava had used the momentary distraction to lunge for the knife again, but Dean stomps on her outstretched wrist so hard he heard bones crack.

Ava screams. Dean tries not to at the pain of putting so much pressure on his ankle.

"You get one more chance at a painless death," Dean says softly. Why had he prolonged this? Why had he thought he couldn't take this weak girl down? Her brains, her manipulations, her lies—none of those are a match for his strength.

It's why John trains him. He's the good soldier.

"She's dead," Ava spits.

Dean kneels down and wrenches her middle finger back so hard it breaks. She howls. "You asked for it," he says lightly, a shrug thrown into the mix, and picks up the knife she'd so desperately needed to kill him. The knife she'd had to have injured Jo to get.

He doesn't need it to kill her. He puts it on the ground in front of her as he puts his knee on her other hand. He's pinning her to the ground. He's won.

And then he puts his hands on both sides of her face, almost a lover's caress if his nose wasn't already shedding blood and if she wasn't sobbing uncontrollably beneath him, if one of her fingers wasn't broken and if something inside Dean didn't want to stab her someplace important and let her starve in the forest.

He wrenches her neck to the side the same way he'd done to Cole. The sobbing stops. A cannon sounds.

"Jo!" Dean screams, scooping up her knife and stumbling back towards the camp. He doesn't care if Constance hears it. Doesn't care if John hears it, doesn't care if Sam hears it, doesn't care if the damned President hears it. He promised. He promised he'd get her home safe. "Jo, please tell me you're okay!"

She's sitting against the rock side of where they'd slept. Her eyes focus on his and Dean nearly sobs with relief.

"I thought you were dead," he cries, almost dropping her knife. "How'd Ava get past you?"

"Me?" Jo counters. Her face glistens. "I thought you were dead! Those two cannons—I didn't know what was going on!" She coughs and Dean suddenly realizes why she's sitting at such an awkward angle: a flower is blooming on her shirt.

A red flower.

She's clutching her stomach, her features tight with pain, but there's too much blood. That's what Dean's mind tells him. His heart screams at him, though, that it's not too much, that he's shed that much before and lived, she's going to be fine, she can't be hurt, not when they're so close!

"No," Dean moans. "No, no, no! Bandages!" He screams to the sky. "Please! Anything! Bandages, water, food, gauze—"

But the clear blue expanse remains traitorously clear of life-saving materials.

"Dean—"

"It's fine, you're okay," he says frantically. "Look, I got your knife back, see?" He shows it to her, shows how he'd wiped all the blood off of it so that it looks brand-new, just as brand-new as Dean's going to make her.

Jo smiles, exposing blood-stained teeth that look too dark against her pallid complexion. Neither of them acknowledge the twin tears that trickle down her face. "Told you you'd bury me with it." A laugh rips out of her mouth and her chin drops down to her chest. He knows it's either hysterical, irrational laughter or hysterical crying.

Dean lifts her chin up. Her dark eyes meet his frantic ones. "Don't." His voice is too sharp. Too deep. He's John, but if he's John then he'll be John for a good reason. "You're not dying. I forbid it. It's not even that bad, right?"

"Don't think you'll have much of a say in the matter," Jo tries to goad, but there's too much pain on her face and her teeth are gritted. The blood is slowly covering her hands. Dean tries to press down on her hands to help, but she moans and he rips them away.

"What can I do?" Dean whispers. His ribs are being cracked one by one, his brain is pulsing against his skull and threatening to explode. "Tell me what to do!" He's a soldier, he's a soldier, he's a soldier. Sam would know what to do here. Sam would. But Dean's useless and Sam's not and now Jo's hurt because Dean's such a fucking idiot he wants to scream.

"It's not even that bad," he babbles. "I can patch you up. I'm sure Bobby's getting sponsors right now to send you supplies and you'll be good as new, right? I can go and kill Constance and we'll be okay. We'll go back just like you said. I promised, right? 'Cause that's my job. I have to look out for you, right?" His vision is wavering, distorted with the promise of tears to come. They're a luxury he's rarely been able to afford before now.

Jo holds out one feeble hand, almost ignoring the fresh ooze of blood that's released as she eases off the pressure. "Hold my hand."

He can't. He can't grab onto it, not when it's practically admitting that Jo's unsalvageable. "Jo…"

"Dean." Jo's voice could be sharp if it wasn't the same voice Jo had used to scold the boys who pulled on her hair, if it wasn't the voice she'd spoken in when she'd broken her arm in fifth grade. "You thi—think I want this?" Her voice drops and fresh tears spill from her eyes. "I don't want to die."

"You're not going to," Dean says automatically.

"I'm terrified," Jo admits. She's never said that before.

Dean grabs onto the lifeline that it is, lips trembling as his fingers slide across her slick ones. It's an emotion he doesn't have to fake. He loves this girl with all his heart. She's his almost-little sister, the only other person he loves almost as much as he loves his brother. "Don't l-leave me," he sucks in a shuddering breath, "please, Jo."

"You're going to win," Jo says, her eyes shining. "I know you will."

Dean shakes his head, his lips trembling so bad it's affecting his chin as well. He can't even feel the pain in his nose anymore. "I can't, not without you." The words are shaky, shakier than hers, and he feels so silly that he's not even the one that's hurt and he's being the bigger baby about it. The trembling has traveled down to his hands now, and blood rains onto the grass as his shaking limbs scatter the blood on Jo's hands. It's red, too red, and too dark. There's too much of it. It's a river he's going to drown in.

"I'll still be with you," Jo assures him. It's the flowery nonsense language that some people tried to teach Dean after Mary died. That she's still with him, that she's always watching from wherever she went. If she's really with Dean, then why does he feel so alone? Why doesn't she try to bring Jo back? "Every night you'll see me."

"Of course I will," Dean scoffs. "Because you're going to be all right. Here, I can make a bandage—" He moves to take off his shirt but Jo stops him as much as she's able with a hand to his chest. She leaves a bloody handprint above his heart.

"I love you," she whispers.

Dean's eyes scrunch hard as tears begin to fall from his eyes. He's shaking like a leaf in the breeze. He's lost a lot of people in his life, but this is one too many.

The drops fall onto their joined hands and wash away thin lines of the blood. Not nearly enough.

"I love you too," he whispers back. Leans forward. Touches her lips to his again, a gesture filled with sadness and love and tenderness and a good-bye that makes him want to howl. And none of it is privy to any of the lechers in the Capitol. Nobody else can see that he's breaking into a million pieces.

Well, maybe they can. But they can't see exactly how much it hurts.

She turns glassy eyes to the sky and Dean wishes that the Gamemakers would make it night again, just so she could see her precious stars one more time.

"I saw them," she sighs. "The stars were beautiful."